Race Duplication?

[superjeep3]

I have read a lot of posts about player customization and how people are basically going to copy whatever race they want to be ( Klingon in Federation, or Vulcan in the Klingon Empire). My question is this...say I see a character in game and their race is distinct and unique...will there be a way to become the same created class? Will there be some sort of view and vote on the created races that in turn will be able to be used by other players?

I remember a post about friends being able to share races...but what about if you see one in game you want to be?

[TruthSeer]

We haven't been told to much about this. Though it was said there would be some kind of mechanic allowing fleets to easily have the same species in it.

[BreachAndClear]

It might be nice if you can flag races you've encountered in game that you like, such that when you return to the player creation screen you can load that character as a starting template from which you can tweak to add your own personal touch.

Though the create a species feature might just be really intuitive, such that if I see a design I like, it probably won't be that hard to take note of what it looks like and just recreate it myself.

[TruthSeer]

It might be nice if you can flag races you've encountered in game that you like, such that when you return to the player creation screen you can load that character as a starting template from which you can tweak to add your own personal touch.

Though the create a species feature might just be really intuitive, such that if I see a design I like, it probably won't be that hard to take note of what it looks like and just recreate it myself.

Lmao, maybe we can have a pokedex type item. That species is head 29, nose 30, eyes 10.....

[BreachAndClear]

Lmao, maybe we can have a pokedex type item. That species is head 29, nose 30, eyes 10.....

Err... I was thinking more along the lines of what is in Spore. You can browse buildings and species created by other people and import them to play with yourself, or you can import it and tweak it, or whatever you'd like.

Though the fact that I can "share" races with friends might mean that I have to consent to someone importing a copy of my avatar? I don't know.

I don't expect STO to keep a huge database like Spore did, but perhaps they could implement a system in which I click an avatar I like and save the design (maybe have a limit like 3 avatars saved at a time) that I can then take back to the species creator and use as templates.

[TruthSeer]

I like the consent idea.

[superjeep3]

I don't think that it would be all that complicated. For most of the settings it would just be slider and color pallet settings. If it gets as in depth as spore such as appendage attachments and what not...well...I am sure Cryptic could do it.

[TruthSeer]

I don't think that it would be all that complicated. For most of the settings it would just be slider and color pallet settings. If it gets as in depth as spore such as appendage attachments and what not...well...I am sure Cryptic could do it.

At launch at least it won't be appendages, though I do think tails were mentioned, could be wrong though.

[superjeep3]

I would figure that if they have Andorians at launch then they would at least allow for Andorian like antennae.

[Loekii]

I am curious how they will handle this.

For example, what happens when 2 players make different characteristics, but want to use the same name?

Whar happens when someone makes a naussican looking toon, and want to call it a kzinti?

[BreachAndClear]

Lmao, maybe we can have a pokedex type item. That species is head 29, nose 30, eyes 10.....

I don't know if that was sarcasm or not. But I remember back in the day (1998?, '99?) when the Pokemon games were first released, one of the interesting things was that if a player wanted to catch all of the different species, the developers pretty much made it incredibly tedious for someone to do it by themselves, thus promoting player interaction, whether they wanted to or not. It forced players to go out find other people with the game, make friends, and trade. That was really the only feasible way to get the whole experience.

Such a system of trading content could be incorporated into STO as well. One of the things that was included in Starfleet Academy was a library console that you could access when visiting the different stations aboard your ship. At it you could pretty much look up log entries for just about every piece of content in the game: characters, ships, planets, nebulas, asteroids, ship components, species, etc. However, all of these entries were present at the library console from the very beginning. One of the things that STO could do would be to provide each player with a database, and allow them to fill out entries for such things.

Such that every time I build a ship, the schematics get stored in the database, along with a little description that I write myself. I can also then record entries for the species of my bridge crew, plant and animal species encountered, perhaps "famous" NPCs, and planets I've discovered that other players don't have access to etc. Then if I make friends with someone I can exchange this data, such that they can import my custom races or ship schematics, or get maps to places that I've been, which they would otherwise not have access to. Things like plants and animals would serve little purpose other than simply collecting data to flesh out an impressive scientific database, but things like ship schematics could be uploaded to a shipyard, if you're a member of a fleet, for subsequent construction for your guild mates, and friends would have access to the individuals of the custom species that you've made to serve aboard their bridge crew.