Okay I know this is a MMORPG and we have casual players and no one wants to fly for 4 hrs to get too their destination - Yeah I have heard it all before....
But seriously - Could we get a bigger Universe?
I don't need to do things to peoples Cheerios here, but the Galaxy is 'lacking'. In short, we have minimal 'sectors' to explore and even then, I cannot do full surveys of planets, let alone go back to what I just explored. I can handle the not going back to planets (i.e. I can justify Starfleet does not have anything they need me to do), but it 'feels' like every 30 secs in a 'unknown space' I keep running into a border or such (Which don't even get me started on Satrfleet traffic control in the middle of BFE and the logic that so does not present).
So instead of just griping about this, here are some of my suggestions:
- Allow the galaxy map to exist as is, but expand the 'systems' to their own maps for multiple explorable planets, missions , etc. in that instance.
- For exploration zones, allow us to 'go deeper' into the exploration zone - Basically randomize the 'difficulty' to allow for an unknown 'feel' and disable the Insta jump to ESD once you go so far. Might get an easy to conquer... err explore zone and might end up with a race that make the Q look like wusses...
- Expand the size of exploration zones by 9 fold (3x3) to give a bigger and better feel.
The existing galaxy we have is just a small part of the overall Trek galaxy and despite it ostensibly representing "months" (if not longer) of travel, individual episodes and films frequently covered a much larger distance than we have available now.
So I don't think we need longer distances, per se, just more galaxy. (I wouldn't mind visually longer distances and increased speed if it didn't drastically affect travel times.)
Right now I'm doing an exploration content propsal and grabbed the latest galaxy map by NASA and the Federation is really tiny (like 1%) and there is tons of possibilities with expansions.
This is why I'm hoping they are considering opening up space itself than have us do repetitive content in these exploration clusters.
I believe when they talk about that, they're talking about making the map that comes up when you hit "m" better looking and less pixel-y.
I also thought it was to improve it so that you could zoom into sectors and be able to find systems in other sectors more easily (i.e. more software based and less image based).
what is really needed is an equal space for kdf as the feds have, we dont need to go into fed space apart from battles and q's as the bttle front should be roaming borders but the exception of getting into ds9 zone and romulan space the kdf should stay out and in turn the kdf should get the gorn hedgeway and a sector or 2 for orions nausicaans and letheans.
but ontop of this what would make this better is if cryptic could get there hands on some servers that can run insanly big maps compared to what we run now as a standard. have static planets that are part of the game world that we as fleets and random solo people can set up colonys and homes on the ground. i mean immense spaces with 1 zone, have capital colonial citys an that and random spawning roaming mobs and also specific areas of outlawed to your factions npcs setting up camp trying to mess with your planets.
if you ever played swg pre cu u know what im on about. an there servers were like calculaters compared to what this game is suppossed to be run on.
Well would like to see somethign like Sector Sector, Vulcan Parsec, and have like 50 systems to explore (including Vulcan).
Some would be "no missiosn available" or general "patrol for pirates" missions, when others could be like a comets or gravitional shift et al. Some might be "Off limits" due ot the Prime Directive, which allows for the player to decide if they want to violate the PD for some reason (and allow an alignment system of sorts).
I also thought it was to improve it so that you could zoom into sectors and be able to find systems in other sectors more easily (i.e. more software based and less image based).
Thats exactly what Cryptic needs to do, if we are going to actually explore the Galaxy.
The Galaxy map would have to be seperated something like:
Galaxy Map
Quadrant Map
Major Sector
Sector
Sub-Sector
Then of course going down to System and Planetary Maps.
What would be the ideal situation would be a "Spore" type of map where you can zoom all the way down to the planet and then all the way back out to the galaxy.
If they could eventually expand the galaxy out that way too, that'd be nice.
I have serious issues with how big the galaxy feels. It was the FIRST thing a friend asked me about STO when I was talking about it "Does space feel big?" - they asked because that was their concern after looking at screenshots of the game. I had to say (sadly) no.
The sector space visualisation revamp has helped hugely. But.... even with the limitations of current tech (as in, without increasing map sizes or removing the transitions) I more could be done that would be a big win.
Firstly:
I think - even with the current sector block size limit - if the sectors blocks were all 2 x 2 sectors in size (as in, large square blocks - all in a grid, ala ye olde ASCII space maps on dialup BBS MUD's) that would really help. If it was actually a just grid it would work much better IMO both conceptually (a simpler premise) and from a gameplay perspective.
I know having having grid layouts for zones is generally counter to immersion in games because it can make things more obviously boxy - and I'm guessing that's why they chose to break them up for STO - but when it comes to space maps I think it's actually very intuitive and actually a better user experience.
Secondly:
Auto-warping when you cross over a boundary. At least it would be nice for you ship to auto-stop when you first approach a boundary (as happens when you auto-pilot to a destination).
