The Grasping of Straws, running out of places to add Grind.

[AbsynthMinded]

So NOW, after theyve wrecked it on every other level, they want to raise the level cap. For a content system that is miserably stale at the top end as is because of the pale and redundant content. With a level cap increase EVERYTHING you have achieved before will now be OBSOLETE.

Enjoy!

[Ceejay]

Yep that what annoyed me about wow. Spend lots of time and effort in leveling your char, running instances to get equipment. Then oh look here is a new expansion with a new level cap. now the normal vendor gear just 1 level higher will defeat all your previously uber stuff that took ages to get, so just bin it and start again...... grrrr

They need to add more content/instances not raise the cap. Have far more scenarios to make playing at the top level interesting.

[dt Walter Robinson]

o.o

so how is your class action lawsuit going?

[Saturn]

They need to do both. Boo hoo your gear isn't superb. That is usually associated with Elitism. Want to be Elite? Play an Elite game. STO is a single player game from level 1-45, as everything can be beaten alone. I would LOVE 10 levels where my gear SUCKS so I can play STO like a real MMO (Slower leveling, needing to play with additional party members because the missions are just too hard)

They stated (somewhere) that Ships would be able to be upgraded to the new tier, so we can still use our ships. So what if the equipment goes out of style? You'll be /pimped/ out when leveling up. That is what WoW was like~ Play a long time, get lots of good gear, wait for an expansion, level up uber quickly because your gear is amazing.

And they /have/ put in a ton of PvE 'end game' content, whether you recognize it or not. Back in the days when there was ONLY Borg STF and only 3 (6 if you count normal and elite as seperate, which I don't) now there is tons of cool stuff to do (comparitivly) and not JUST borg.

However this still sucks, but only for people who had great gear. All those smuchks earning up reputation and Fleet items 'wasted' time, but for the new players and those who didn't, it's a chance to avoid it (hopefully)

[AbsynthMinded]

Have you delt wuth reputation grind? I dont do fleets, I don't do social in gaming. I've been milked and scammed so many times I've grown highly suspect of fleets. As a general rule, If I can't come to your house and put my hands on you for screwing me over, I don't want to play with you at all.

With the new Level Cap, the balance scheme of everything at the top end will have to be revamped for balance. No MMO ever ever ever gets the balance right, and we will debate, grumble and hate on STO for generations to come over the balance debate. They say they are going to fix everythign but they havent fixed anything. They just scrap and wreck all that once was and hand us something that looks graphicly the same but plays completely different.

Just you wait and see, theya re going to screw us over and over again while telling us with a fake smile they are making it better. I haven't seen anything 'better' than what we had yet. All I've seen is changing everything to fall in line with a vision that is not what was the origional concepts.

They will give us revamped everything, EXCEPT significant content additions OR any real graphical improvements. It's been years and years and they still cant fix the broken nose on the Dreadnaught but they can completely redesign Earth Space Dock? No one cared about ESD on a graphical level. It was bland but well organized. They can't address graphical additions for Bridge Officer Uniforms? They can't give us significantly upgraded graphics for ship interriors or ship facilities, or internal ship content? They can not take a gal darn swipe at anything 'cool factor' wise? I mean that is seriously low hanging fruit which could mollify players on a lot of level if they fracking acted like they actually cared about making players happy instead of reinventing the game.

[Saturn]

Going to have to disagree with you. For some reason it sounds like you have only been playing for the last year and a half or so, because the state of the game is wonderful compared to 2~ ish years ago. So when you say "Just you wait and see, theya re going to screw us over and over again while telling us with a fake smile they are makint it better" I have some doubts on how valid your concerns are. Is PWE a 'friendly' company? I wouldn't say yes, but the STO team have developed a great game.

This is a Star Trek game more than an MMO. They are adding more Star Trek content, less MMO content. I look back to other MMO's (F2P) I played around or before STO and I realize that most of those games have very little in terms of additonal content. Sometimes game changers, or more classes, but rarely anything to 'grab' you.

If the Delta Quadran (even the notion) doesn't intrugue you, then a Star Trek MMO might not be the best place. The reason why STO is wonderful is because you can re-create a part of your fan fictions and what not. If not through the Foundry (name a few MMOs that let you make your OWN episode/quests, for others to play) then through the C-Store, buying the exact ship you've always wanted. Do I think that making 'new' non cannon ships is better than bringing us fan favorites? No, but I still think it's a huge step in the right direction. STO is insanely free, with all the free ships (one every ten levels is a lot for a Spaceship game) ability to acquire good/the best gear without paying, and still are on par with paying players. Ship modules can be nifty, but usually have long cooldowns or huge downsides (like saucer seperation getting blown up almost instantly... fun stuff) and the "universal" stations make for better replayability for a ship than it makes for a 'unfair' combonation.

