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From Dusk to New Dawn
Captain's Blog Stardate 93208.33
Season 11 has been officially announced and a part of me is excited to see what they have planned for us, but another part of me is a bit worried as well. Still, I think the idea of the Admirality System could be good. Let's explore a little deeper.
The Admirality System sounds like it is going to be duty officers, but for your old ships. So the more ships you have, the more assignments you get, the more rewards you can earn. Well this sounds like another way for Cryptic to make money. People will be buying more ship slots from the C-Store and more ships. It's safe to assume that Tier 6 ships will be better for the Admirality System than Tier 1 ships, meaning people will have to spend money to get more Tier 6 ships... or at least Tier 5/Tier 5-U. Either way, this does seem like another money making scheme.
What I would have preferred, although we don't have much information, is to be able to use old ships as "space bridge officers". These ships could follow you around on certain missions, just like your bridge officers do. They could even go on their own assignments within the map, which is possible because they've done it with bridge officers. Who knows, maybe the Admirality System will have this as well, or it's a feature coming later on. We shall see!
The Iconian War story is finally coming to an end. I've been sensing the end since my March 22nd blog, and here it comes. In a way I can't blame them for ending it. When the game started I don't think they had a clear story planned out. As the years went on they decided to tie everything together and then finally end it. Now it feels like they are rushing the final episodes, which could be why a lot of players feel the quality of the stories aren't that good. It's possible that the writers aren't focused on writing a good story, but rather ending this story so they can get to the good stuff.
Speaking of the good stuff, am I understanding this correctly? "Discover a previously unknown civilization and uncover the mystery of a strange traveler from another time." Are we really going to get to explore and get away from the combat? Will this game turn more into a Trek game with a great story and use combat to only drive the story forward? Pray to whatever god you pray to that this is what will happen! I would love for this game to be more about exploration than about war.
What are your thoughts on all of this? If you're someone who hasn't been playing the game too much recently, is this attracting you back? If you've been playing the game actively, do you think this will keep you interested? Share your opinions in the comments!
Written by Attilio on August 09, 2015 at 10:58 pm
Comments
August 10, 2015 at 07:40 pm
They said that there would be three tiers, my guess is they will have three slots (sci, tac and eng) and will have various projects for each tier for you to complete rewarding points and rewards based on the length of the "mission" and scale those rewards based on your ability to complete the mission (low, med, high). Just my thought process on what they have released in the past and the current capabilities of the Doff system (which this will be modeled after). It may also be like a personal fleet-esque system with different mission to slot require specific ships to be "input" into them and started. But that sounds much less exciting to me.
Reply to IzzyAugust 10, 2015 at 07:54 pm
Honestly, I'm getting tired of the pay to play well, or consumer based inducement to spend money on this game. Time is even more valuable. i went through a rabid flurry of 6 solid hours trying to do something that made it worthwhile without spending a reall penny. i was so thoroughly disappointed with myself for wasting a huge chunk of my day on this. It's just a game. I am setting a timer for 2hours, gradually to one hour PER DAY at the most, to get clear of the waste. the only real upside was the hard burn test I did on my overclock. the computer hardware did great.
I have ADHD, so impulsive actions are are plague to me. I figure the less time i spend on the game, the less chance to make a poor choice and pour money into it.
I dont mean to sound all down about STO, I meet a lot of friends here. The appeal of the game though has devolved into a tangible driving force of "what can I gain next to be better and outshoot my team? and for those who don't have the self discipline to prioritize a game where it belongs, it also means time and money wasted.
If it had a deeper storyline, around which adventure (read not always blasting your enemy away), if it had decision-affected outcomes, i would love it even more. instead it is the skeleton, a taste of a story built around endless variations of skirmishes.
just my "two-cents"
gojored
August 13, 2015 at 11:37 am
I'm looking forward to the new season. I've missed the old exploration missions and I've gotten bored with the almost all-powerful Iconians who, it turns out, can be defeated by turning off a few consoles. (Remember the original Daleks from Doctor Who? They could destroy planets, but couldn't climb stairs.)
I'm sure that there will be a lot of temptation for players to buy new ships and to add ship slots, but my personal fleet is large enough that i think I will have plenty of ships to use for DOFF missions. It will give me a chance to get some use out of my older ships and give my previously unused DOFFs something to do.
August 17, 2015 at 06:11 pm
Honestly I'm looking forward to the next season. When season 10 came out I felt like it was a big change, kind of a "Welcome to Season 10, Iconions are Jerks". Now we can get back to the meat and potato's of exploration and conquest.
As for the ships, I cant really blame them, they have to make their money somehow. Ultimately I suspect that most of us will just sink some money into fleet ships to flush out our Armada, but I have to agree with the idea of BOFF Ships rather than DOFF ships as something that would be a bit more useful.
October 11, 2015 at 10:44 pm
I recently played SWTOR, and I'd love if STO did decisions similarly. Have some kind of points (not light side/dark side, obviously, there aren't really evil people in the ST universe) that change depending on your decisions.
Maybe more like Defiance where you gain favor with certain vendors by doing missions for them? Could come in the shape of bonus reputation marks coming from your decisions, or so?
I'd also liked if leveling up a character's abilities was more like in SWTOR: I.e. you don't just "get" the Captain Space Ability, you get sent to a trainer to unlock it there. It feels so much more like a win that way, if you actually go pick something up.
And maybe they could add small holodeck training missions or so…