[PODCAST] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 272: Looking To The Future

midniteshadow7

Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 272: "Looking To The Future" has warped on to Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from: http://holosuitemedia.com/tie272/

This week we are joined by Marc Zicree, a science fiction author, television writer and screenwriter – who joins us to talk about his new project Space Command: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/58936338/space-command-redemption

Marc Zicree has written and produced hundreds of hours of TV programs and worked for virtually all the major studios and networks. His credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Twilight Zone, Babylon 5, and many more and he’s the author of The Twilight Zone Companion.

After our interview with Marc, we look at the recent news and updates from Star Trek Online (0:31:44) before moving on to our thoughts on Star Trek: Discovery (1:03:10).

alex1ger

Hello there, tribbles.

Uhm... I sent you an e-mail with my feedback for episode 270 some time ago and I'm afraid I might have to send another e-mail with feedback concerning episode 271. sun's rant was... let's just say she just had to open a can of worms and then there were other things that happened and now an epic... I don't even know if I should call it STOrytime... is in the making. I'll have to talk about business models/practices, communication/engagement with your customers, "bang for the buck" and I mentioned a long time ago that I wanted to talk about game design/development.
I do not look forward to that e-mail. -.-

On a side note... I was happy to hear geez and dragon return. I hope they (as well as stoo, zombee and timber) manage to show up again every now and then. I hope I didn't forget anyone. Apart from that episode 271 had quite a few funny moments, but I'll include the rest of my feedback in the e-mail.



Endeavor:

So uhm... I don't know if you've noticed it but there was a problem with this weekend's endeavor. It was supposed to be "finish a foundry mission" but since the foundry is down... yeah. So according to Kael on reddit they tried to see if they could enable the foundry or replace the endeavor. To the surprise of probably no-one it ended up being the latter. You "might" want to applaud them for this kind of quick solution.
I don't. Why? Well, where do I even begin?

First, it was NOT the first time there were issues with an endeavor.
Second, when the endeavor system was launched one of the devs said (on the "Ten Forward Weekly" stream) that it's not a random system. It's on a fixed schedule.

So whenever an endeavor goes wrong it is because they couldn't be bothered to have QA... well... "assure the quality" of their customers' endeavor experience in advance. They KNOW what is coming up and they still managed to run head-first into these issues. The fact that this system is based on a fixed schedule makes any issue all the more embarrassing. There is simply no excuse for letting a buggy (or impossible-to-complete) endeavor go live. None at all. And it's even worse that this stuff happened more than once already.
Wait, I know what MidNite is going to say... bugs happen. And that's correct. So let me make it abundantly clear what's the issue here. It's not a bug in the endeavor system. It is the fact that an endeavor (remember they are on a fixed schedule...) sends you to do buggy content and/or things that "should" complete the endeavor don't work because they have been hooked up incorrectly. All of which could have been avoided if the content in question had been properly tested before the endeavor sends you to do said content.

Cryptic has a QA team. They need to let them do their jobs! If there are not enough of them, they should rethink their priorities and/or hire more people!
But I'm starting to get into business practices and I wanted to save that for the upcoming e-mail so... yeah...



Feedback:

I liked the interview. I had not heard about Space Command before and I have to say this project has a bunch of big names attached to it. I am genuinely impressed. The ship itself... MidNite saw similarities to Battlestar Galactica's vipers and I can kinda see that. I also see some similarities to Mass Effect's Normandy or maybe some jet fighter from... uhm... the 50's/60's.

You know... I think I'll end my feedback early. 'til we meet again.