More stumbling out beyond the final frontiers of my own personal gaming experience today. I wonder if I should even be trying to offer commentary on games I’ve never played in these jaunts, but many of the underlying issues raised do transcend title-specifics and offer insight into larger, genre-wide concerns which anyone who has played any of these can identify with in some fashion.
Also, there’s always the comments for corrections by more informed folks. Thanks for those by the way – I genuinely appreciate the additional perspectives to set right anything I’ve misunderstood!
On to the threads:
Poll: How would you feel about “mini-factions”?
The busiest thread on page one of Star Trek Online Discussion is an attempt to gauge the general mood on Factions in game. The attendant poll is here. If you don’t want to vote to see the results, I’ll spoiler that for you here: 152 (73%) Yes, 57 (27%) No. A curiously worded question and topic.
At present STO has only two factions, Federation and Klingon Empire, and all the various playable canon or home-made races fall into one of those two groups. I’d imagine Federation massively outnumber Klingon, despite the Klingons having the Green Skinned Alien Space Babes on team! All I remember about the Klingons from the shows and movies is that they only ever turned up when the plot required some shoutey disposable thugs to stomp about and get blown up. And Worf!
The OP suggests that adding Romulans and Cardassians as additional factions in a very cut down manner is better than not adding them at all, and seeks opinion. Almost immediately, people point out that the current Klingon faction (KDF) might as well be called a ‘mini faction’ and there is a general sentiment that the Klingons are overlooked and unfinished content-wise. Some tie this to a perceived de-emphasis of the KDF’s initial role as a PvP-based faction, without a compensatory fleshing out as a faction on par with the Federation for PvE gameplay.
The poll minority disagree with original suggestion, and want fully fleshed out content for any new factions, if they’re to be added at all, and some accuse the OP of some kind of surrender to Cryptic. I think it’s probably more pragmatism than anything else. A lot of semantics and ‘what ifs’ flying about, but at the core is a general dissatisfaction with the lack of commitment to the KDF faction in general. Farther down the thread, population stats of 12% KDF, 88% Federation are requoted from a Dev, which says a lot. I guess you can’t blame Cryptic for putting Federation players first; Federation is where all the popular and cool characters work! And Harry Kim!
A difficult balancing act and given limited resources to work with, I’d probably make sure the largest faction is given the most attention, as seen with all these Weekly Episodes I hear so much about. Are they available for KDF players too? I’ve only seen Federation type screenshots so far.
Another interesting sub-current; I get hints of a kind of subdivision in the player base between Trekkies (people who are here for the Star Trek of it all), and STO-Playing Non-Trekkies, (people who are here for the Space Combat Game of it all). A subtle distinction. Some of the Gamer types are scornful of the standards of the Trekie types, who they believe will be happy with anything at all Cryptic deign to provide, unlike themselves, who are much more choosy and discerning. I sort of find myself envying the Trekies to be honest. It must be nice to enjoy all aspects of a game all the time and not care about armchair design arguments!
Thread number two concerns crafting:
A note to Cryptic about ship crafting…
All very polite, and encouragingly, attracts official dialogue almost immediately! The OP would like more elaborate and involved ship crafting, and Executive Producer Daniel Stahl (dstahl) chips in with evocative words about player-run starbases. I’m not sure how the specifics of crafting currently work, but in all my forum travels, I’ve rarely seen anyone who is opposed to more customisation in MMOs.
Balance concerns are the limiter here I’d guess. Few people will want improved ways to make their spaceships worse at combat, but the Devs are already working this stuff out, it seems. Interesting to see Stahl specifically citing Pirates of the Burning Sea as a positive example in such matters.
However, the key reason this thread inflates so considerably is a somewhat different matter. Stahl links future spaceship refitting plans to the player-run starbases currently in development, which implies a necessity to join a guild to get at the good stuff. This immediately reignites the perpetual Soloers vs Guilds debate that rumbles on in the background in all MMOs, always. Soloers should be able to get all the good stuff! Or Why join a guild if you don’t get anything special for it! And of course, my favourite; Why solo in an MMO?
Lots of ideas for a middle ground though, with better things rewarding groupwork, but ‘good enough’ things available by solo crafting. This middle ground seems to be what Stahl is aiming at too, so may become the final implementation of it all. Various individual ideas abound, and a there seems a general understanding, managed well by Stahl, that all this is still being worked out anyway. Hopefully the more rational posts in this thread will be taken into consideration when the final design goes live.
Despite the occasional bout of namecalling, and a tendency to veer in and out of the old Soloers vs Guilds Debate, the thread seems a robust yet healthy example of developer-player discourse and who knows, might define the future of top-end starship crafting. I’d image a developer is always going to develop the game they have designed, having access to far more relevant information than most players, but its nice to think that ordered, rational use of forums can bring that design closer in line with what customers want as well. Too often, forums are just pressure release valves, anger-sinks and hate-dumps. Not so in this thread!
I really must find some time to try this game out one of these days. I think I have 2am-4am on Saturdays free…
Recent Comments