ESD is one of the best changes, as it represents something larger than itself: the ability for them to remake levels or content into something usable and fun. ESD is beautiful, well organized, with large words pointing you in the right direction.

You complain about STO's balance, but there is very little balance right now. Cruisers, Escorts and Science vessels are neither on par with one another, and are also not a Rock, Paper, Scissors system either. Cruisers used to be horrid in anything except PvP, and I can't speak for them now because players aren't using 4/5 Cruisers in an PvE match anymore (not from what I've seen)

If you had used the Foundry you would know that they cannot easily make interior ship levels / episodes. Not the interior of YOUR ship, at least, because each ship would have to be literally re-skins of each other, and would need the same exact physical space/capacity to work. That or they would have the make the same episode for every possible bridge type. I would love this, by the way, but it's super unlikely. Being "boarded" happens a ton in star trek lore / canon, and it's odd that only the Fed/KDF/Etc are boarding, not being boarded.

Also the game needs more content, no doubt, and so "re inventing" STO would only be a improvement. They shold focus on drawing in new players, not worrying about keeping 'Veterans' happy.

[Newoc]

I have been playing since Beta and I have to say I agree. Im hoping with 'Deta Rising' its going to change things up. I feel they need to look at the game as a whole when adding new content and molding old content into something that wont be pointless after the update. Rather than mindlessly adding on new content that breaks the old.

That and enough with micro transactions. I am already paying to play, dont make me pay more.

[Imperius Rex]

Saying this is a Star Trek game is almost a tenuous relation anymore. When space is full of alien ships and all about blowing everything up, its not so much Trek methinks as too much cash grab goin on.

It is long overdue for raising levels 50 to 60 and new T6 ships. Now what they havent mentioned yet is how will the world be balanced for these additions. Will difficulty be raised on all STFs? because it is been a joke for a longtime now. How many MkXIV weapon types will there be and will all rep/fleet/crafted items be raised also or now useless? And exactly how will old ships be upgraded?

Nothing bout this Delta Quadrant looks interesting. I never watched Voyager and never will. I wager there are more non Trek fans playing this than not. They need cater to their needs and not worry bout stilted storylines that cost them arm & leg to put out. Fix the dang STFs, whoever is in charge of making all the big flop maps from previous 2 updates need to be FIRED! Just how many mistakes do you need to make before getting something right?

[Saturn]

Originally posted by gameleech:

Saying this is a Star Trek game is almost a tenuous relation anymore. When space is full of alien ships and all about blowing everything up, its not so much Trek methinks as too much cash grab goin on.

Thus how many people do not realize this fact: STO is not set in The Original Series/Next Generation/Deep Space Nine/Voyager universe. This is the "lore' and feeling of 2009 JJ Abrahms Star Trek. And in that the Enterprise (Kirks) is a warship, and the size of the Enterprise D (Over three times) because of the temporal stuff that happens in the start, when kirks dad dies. This is followed up and reinforced all throughout "Into Darkness" as all the ships are VASTLY stronger and more warlike in their "universe" than in the Star Trek we know and love. So is it a cash grab because aliens are being blown up a lot? Hell no. It's a different franchise's view on everything.

Not sure if I read you right, but I'd say there are definetly more star trek fans than just MMO gamers. And the Delta quadrant looks great, and Voyager was great too (even if a carbon copy of The Next Generation). Voyager was great for a lot of reasons, and the fact that you "will never see it" just goes to show how much more of a MMO player you are, and less of a fan of the shows. Voyager takes heat, but it was Godlike compared to Enterprise. Which is used a LOT in STO. (Compared to Voyager lore) so... yeah.

None of the star trek shows are so great that you can't point out it's flaws.

1- The Original Series- The characters were often one way, then another. Their personalities tended to change quite a bit from episode to episode. This was due to a ton of different writers being involved, but it shows pretty heavily. It's also very incosistent (they can dosomething in one episode, and can't in another for seemingly no reason). The acting was fairly stiff on this, but had good cohesion on the main crew. Spock was over used and abused, while Scotty and Mccoy were heavily under used. Kirk is very inconsitent in his character.

2- The Animated Series - Well mainly that it was super weird (a 50 foot tall clone of spock, for example, or meeting Satan and defending him in court) and that all the voice acting was done by scotty, uhurua, majel and sometimes takei. It was really, really bad animation on top of that. It brought in concepts which people /still/ do not consider canon, yet was created by Roddenberry. STO uses the concept of personal shields, which was from TAS.

3-The Next Generation had (arguably, of course) the stiffest acting. In fact I love babylon 5 and it's first captain was terribly stiff (he had mental issues which did not come out till he died) and he was "fluidic space" compared to the TNG crew. A lot of the episodes were just drivel, put out there as fluff. The episode where a boy imitates data (pretending to be an android) and everyone encourages him because his family is dead... yeah because that cant be done anywhere else *sarcasm* AKA the next gen used a lot of simplistic plot lines that could be found elsewhere. Especially in the first few seasons.