Neither of these would require any changes to core engine tech and I think they would help quite a bit. If a more open map is far on the horizon (as something coming when the core engine can support it, whenever that might be) a better layout of sectors / sector blocks before then would be very welcome, and go a long way to improving the user experience.
I have serious issues with how big the galaxy feels. It was the FIRST thing a friend asked me about STO when I was talking about it "Does space feel big?" - they asked because that was their concern after looking at screenshots of the game. I had to say (sadly) no.
This was also somethign that made me post on this. I have a friedn that is a big tiem Star Trek nut. I mean BIG TIME. However, he really doesn't want to sink tiem into the game if:
1. You can basically explore everywhere within a week of solid play.
2. You feel like you are stuck in a shoebox for the Universe.
The Spore concept someone mentioned sounded cool. Basicaly even if Cryptic used their "Creative Instinct" to randomly seed a few planets here and there and give them some randomly seeded names (similar to how the game engine comes up with new and exciting new names for the exploration sectors) and hardcodes them to the map. Least it would give everyone a 'feel' for the size of the unvierse. If you sat on the 'galaxy view' and then wanted to zip all over, you still could do that, but if I wanted to take 10 hours to get to some other sector as I weave thru the various systems - well hell that would rock!
Another option too is Sins of a Solar Empire type feel where you can jump in and out.
Comments
So I don't think we need longer distances, per se, just more galaxy. (I wouldn't mind visually longer distances and increased speed if it didn't drastically affect travel times.)
This is why I'm hoping they are considering opening up space itself than have us do repetitive content in these exploration clusters.
I believe when they talk about that, they're talking about making the map that comes up when you hit "m" better looking and less pixel-y.
I also thought it was to improve it so that you could zoom into sectors and be able to find systems in other sectors more easily (i.e. more software based and less image based).
but ontop of this what would make this better is if cryptic could get there hands on some servers that can run insanly big maps compared to what we run now as a standard. have static planets that are part of the game world that we as fleets and random solo people can set up colonys and homes on the ground. i mean immense spaces with 1 zone, have capital colonial citys an that and random spawning roaming mobs and also specific areas of outlawed to your factions npcs setting up camp trying to mess with your planets.
if you ever played swg pre cu u know what im on about. an there servers were like calculaters compared to what this game is suppossed to be run on.
Some would be "no missiosn available" or general "patrol for pirates" missions, when others could be like a comets or gravitional shift et al. Some might be "Off limits" due ot the Prime Directive, which allows for the player to decide if they want to violate the PD for some reason (and allow an alignment system of sorts).
Blak
Thats exactly what Cryptic needs to do, if we are going to actually explore the Galaxy.
The Galaxy map would have to be seperated something like:
Then of course going down to System and Planetary Maps.
Thank you! Someoen basically summed up my argument in a sentence.
Blak
If they could eventually expand the galaxy out that way too, that'd be nice.
The sector space visualisation revamp has helped hugely. But.... even with the limitations of current tech (as in, without increasing map sizes or removing the transitions) I more could be done that would be a big win.
Firstly:
I think - even with the current sector block size limit - if the sectors blocks were all 2 x 2 sectors in size (as in, large square blocks - all in a grid, ala ye olde ASCII space maps on dialup BBS MUD's) that would really help. If it was actually a just grid it would work much better IMO both conceptually (a simpler premise) and from a gameplay perspective.
I know having having grid layouts for zones is generally counter to immersion in games because it can make things more obviously boxy - and I'm guessing that's why they chose to break them up for STO - but when it comes to space maps I think it's actually very intuitive and actually a better user experience.
Secondly:
Auto-warping when you cross over a boundary. At least it would be nice for you ship to auto-stop when you first approach a boundary (as happens when you auto-pilot to a destination).
Neither of these would require any changes to core engine tech and I think they would help quite a bit. If a more open map is far on the horizon (as something coming when the core engine can support it, whenever that might be) a better layout of sectors / sector blocks before then would be very welcome, and go a long way to improving the user experience.
This was also somethign that made me post on this. I have a friedn that is a big tiem Star Trek nut. I mean BIG TIME. However, he really doesn't want to sink tiem into the game if:
1. You can basically explore everywhere within a week of solid play.
2. You feel like you are stuck in a shoebox for the Universe.
The Spore concept someone mentioned sounded cool. Basicaly even if Cryptic used their "Creative Instinct" to randomly seed a few planets here and there and give them some randomly seeded names (similar to how the game engine comes up with new and exciting new names for the exploration sectors) and hardcodes them to the map. Least it would give everyone a 'feel' for the size of the unvierse. If you sat on the 'galaxy view' and then wanted to zip all over, you still could do that, but if I wanted to take 10 hours to get to some other sector as I weave thru the various systems - well hell that would rock!
Another option too is Sins of a Solar Empire type feel where you can jump in and out.
Blak