How a Borg playable faction could work...

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=176326

An amazing amount of time must have gone into making that thread. What do y'all think?

I think it is a neat concept in theory.

The thing that I don't like about the idea of the Borg being a playable faction is that they are supposed to work as a whole collectively. When you add hundreds of individual people, playing Borg they way they individually want to play...you don't have The Collective anymore.

If anything, the Borg should be left as an NPC bad guy...there are plenty of other Trek baddies to choose from.

First: good grief, that's long! I confess I didn't have the patience to read the whole thing. Much of what I did read was opinion, and I could see multiple other ways a Borg playable faction could be accomplished in-game.

But the question remains: just because they could do it doesn't necessarily mean they should.

bradley1701 wrote:

The thing that I don't like about the idea of the Borg being a playable faction is that they are supposed to work as a whole collectively. When you add hundreds of individual people, playing Borg they way they individually want to play...you don't have The Collective anymore.

If anything, the Borg should be left as an NPC bad guy...there are plenty of other Trek baddies to choose from.

I can see the logic of leaving them NPC-only, but on the other hand the game developers have already indicated there is another big bad for the overall game. It could be that the Borg, through their many battles with races known and unknown, have adapted by allowing some level of individuality.

The most interesting aspect of playing as a Borg would be assimilation. That should be their overall goal, just as glory in battle is the Klingons' and peacefully blowing shit up is the Feds'. One example, it would make PvP a much scarier prospect if a Borg player could assimilate a non-Borg's bridge officers. And maybe Feds and Klinks could liberate Borg BOs in return. Suddenly STO becomes a big Pokemon game!

Missions could include assimilation as a goal. Starting with just your playable Borg, you battle and assimilate troops as you go. You can't assimilate enemies you have completely defeated, but if you get an enemy's health down below 10 or 20%, and have sufficient time, you could inject them with nanoprobes and start the conversion process. Once complete, you have a drone to fight at your side. Then you go and make more and more.

It's not something that will happen any time soon, but maybe in a few years time, when the game is looking for something new to draw us all back, they could try something like this.

bfelczer wrote:

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=176326

An amazing amount of time must have gone into making that thread. What do y'all think?

I hate to come across as being closed-minded on the subject.. but I just will never be for a Borg faction.

Everything that makes the Borg, Borg would have to be removed or changed to make them viable as a playable faction, as I stated in my post on that thread.


Finish the KDF.. Bring on the Roms.. and then the Cards.. and go from there...

as someone else put it:

No Borg,
No Undine,
No Iconian,
No Q

Saith

Galan_Vaurek wrote:

as someone else put it:

No Borg,
No Undine,
No Iconian,
No Q

Saith

I agree with the last 3, but I think there could be some gaming potential for playable Borgies. The question is if there's enough to be gained in the gaming experience to make the changes to the Trek universe worthwhile. And realistically I doubt STO has the power to change a race so drastically.

OTOH, what really separates Klingons from Cardassians (not to be confused with Kardashians, which are a completely different species, as I understand it). For that matter, how will they make Romulans different enough to make them an interesting alternative to playing Klink or Fed? With the Borg, you have some serious differences that could be explored in the game play.

Time will tell. Nobody says all of us have to play every faction.

It's a cool idea, but I didn't give it much serious thought because I just don't want Cryptic working on ANOTHER race. Their time would be better spent fixing and polishing the game as it exists. I'm seeing way too many people, some of them in our fleet, dropping out of the game. I have to admit, had I not bought I lifetime subscription, I'd probably have left by now as well.

Finish the KDF.. Bring on the Roms.. and then the Cards.. and go from there.

Argh, I replied on my comment page, instead of here. >.

chemkarate wrote:

It's a cool idea, but I didn't give it much serious thought because I just don't want Cryptic working on ANOTHER race. Their time would be better spent fixing and polishing the game as it exists. I'm seeing way too many people, some of them in our fleet, dropping out of the game. I have to admit, had I not bought I lifetime subscription, I'd probably have left by now as well.

I haven't read the long post on the Borg. So sorry for speaking out of topic but I'd just like to reiterate what Chemkarate has said.