4- Deep Space Nine - A obvious rip off of the babylon 5 storyline. Sad one at that because it's not as strong as a continuity. DS9 required you to watch episode after episode to be able to understand what was going on, but also the episodes were so fluffing bland that they all blend together. As a whole, and by that I mean watching it from start to finish, it is quite good, but each episode on it's own generally suck (they are always a few good episode in all the star trek shows, really good ones) DS9 took the cake for most bland episodes that I could possibly imagine. They also over used Odo as a character, but underused his abilities, which was uber lame. He was the coolest thing since borg... and he rarely actually shapeshifted (and rarely into anything 'cool' even after he learned how to do it)

5- Voyager - More obvious holes. The story is too 'different' for a lot of people, just like DS9 was because it was on a station near a unknown quadrant. The episodes here take a lot of 'risk' and fall flat sometimes (Threshold... going so fast you evolve... then have sex and populate a entire planet) but on other occasions work out very well. Each person on Voyager almost seemed like a great / interesting character, but each fall a little short. Except neelix, who is arguably very irratating, or you just love him. Most people hate him, but that is still a deep character. This is also the first female captain as a lead for a show. A lot of right wings do not like this. I loved Kate Mulgrews performance. Voyager had WAY too many Holodeck episodes, and a lot of "not so great" Episodes.

6- Enterprise - This one just fall flat in so many ways. For starters it 'pisses' on everything we know and love. They created the idea of teleporting... they created tactical alert (like red alert)... they created the "computer' voice thing... they created Starfleet. Etc. The whole show was about "we are the first, even though roddenberry specifically said Kirk was first" A LOT of the episodes are SLOWWWWWW. In fact DS9 feels like a racing game compared to Enterprise. The characters are by far the worst out of every show. Doctor flox was interesting, and tucker wasn't too bad. While Scott Bakula is a good actor, he was horrible as Archer. T'Pol was just dry as paper, even for a vulcan. Dear lord she was bad (though got better over time) They also had all those episodes about time travelling which, while cool, were fairly stupid since it was never, ever referenced in the future of star trek. You think earth being pratically erased from history might come up a few times while travelling through time (which happens a lot in other show)

I'm not saying I hate or love all the star trek shows. I'd have to say I love love loved DS9, then watched Babylon 5 and episode after episode said to myself "This is nearly the same exact story line as DS9... except this is much better" To be fair, Babylon 5 was much more intense and focused on story arcs, not singular episodes.

So yeah "never" watching voyager, but liking star trek... it's whatever. All the shows are somewhat bad, and have 'good' points. Voyager is no greater or worse than the rest.

[AbsynthMinded]

So far as I am aware, STO is based entirely on cannon. The JJ verse, is not cannon, and although the ship dimensions are not appropriately to scale, do not reflect a nod to the JJ verse.

As for my assertion that the DEVs are milking us for less bang more buck. Just wait and see. The content they are going to release will be mebe a handful of episodes. 1-3 new reputations to grind, a small pocket of new space. And a rebalancing of biblical proportions because of the cap increase, which will completely throw all the existing systems into chaos.

I bet this will of course then require a complete scrapping of the currant STF system for someing copmletely different which will erase all achievements aquired thus far. Ships will be obsolete, equipment obsolete, reputations obsolete. The replacement will be 3 times more iritating for free to play players, and lifers and subscribers will have to 'pay again' to get their toons back upto par in a reasonable time.

[Saturn]

Uh... it's based on canon. It is not canon. There is a difference, and there are WAY more similarities in JJ's universe than 'canon' and there is nothing offical saying "this is star trek universe, not an alternate universe" which honestly, most players would agree that STO is in one of the many alternate universes.

[Lucky]

OPD (great name!) is right, it's BASED on Canon.

It goes like this, apparently:

Tv Shows / Movies: HARD CANON (part of the historical background of STO)
Novels / Games / Animated Series: SOFT CANON (part of the historical background, but may have been told from a biased point of view. For instance, you can find Mackenzie Calhoun ingame on Starbase K7, but that doesn't mean that everything that happened in New Frontier also happened in STO.)
Fan Fiction / The epsiode "Threshold": NON CANON.

We know that Threshold is 'non canon' because we can go faster than Warp 10 in game without turning into space salamanders. THIS ALONE justifies the entire existence of STO. If it exists just to say that we should all ignore "Threshold" then it is doing a public service.

Anyway, my point is that only the 'hard canon' stuff is allow ingame, storywise. That's how it's based on canon.

