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[Andir]

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Misc/Canon.html

Given the definition of what "canon" is, the only valid approach is to ask Paramount and Lucasfilm. Someone did precisely that, and we have their answers. Star Trek's continuity policy is very narrow, encompassing only the TV shows and movies (and not even all of those), while Lucasfilm's continuity policy is fairly broad, encompassing all of the movies and most of the other licensed material as well.

Alternatively, you could ignore the definition of "canon" (this is sci-fi after all, not a religion), and create a continuity policy based on the creator's direct participation, which would guarantee consistency with his vision. However, that narrows the field considerably. In Star Trek, you would have to drop everything made since 1991, and you would have to take TNG over TOS wherever there is a conflict. In Star Wars, you would have to drop everything that doesn't have George Lucas' name on it as producer or author.

And of course, if you find both of these two options unpalatable, you are always free to make up your own policy or do as the author of canonwars.com did, and turn the quest for "canon" into a huge personal obsession, even going so far as to argue with Paramount and Lucasfilm employees that they don't know their own companys' internal policies as well as you do because you have armloads of quotes you've "analyzed". Personally, I think that if pressed, the average person would probably concede that the most reasonable option is to simply accept whatever Lucasfilm and Paramount say on this matter. "Canon", after all, literally means that which is approved by the ruling body. That's not to say that you can't argue with Lucasfilm or Paramount about anything; the best-known case of a fan dispute with Lucasfilm was a clearly erroneous claim on certain printed sources that the Super Star Destroyer "Executor" in ROTJ was only 5 times bigger than a regular Star Destroyer even though anyone could watch the movies and see that it's obviously much bigger than that. But that's a matter of pointing out a measurement error, not disputing a company's own internal policies.

Needless to say, Paramount is not going to add anything you do in this game to the Star Trek Canon.  That's the final word on that and this is my last post here.

[ductape]

Who was that angry Paramount representative?

This is his last post here, was that his first? Did he come here on the behest of Tiberius himself to chastise us?

I am so confused...

[fenrif]

Canon does not literally mean "that which is accepted by the ruling body." Infact the only meaning of canon (its got a quite a few definitions) that has anything to do with that, is when you're talking about religious works... Not so much when you're talking about literature, film, TV, movies, etc.

When you're talking about media you're generally talking about personal canon. Yeah theres the creators canon, but thats still just his/her personal canon. Everyone makes their own canon. George lucas can tell you what works he thinks form the star wars universe, and yeah he created it (allthough not single-handedly). But there are many many people who have worked on it since, and they all have their own canons too. And each fan looks at all these works, and decides on their canon.

Least thats how my film studies lecturers and professors taught it...

Anyway, back to the game... How far along are people in it now? My only source of info on the game has jibbed it off because he doesn't want to start over at release, so im curious to find how the mid game is. Whats the ship progression like? Can you switch back to old ones, or is this completely pointless?

[LordBucket]

I am so confused

Summary:

Two pages ago Servant Corps used the word "canon" in a sentence when he really meant "will player made custom race graphics show up elsewhere in the game."

The answer to that is "the developers say yes," and so Soulwynd said "yes." To which Andir freaked out and loudly insisted that player made races won't be integrated into Star Trek outside of Star Trek Online, which obviously they won't, to which Servant Corps disgreed on what he meant when he said Canon, which made Andir angry, and now it's all over.

We hope.

Seriously guys...arguing over which definitions you prefer when it's perfectly clear what everybody means is not fun for anyone.

[Sergius]

About canon/non canon whatever.

Star Wars has a different "canon policy" from Star Trek. "Word of God" for Star Wars is that anything in the movies trumps anything else, then the official novels of the movie. But unless it's directly contradicted by either of the above, books by other authors with the official seal of the company do have *some* canon (or official) status. Even computer games are somewhere around that level (they have published a table of "canon levels" which I forgot).

Paramount (and possibly Roddenberry before he croaked), however have stated publicly that NOTHING except the TV shows and the movies are canon. Not novels, comic books, anything. Even the "animated show" isn't canon. If an episode of the TNG show, for instance says that some technobabble may make phasers turn people into Tribbles, it is canon. If the cartoon did it, it's just silly and should be disregarded.

