Permanance of players actions.

[Amblin]

I haven't read every single iota of info on the game but I have been wondering, will the players actions have any real impact?

MMO's have moved far, far, far away from the the concept of player actions having meaning, preferring to instead give players a story or arc to journey through, designated PvP zones that cannot be exceeded. It's nothing more than take and hold, take and hold. Nothing ever comes of all the conflict.

This coupled with the death of ingame events and live story arcs that are now simply beyond the MMO devs ability to organise and host, leaves me feeling a little cold.

Now' i'm not talking about a sandbox like, EVE. It is simply too free form and lacks structure. Something similar but driven by the game. Top down pushing players at all levels to explore, fight the good and not-so-good fight, trade, ally and wage war.

I wanted to know what everyone else thought whether they like or dissapprove of the idea of our action actually meaning something ingame?

Would it be better to take systems from the opossing empires/dominions/races and to also have NPC systems to seek admission/protection/trade with your chosen side or should it be preset and controlled PvE/PvP?

I know that this isn't on the table right now but I have to ask, what the is the point in the playing if the end game is the equivalent of raids in WoW or battlegrounds.

No permanence, nothing that you do matters, when you log back in ithe universe is just like you left it.

What do you think?

[Cassious]

The way i see it in 2409 the state of the quadrant will be more or less like the cold war now making this game FvF orientated on a single server base requires "reseting" if things go wrong for the one side witch will drive people away from the game .

Yes in some extend you should be able to afect the gameworld but really nothing more than actually maybe adding more planets in the outer edges to the feds ot the klingons , depending on diplomacy witch i hope will take a good part in the game but i'd prefer major events being pregenerated by the dev team as for story advancement.

[Deyvid]

This is from the August 25, 2008 edition (http://www.startrekonline.com/dev_blog/ask_cryptic_8-25-08) of Ask Cryptic (http://www.startrekonline.com/dev_blog):

My question is whether the universe will be static. For example, if I log off World of Warcraft and then login a week later everything is pretty much still the same. Nothing has really changed. Will the world be dynamic in STO?

Zinc: The universe of Star Trek Online is shaped and changed by the actions of the players. The Federation and the Klingon Empire will be competing for influence and resources throughout the galaxy and players can influence the results through PvP battles and a system we're calling Competitive PvE.

The actions, victories and defeats of you and your faction will affect how the economy and history of Star Trek Online unfolds. Exploration is always happening – expect to see new planets and races discovered that were unknown the last time you logged in. Your actions could be the deciding factor on whether these new planets side with the Federation or the Klingons.

[Deyvid]

It has also been said that there will be open PVP (ship-to-ship) as well as "Competitive PVE".

We don't know all the details yet, but the impression I got from the brief Competitive PVE discussions, the Neutral Zone will be the primary PVP area, and along the borders of the Neutral Zone, there will be fortifications (planet, starbase, outpost on asteroid??) that are "up for grabs" and that the two factions will compete for control of, or access to, those assets.

At a given time, Outpost-123 is "owned" / controlled by the Klingons, while Outpost-456 is "owned" / controlled by the Federation -- and the on-going results and affects of the direct PVP and competitive PVE could cause those Outposts to flip sides, such as the Klingons taking over Outpost-456 (or convincing the inhabitants of Planet-456 that it is in their best interest to side with the Klingons, therefore giving the Klingon Faction access to that planet's repair docks or whatever).


While the situation above shows that player actions will directly result in affecting the game world (which planets/outposts are on which faction's side), that would be an example of a more temporary thing, as one day/week Outpost-123 could be under the flag of the Klingon Empire, then the next day/week it's under the flag of the Federation, then the third day/week it's back to being Klingon.

So STO will definitely have both temporary and permanent results of the actions of players and factions.

[revenantsoul]

I am really looking forward to this myself. It will be nice to be able to perform actions that dynamically affect the universe we play in.