But given the behaviour of many folks in zone chat, it's clearly set in an alternate universe. Being a Star Trek fan shouldn't be like being a Star Wars fan. Star Wars is about space magic and having fun. Star Trek is supposed to be about tolerance and growth (remember, this isn't supposed to be the Abramsverse we're playing).

As an old school ST fan, I couldn't agree more with the idea that gameleech put forward: "I wager there are more non Trek fans playing this than not." given what I've said above.

Star Trek is SUPPOSED to stand for something, unlike many other IPs. The fact that the devs completely ignore this couldn't make me angrier. Yes, I probably shouldn't be playing MMOs with that attitude - but by the same token can you please direct me towards the Star Trek MMO that IS right for me, that ISN'T full of bigots in zone chat, for instance? NO? Guess I'm stuck with this one then. :\

I'm not saying the Trek Fans never came - I'm saying most of them probably left.

[Saturn]

I hate to say it but canon is canon. Either it is, or it isn't. Period. The books are based off of the canon, and a lot of them suck. (A normal (not proto) Vulcan becoming a homosexual with a klingon? I'm not against gays, it's just not star trek, and it doesn't fit in)

And considering the people in /zone, it's obvious that star trek fans are abundant. I've argued about Q being good/bad in there for hours. People will bring up specific and exact moments in TNG/VOY/DS9 about Q.

While it is not the exact universe (they don't own the rights, after all, so it literally could not be set in that universe even if they wanted to (Proof: Use the Foundry, a list of what is owned/not owned is there) it is nearly exactly the same as JJ's universe. Also TONS of things from the past are innacurate. There are things that happened that clearly would have been brought up over... and over... and over in all the star trek shows, but didn't make a dent. Like oh, I don't know... maybe the Enterprise being bombarded by a ship 200+ years advanced? Don' t you think the federation would have reacted? Well.. obviously they would have. This why Q was a good guy. He brought the borg to the federations attention. They did not know anything (almost) about them.

I'm talking about the many, many, time travels. STO does nothing to stay close to Canon. They don't even own TAS and they use aspects from it, like the Caitan. STO is set in a universe very similar to that of JJ's views of how ST should/would have been. The federation has been at war, but never was as openly brutal or violent. They do not destroy ships normally. They do not simply 'blow up' the bad guys. This just doesn't happen. Maybe sisko because they wanted DS9 to be dark, but generally it's not the way of ST. This proves that the universes between JJ is far closer to reality of STO than the canon is.

Plus the game will never be close to canon when shuttle craft are 100 times larger than they should be. They could make them smaller, like some of the enemies (hard as heck to see when fighting fighter drones) instead of making them larger than life for people to look at for aesthitics.

Anyway my point originally was that there is no STO universe, because STO is a game and went it's /own/ way, heavily, in how Star Trek should be played out. And the similarities between how the Federation acts in TNG/VOY/DS9/ENT/TAS/TOS are light years away from STO, but only a few miles from JJ's "let's make the Enterprise 3x the size of the TOS Enterprise... oh and it's a warship"

There is no exploration in the game (nearly) there is no diplomacy. There is no peace, there is no science missions. The game is set in a star trekish universe, but it's as close as the canon as Hello Kitty is to Dragon Ball Z (Although I've never seen the first, I'm going to assume :) )

[Fjolde]

Back to the OPs original post.

Stop playing video games, just stop. If I read what you were saying right, you are complaining because they are adding new content and raising the level cap(something done in all MMOs by the way).

Go play singleplayer games. There you can get to the max level without worrying about added content or new stuff. You can the king of your little universe and never have to worry about new content.

**edit** I forgot about DLC. You are screwed buddy. Go try sports those barely ever change.

[Drjones013]

Originally posted by Southclaw:

As an old school ST fan, I couldn't agree more with the idea that gameleech put forward: "I wager there are more non Trek fans playing this than not." given what I've said above.

Star Trek is SUPPOSED to stand for something, unlike many other IPs. The fact that the devs completely ignore this couldn't make me angrier. Yes, I probably shouldn't be playing MMOs with that attitude - but by the same token can you please direct me towards the Star Trek MMO that IS right for me, that ISN'T full of bigots in zone chat, for instance? NO? Guess I'm stuck with this one then. :\

I'm not saying the Trek Fans never came - I'm saying most of them probably left.

As another Trekkie Fan I have to agree. I have an itch every once in a while to hop on and blow things up, sure, but Gene would have had a heart attack if he'd seen the endless focus on death and destruction that STO is. It'd be nice if the developers could explore the exploration side a bit more and give the franchise back some of its dignity.

Oh, and in case one of them is reading, yes, I've not only bought your ships but am planning on buying others.

[/threadhijack]

[markdb92]

the t5 ships sure can be upgrades but it never truly t6 as t6 will have certian things you would want to have to force you to buy one. It be like taking a dated pc and upgrading its parts and maxing it out but still wont have the uptodate pc has.