[PODCAST] [DEV INTERVIEW] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 240: "Tribble-Treat?"

midniteshadow7

Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 240: "Tribble-Treat?" has warped on to Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from:

http://bit.ly/tribbles240

This week Tribbles in Ecstasy interview Jesse Heinig, Staff Game Designer and Ryon Levitt, Staff Content Designer from Star Trek Online (Sorry for the echo at the begining of the interview, it does get a little better!).

After the interview the team once again gets into all Star Trek news from Star Trek Online (0:52:42), Star Trek Timelines (1:50:19), Star Trek News (1:57:46), Listener Feedback (2:03:10) and more!


Our community question this week is:
What is your opinion on the new Star Trek Online Featured Episode and the rewards thereof?

LLAP

alex1ger

Hello there, tribbles.



Community question:


Okay, this won't be a full-blown review but I will talk about some of the moments that made me scratch my head for one reason or another.

Let start at the beginning. Kuumarke is in a conversation with DaiMon Madran. First, without cheating... could you tell the difference between Madran and Qwen? And if you remember Operation Gamma, we got to decide whether to destroy Farek or let her go. Both, Madran and Qwen, did far worse things than Farek, so why do I have to put up with either of them instead of trying to arrest/shoot them on sight?

Second, I haven't played the Madran encounters in a while, but when I heard the voice, I thought: "Wait, is that Dave Rivas?"
For the uninitiated... Cryptic loves to throw Dave Rivas at all those overacted/campy characters like Hakeev and Dr. Cooper and a few others. Funnily enough he also voices Captain Shon.

Now, let's get into the episode proper...
So the Lukari did not evolve on this moon, but they settled here "a long time ago" after leaving their dying homeworld of "Kentar". Okay, I would like to know more about that. But I can't ask her, I can only ask her about her rustbucket of a ship. Let's see if "Kentar" ever gets brought up again.

The mini-games... well, I appreciated how they fit into the narrative, but I would have liked it more if they had been more... spaced out. Having all three of them within... like 5 minutes of each other felt a little rushed.

Uhm... the protomatter explosion. Well, Kuumarke rather casually mentions that the Lukari seem to know how to safely use it. When I heard that I was like... did you just say what I think you said? But sadly I'm at the content designer's mercy when it comes to these tidbits.

Down on the planet... the forensic reconstruction seemed conveniently accurate, but I will suspend my disbelief for that one. I get it. Puzzles need to conform to the lowest common denominator. *shrug*
What gave me more pause was how Kuumarke is suddenly the one calling the shots. I mean, I enjoy that I got a competent sidekick for once, but at the same time the Lukari are supposed to be new to exploration, so this kind of hyper-competence feels so much more out of place. Let's see what happens next...

Oh right, we manage to open the temple and go inside and into the cave and take out our tricorders and all we ever talk about are the residues of that protomatter explosion. Guys, we are standing in a cave with these strange crystals and we have taken tricorder scans. What do the scans say about these crystals?

Do you see a pattern? A lot of things get brought up and I want to investigate them and nobody ever acknowledges them. I mean, throw in some event that interrupts our discussion. Throw in a line that we don't have time to discuss this because of... something. But I'm standing here and wonder how many of these things will be forgotten or turned into one of the "clever reveals" Cryptic seems to be overly fond of.

Oh and those three starfleet officers that "went native"... One of them was called Sheridan. Was that supposed to be a Babylon 5 reference? If so, wouldn't Sinclair have been more appropriate?

Verdict:

I enjoyed the episode, but there are quite a few open questions and given Cryptic's track record, I wouldn't bet on them getting answered anytime soon, if at all. -.-

Oh, right... the other part of the question. Well, I'm not sure which one of my characters might use it, but right now I'm thinking about trying a full disruptor build (including this set) on a KDF veteran destroyer. See if I can get it to work with the disruptor lotus.



Feedback:

Okay, where do I begin...
sun, I'm not sure if the ship artists (or the concept artist who made those sketches) could answer your question. If I were you, I would probably try to ask CaptainGeko or the lead artist, Samuel Wall. Those two might have more of an insight into who came up with that idea and why.
And since we're talking about the contest... I get why you don't see the semblance between Echo and Ru'afo's "command ship", but use your favorite search engine (or ex-astris-scientia) to look for the Sona "battleship". Try to find a top (or bottom) view and then tell me how a vaguely crescent-shaped ship does not remind you of another vaguely crescent-shaped ship.

I think I will skip the rants of yesteryear ("hearts and minds", klingon marketing, ship "design" contest that does not have anything to do with actually "designing" a ship), because my opinions have not changed since then.

Now to something more serious: I know that there is an unofficial devtracker on twitter. I use it. I have linked it in twitch chat before. There is no link to it on the official forums. It has never been officially advertised. For me and some (most?) of your listeners, it exists, but for Joe Average? There is no official devtracker. This is not about me, this is about the minority of players that actually use the forums and making important communication more accessible to them.

About the anniversary infographic... I know simple minds like to look for simple answers, but there is no simple answer coming up, so doomsayers should just move along.

And now let's talk... when Stephen Ricossa said they didn't have the time to put together an infographic, you may take that at face value.
I follow other games. I flat-out said so. Considering my experiences with those other games I also hear in that statement that they didn't "take" the time.
See, if their numbers had doubled (an increase of 100%), they would have MADE time to publish an infographic or maybe even an official press release. It is unthinkable that they wouldn't brag about such a success. Even a 50% increase would have been phenomenal.
So when they "don't have the time", we can safely assume that their numbers weren't "good enough". Now, we could discuss until the end of eternity what "good enough" means. That's not the point.

The point is, you skip an infographic, you skip an opportunity to brag and that WILL give me pause. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. That's where a "state of the game" kind of blog might be helpful. Give us glimpses into the future. You will not win over doomsayers, but there are people who might be willing to listen. But I digress.
Some people will jump to "DOOM!", whereas I will start looking for more clues, because "not good enough" can mean very minor increase or stagnation or yes, it can also theoretically mean decline.
Getting an expansion is generally a fantastic sign, that expansion being rather light on content... less so.
Getting console versions is very good, but we went over a lot of missteps in the last few feedbacks.
That is why I look forward to the next anniversary. No matter what happens, that one will be a rather big clue.
See, saying "DOOM!" is easy. MMOs are complicated. But there are certain things that pretty much all companies do and you need to be aware of the "connotations" associated with them.

chozoelder2nd

I thought the episode was great. Obviously it's an episode and not a New Romulus or a massive gameplay system, but it really felt like Cryptic listened to those that have been yearning for something relating to exploration. I appreciate it.

The rewards are nice for freebies. I know I'll be using that Nausicaan disruptor console on that Kelvin KDF I've been working on, at least until I can get consoles that I favor more.


Feedback

Timber Wolf, bruh, it's totally fine to express your thoughts. If you're feeling bad for what you said, then you are a pretty chill person. There's a lot of toxic people online, but you and Sun definitely don't fall into that category. I wouldn't call what you said a rant, but more like you expressing your opinion in a completely a-okay manner. It's all good.

Just a minor FYI, Sun. You can be level 40 and still use T6 lockbox/lobi ships. I opened my D4x at 40.