CAPTAIN'S BLOG

You are right, those social zones are completely ignored nowadays. It's kinda sad as Andoria, Risa and Vulcan are pretty nice.
Ideas for the social Zones. Let's see. How about these Mission ideas?

Wolf 359: Patrol Wolf 359 and prevent illegal salvaging from the Ship Graveyard.
Risa: Supplement local Law Enforcement and maintain Order during "Spring break".
Vulcan: Seek the wisdom of logic and master Kohlinar.
Andoria: Test your endurance in the Cold and chase Fire worms.

Every time I see a mention of "Social Zones" in STO, I think of the Captain's Table -- a well designed, but totally useless, facility which nobody visits because there's no reason to. I like the idea of actually using the Social Zones for something fun. I also like the idea of some token reward (as long as it's not another Tribble).

The problem with the Captain's Table is that Cryptic cannot do anything too special with it because it won't be fair for those who don't have access.

Although I would like more of a reason to go there, and perhaps an easier way of reaching it. If I'm going to travel to ESD just to go there then I might as well beam down to ESD.

Here's some ideas and it looks like at one point Cryptic was going to do some of these, but for whatever reason backed off, or just put it on the back burner.

Andoria: Way its set up it would make a great Fed vs. Fed Warzone in which people can beam down and when they do they join either the red team or blue team (its completely random), and battles against those on the other side. Ground doesn't really have any warzones, so this could be a good place to put one.

Rura Penthe: Can be the KDF vs. KDF version of this, and or a Fed vs. KDF were Fed players have to rescue some prisoners, and the KDF have to stop them or at the least make it extremely difficult.

Vulcan: Could use more missions, perhaps Vulcan historical missions, or lore missions relating to the Vulcan people, or the Planet Vulcan itself. There could also be some other types of missions thrown in there, like find (X) number of a certain item, or something of sorts.

Risa: Perhaps some fun missions as it is a resort planet, or just more interacts and immersion. I could see that with a little more interaction, and a little more love this place could be a great Roleplaying spot.

Wolf 359: I second the idea of a salvage stopping mission, or perhaps missions relating to the Borg, or better yet, you can take a mission where Q transports you to the battle of Wolf 359 in your ship as opposed to the ground map in the State of Q mission. It would be random each day, but vary between 3-5 different missions relating to this zone.

Drozana Station already has a FE series attached to it, and is a Roleplaying hot spot from what I can tell, could they expand on it, or add more interactions and random missions for rewards like a daily to fix the replicators or another fault on the station, or a mission to kill X number of Devidians in a maintenance shaft? Sure I wouldn't say no, and it would provide a little more reason to use this station.

Also lets not forget about Defara in Orellius Sector Block. It has an invasion zone, but the main planet itself (city) has nothing to do other then the couple missions attached to it via the Breen FE Series. They could add missions involving finding Preserver artifacts, or perhaps passage ways to hidden caves in some of the ruins and finding items and perhaps some Tholians trying to steal Preserver Artifacts. That would be something interesting.

Another idea for Starbase 39 Sierra, Deep Space K-7, or the KDF Equivalent, or even Battle Group Omega is the introduction of 'Red Alerts" to these regions where at random times a Red Alert will appear and players can click on it and be notified that the Station/Fleet is about to be attacked and they need all ships to prepare for combat and defend the station/fleet. Like all Red Alerts players won't be forced to do them and can ignore them, but completing them would reward small amounts of Dilithium, or a random level appropriate item box which will open up an item of Blue Quality or greater of the rank of the player that opened the box. These boxes could be tradable or Account Bound.

Starbase 39 Sierra: Defend the base from a Tal Sheir Attack.

Deep Space K7: Defend the base from a Klingon or one of their allies Attack.

KDF Neutral Zone Station: Defend against a Federation Attack.

Battle Fleet Omega: Defend against a Borg or Undine attack (random).

This could be a craptastic idea, but I think it could add more favor to the Red Alerts by making some more localized and make it seem like a true war is going on between the factions. Opinions?

I really like all the ideas above, especially Udimir's suggestion about the red alerts with the starbase, as this would be a fun way to increase the interaction with these areas, since I for one only go to them when I need to sell stuff or I'm using them as a waypoint to my destination.

This may be too extreme, but I'd like to see them add more familar locales from the series and movies...the Bak'u planet for instance.

In the same vein, I believe DS9 falls under the same category as a social zone when you think about it, so one thing I would like to see would be DS9 renovated to follow the precise diagramming and model of the in-series one.

@CheRoj, Cryptic has this problem everywhere. Their engine just doesn't work well with a realistic sizing of areas. They have this issues on all the interiors across both STO and Champions.

I do think that more missions and actions would be a great way to use these social zones. If they couldn't do full scale ground missions then perhaps specialised Doff missions (in the same vein as the Q's Winter Wonderland ones)

Bring back the DS9 fleet action! It is missed by many.