I don't understand why there's so much discussion about adding new things (factions, ships, uniforms) when the game we currently have simply isn't finished.

There's time in the future for these discussions and It should come when they announce the first full expansion for Star Trek Online. That should be in about a year.

Oh and just so you know my view. The Borg as a playable faction, however you do it, would be a massive break in canon. You can't have individuals controlling drones in a collective.

Oh and just so you know my view. The Borg as a playable faction, however you do it, would be a massive break in canon. You can't have individuals controlling drones in a collective.

^^This^^

Here's my take:

Fix what's broken first. One cannot build a home on a half-assed foundation. Sadly, Cryptic seems to be going down this route with STO...

Borg playable faction...NO (for the same reasons many have listed). If people want to assimilate things then they need to start bugging Atari (not Cryptic) to return to their last Borg video game project that they shelved about two years ago. I forget what the working title was, but basically you assimilated countless species to your heart's content...I mean, what else do Borg drones do besides assimilate anyway? Breed tribbles? :blink:

Personally I don't have a lot of complaints about the quality of the game. Sure there are bugs, but that's to be expected in any software project of this size. When I find a bug, I report it and keep on trekkin'. (Reported one yesterday, and it was # 965,000-something. I wonder if they'll have a prize for bug report one-million.) :) Maybe I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy, but I enjoy the game.

As for the canonicity of a playable Borg faction, I think they could tell a story that would allow for it. In TNG's BOBW, the Borg created Locutus because they had a need for a spokesperson to interface with the races in the Alpha Quadrant. They adapted to the situation in order to meet the goals of assimilating Fed species. So who's to say they wouldn't adapt at some point in the future to include some sort of individuality in ship command, if the situation warranted such an adaptation? It would be not much different than the local computer on a NASA space probe having some ability to react to situations, but being guided by the researchers back on earth for the main mission work.

Barring that, it could be a rebel faction of Borg, separated from the collective, or a sub-collective that somehow got split off from the main hive mind. Maybe an off-shoot of the Lore-Borg, or the philosophical descendants of Hugh and company. Hell, it could be the bearded-Borg from the mirror universe. The point is, they could come up with a reason, just like they came up with the war between the Klingons and Feds for the game.

Propecius wrote:

So who's to say they wouldn't adapt at some point in the future to include some sort of individuality in ship command, if the situation warranted such an adaptation?

Because individuality breeds chaos. Perfection can only be achieved through unity; the creativity of an assimilated unit is best utilised by the entire collective. Allowing a unit free will and individuality does not further this goal; only through the connection to the collective can its actions be close to perfection.


Propecius wrote:

Barring that, it could be a rebel faction of Borg, separated from the collective ... Maybe an off-shoot of the Lore-Borg, or the philosophical descendants of Hugh and company.

This is what people actually want: borg disconnected from the collective yet antagonistic to the other factions within the game. Like General Korok, but with a hornet up his bottom.

Angelsilhouette wrote:
Because individuality breeds chaos. Perfection can only be achieved through unity; the creativity of an assimilated unit is best utilised by the entire collective. Allowing a unit free will and individuality does not further this goal; only through the connection to the collective can its actions be close to perfection.

Tightly controlled individuality, then. :-) Ten percent less chaotic than the leading brand. Maybe they learned that a small amount of chaos was actually necessary to reach their goal of order/perfection. Much like a small amount of black tint is needed to make white paint, if you're a fan of Ralph (not Harlan) Ellison's Invisible Man.

Angelsilhouette wrote:
This is what people actually want: borg disconnected from the collective yet antagonistic to the other factions within the game. Like General Korok, but with a hornet up his bottom.

Sorry, don't know this Korok chappie. Personally I don't care about the collective, but about game play. If it's fun, then I'm happy to accept whatever MacGuffin they come up with to let me assimilate NPCs and turn them into my Borg slave army. Mwahahahahaha!

I know, radical thought: wanting a game to be fun. Sorry, I was forgetting for a moment that it's all about the grinding and making it to VA as quickly as possible.