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To go where no man has gone before...
glomma63
Member UncommonPosts: 4
Hi all 
The adds for this game say "explore the galaxy " are there any actual exploring like finding planets or maybe aliens ?
cos i would realy love that
Thank You
Comments
Answering your question , no. There is no mechanic availible to even remotely institute something like that.
The only "discoveries" in STO would be role-playing related... and you'd have to do all the imaginary work yourself. There are diplomatic missions in random star clusters which are ostensibly "first contact", so if you have an active imagination you can assume you discovered a new race/planet/civilization, but it won't have any impact on the rest of the game, or even on your own character's development. But, it is a discovery. Sorta.
To be fair to STO (as much as possible, anyway), no game is probably going to be able to deliver that "zomg awesome" factor of discovery anymore, since anything discovered or any optimized strategy is immediately posted to a dozen wikis and discussed on multiple forums (fora?). The blessing/curse of a post-Warcraft society.
edit: typo
You can explore the world of crooked Chinese RMT lockbox gambling tho...
Since that is about the only new thing to go into STO in the last year...
Even "free", this game is a rip-off...
Kind of. Nearly every sector has a cluster/nebula exit to a map wich generates "unknown Systems". These are randomly constructed out of a pool of maps; missions, encounters. So you'll never know what will happen when entering one of those. Could be a simple scan some space anomalys mission or a defend a colony against some randomly generated enemies or something completly different. While the pool of random stuff is big enough to entertain for some time it will get stale after a while. Rumor has it that this exploration will get revamped at some time between now and the end of all times.
But as has already been said: Its free to play. So see for yourself
That is a straight up lie. There are certain areas, such as the Delta Volanis cluster, that allow for a form of exploration where you find anomalous readings and scan them to either find crafting materials or systems where you can do ground missions that give a beter sense of exploration than the rest of the game (for example, in one mission you are scanning a previously undiscovered floral life form on a planet, and in another one, you come across a distress call from people beseiged by Klingongs). Its not much, but it is the closest you are going to get outside of the foundry (which is highly recommended if and only if you play the better reviewed foundry missions).
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
Its definitely not what I would call an explorers game. Much more of an action shooter with roleplaying elements I think. Everything is explored through scenarios, basically.
I'm not knocking the game, I quite enjoy it for what it is. Ship battle is its best feature I think.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Agreed on the ship battle part, but honestly, can we call Star Trek an "explorers show"? Mostly its interspecies politics. Most discoveries come in the form of "how the politics of one species, while different than ours, is not better or worse than ours" or "how to use photon torpedoes to stabalize a dying sun". The true discoveries you are talking about are actually very rare, with the exception of Voyager. Unlike the other Star Trek series, Voyager was 100% exploration and discovery, since it was in the unexplored/unmapped Delta Quadrant (yes there was combat, but it had more exploration and discovery than almost all of the other series put together).
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
You're exactly right on this point, but the OP is saying that the advertisements suggest you are "exploring the galaxy", when... there's not really anything to discover. So it's a bit misleading, because it's just playing off Star Trek's marketing tag of "going where no man has gone before" without any real validity. It's all been discovered long before you logged in. I'm not bashing Cryptic on that; just saying that the OP is not going to get a full-on exploration game even though it's suggested by the advertising.
This is where Cryptic really missed the boat in my opinion, and your point sort of highlights it for me. Star Trek the series (pick any one) wasn't about phaser diplomacy. It was about what you said - politics (usually in the form of allegory to current events) and science (even if the science was a bit sketchy at times). But the game is primarily a Star Trek combat simulator. Initially, it was beam down, phaser some Nausicaans, beam up, shoot down their ships. Move on to phasering Orion Syndicate members. New sector, phaser Romulans and Remans. Phaser some Cardassians. Phaser the Borg. They've made a few improvements over time - Memory Alpha isn't completely awful anymore and the duty officer system is pretty cool - but at its core the game is still combat-based (as Boneserino said), where Star Trek isn't supposed to be. It raises a somewhat different question - why do so many MMOs expect combat to be 90+% of a player's play time, and should it be? But I'm already too far off-topic as it is.
Space combat is still fun, even 2+ years on (it was hilariously fun back when viral matrix lasted something like 30 seconds and disabled enemies completely). Bioware could take a few lessons from it.
That is a straight up lie. There are certain areas, such as the Delta Volanis cluster, that allow for a form of exploration where you find anomalous readings and scan them to either find crafting materials or systems where you can do ground missions that give a beter sense of exploration than the rest of the game (for example, in one mission you are scanning a previously undiscovered floral life form on a planet, and in another one, you come across a distress call from people beseiged by Klingongs). Its not much, but it is the closest you are going to get outside of the foundry (which is highly recommended if and only if you play the better reviewed foundry missions).
No, its not a straight up lie because there is no true exploration going on. How is going to the Delta Volanis, or any "exploration sector" to be given scan 5, kill 5, or give provisions to the aliens that just happen to know you are Starfleet missions, exploration? You cannot chart the sector, you cannot see a planet and scan it,you cannot go to it and beam down, you cannot do anything that really speaks to exploration. You fly around in a dark box looking for a "unknown system" where the inhabitants of that system know exactly who you are.
So, I think Vuk had it right. You cannot explore. You can only play the minimal, bare bones static "genesis" content that cryptic inserted into those systems and never seems to change or improve much, if at all.
What they said.
Good points. My experience was this game back then and somewhat recently was "giving men headaches like never before." Such an enormous disappointment for me as a huge Star Trek fan.
Exactly. How many times do we have to beam down and "access the first computer". Huh, guess I have to run down multiple corridors to "access the second computer." Access 5 computers? Yeah, this is really fun "exploring".
EvE.
Has what your looking for and is far superior to STO.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
"To get ganked where no man has been ganked before" :P
But seriously: When was the last time you landed on a planet in EvE and enjoyd the scenery?
It is a very good game if it come to complex PvP with politics and all that + it looks pretty. But PvE there sucks beyond infinity.
yes , EVE ,I played 5 years without break & my corp mates give me title ,,Explorer, , I think I am spend half gameplay time on exploration...I am find awesome strange sites , was stucked in wormhole too ...ah memories,memories...
STO is not bad game but cryptic missed point of ST universe , exploration
You can't be serious suggesting EVE as an exploration game!!?? I mean cmon, the only exploration in EVE is watching the pretty pictures go by as you fly to your next rock!
Things must be getting pretty desperate over there, if you are trying to entice people to EVE in this manner. Probably a shortage of new cannon fodder or mining grunts in the game, would be my guess.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
STO isn't even in the same category/genre as EvE - other than "space" the two have nothing in common - so comparisons between the two don't really lead us anywhere.
If you need a comparison, STO is far more analogous to WoW or EQ2, just in a different setting (and with a far more aggressive cash shop).
I prefered the episodes of epic battles personally.
I really enjoy the exploration aspect of star trek, but ..
Lets compare the opening to the new movie, with all that is going on.
With meeting Jimo the race of aliens.
I'm a combat type for Star Trek. Always liked the combat far more than science aspect. This is why I enjoy DS9's dominion wars era so much.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!