Now, canon has zero meaning outside of the body that controls the franchise. All it means is that "the author/publisher considers that it happened or not". Star Trek novels: never happened (except within the novel's own "alternate universe"). Just like some Batman or Superman Comics (elseworlds, all-stars or something?) never happened within the "official" continuities.

Going by this, it's highly unlikely that player-created content is going to be considered canon on Star Trek for future movies or shows. Within the game universe, sure, why not.

[Mindmaker]

Well I normally prefer Star Wars.
But since TOR is going for casuals mostly (4 classes per side, form which 2 are jedi, only 2 talent trees etc.) I'm loosing interest in the MMORPG genere.

At first it looked like it had potential, but it's becoming more and more of a dumbed down WoW.
Oh well, at least it has story...

[LordBucket]

TOR is going for casuals mostly

STO seems to be heavily targetting casuals too.

* Very slow paced combat
* Extremely fake physics
* Your ship can't go "up" because it would create "too steep of a learning curve"
* No crafting system
* Totally linear gameplay; no freeform exploration

[Nilocy]

I do apologise, I was being blind.

[Rilder]

So, Necro...

I've been playing this again recently with the addition of the Legacy of Romulus expansion in which they added playable Romulans amongst other things (Like making the Klingons not so much a fucking grind fest)

I hadn't played since before they added the Duty Officer system which I have to say is actually a really awesome system, I love the whole thing of sending out your crew to do all sorts of random tasks.  They also added a whole host of ships you can try to get in the higher levels. Like a bloody Jem'Hadar Dreadnought

I also haven't played since before they went free2play and having played both the subscription and f2p models that the F2P model is actually really good, you really aren't being denied content as a F2P player. (except maybe the ability to -make- foundry missions. Earning Dilithium isn't that hard and there is quite a bit of different things to actually do it. (I mean when I played the first time I basically spent a month or two doing the same 3-4 things to get marks or something so I could get my Nebula Class)

Also there seems to of been a serious addition to fleet(Guilds basically) mechanics that look really interesting and give the group as a whole something to work towards. I might actually want to try and make a fleet if I could get a group of 5 together so I could.

[Aklyon]

Well, this is an interesting necro if I'd ever seen one. I just tried it yesterday, and now we apparently had a thread about it.

Either way its not too bad afaik so far.

[Thexor]

Damn it, guys, keep talking about this and you'll make me start playing again...

I haven't been paying much attention for ~8 months, so would anyone be able to tell me: what's new in the new expansion? I've heard about playable Romulans, but haven't seen a lot else.

[Rilder]

Damn it, guys, keep talking about this and you'll make me start playing again...

I haven't been paying much attention for ~8 months, so would anyone be able to tell me: what's new in the new expansion? I've heard about playable Romulans, but haven't seen a lot else.

Spoiler: A feature list from ingame (click to show/hide)

[hemmingjay]

I love this game but for some reason it just doesn't hold my interest. Something about it is just too slow for my limited gaming time these days. I think this is what is hurting all MMORPGS really, short attention spans and over saturation of the market.

[Kaje]

I'm of a similar mind to hemmingjay.

I love Star Trek, and this is a superb example of an MMO done well and built to last. There's not a huge amount of grinding - certainly not for XP as you level up in line with the episode missions nicely - and you don't need to 'pay to win' as everything is quite easily obtainable in-game with some patience.

I do have issues, however. My main one being roleplay related. The game has all the materials required to be a roleplayers heaven - ships you can enter, costumes to customise, player character to customise, even fleet starbases you can customise. Yet...well...nobody seems particularly interested in it.

The majority of players are more interested in quick 'pew pews' against others, and those who do have an interest in roleplay never seem to be active for long.

[Sergius]

I'm actually interested, I still have it installed but since achieving max rank on my Dwarven Engineer I kinda lost interest. But although I was in a clan we didn't much coop, I mostly won the entire game Solo.

The game isn't even bad as a single-player game.

If any of y'all want to start a party sometime let me know.