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The End of Gateway

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  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,342 Arc User
    rattler2 wrote: »
    Point 1 - they said here, in the CM's post that they do not intend to start from scratch. No replacement is anticipated. Since things that are pulled for officially announced "rework" don't come back, not anticipated means no replacement.

    I made that point as a possibility. Not absolute fact. You never know.
    Point 2 - If you never used it to compare builds, then you aren't a voice of expertise in working with the tool. It worked splendidly, pre-DR. Also, Fleet Donations and Fleet management worked OK enough, pre-DR. Finally, it was one of the only ways to look at accolades, as the in game UI is an absolute mess. In the Gateway, they all had nice icons. Not like they've added support for trophy rooms on our ships lately, have they?

    I wasn't a high enough rank in my fleet to do fleet management, so that option wasn't available. I found the interface rather clunky.

    Frankly we haven't gotten any new accolade trophies for a long time. And how long has it been since Delta Rising? All my experience has been post-DR.
    Finally - I don't think the common thread in this thread is pitchforks over the removal of the Gateway in its current state. The general trend I am seeing is upset over Cryptic's pinning the blame on the playerbase for its lack of use. The thing needed to be put out of its misery, but they should be owning up to why. Hint - it has nothing to do with the playerbase.

    The way I see it, it was a half finished resource that was not updated. People wanted it for DOff assignments and Admiralty... and we hear stories of how Neverwinter's Gateway was exploited via bots. The whole thing honestly was a mess. Player or Cryptic... doesn't really matter in the long run. Could be Cryptic for not streamlining it, which in turn meant players didn't use it.
    *shrug*


    This is purely blame at Cryptic's door, again! Just like the Sub Nuc issue. It's Cryptic not engaging with it's players over a major revamp/removal. Cryptic, as others mentioned, practically abandoned Gateway months after inception, missing out on an opportunity for players to be able to do things STO whilst away from their computers. Doffing is time consuming enough as it is, and being able to do it through-out the day on our phones would be a massive draw for alot of people. If they are that concerned about botting, they can prevent it easy enough.

    I'm going away for a long need trip in a few months, and was going to be using Gateway to sort out the fleet whilst away as I won't be taking my laptop. Now I'm going to have to see if someone will volunteer to slot projects sensibly, as I handle all Fleet admin normally with the fleet being a casual fleet.

    Again, bad Cryptic.....bad, bad Cryptic!!

    @ambassadorkael#6946 Please, please ask the Dev's to reconsider!
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
  • lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    Did they kill it one day early? I'm not getting the e-mail with the "one-time code". Quotes because every time Chrome updates, it thinks it's the first time you log in.
  • lordgyorlordgyor Member Posts: 2,820 Arc User
    "More like never garnered enough support to warrant further interest.

    Excellent business decision to completely ignore the mobile market. Keep up the good work guys."


    This, so much this, Gateway could have been an awesome app, where you could have done doffing and admirality and other mobile mini games to interact with the STO universe, exploiting the mobile market, but you let that slip through your fingers. Wasted opportunity.
  • darthgreaterdarthgreater Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    Really saw nothing to do in there other than just look at what your characters have. So with no real function, why is Cryptic surprised it didn't catch on. Mass Effect Andromeda has a mobile app that you can do their version of DOFFing in it by sending out you strike teams and completing the missions.

    Cryptic made a nod to MEA with the free Andromeda ship the day they released the game. They should also look to see what Bioware did with the app and it is like Bioware devs were looking what was being requested as features for the Gateway that Cryptic ignored.
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    Really saw nothing to do in there other than just look at what your characters have. So with no real function, why is Cryptic surprised it didn't catch on. Mass Effect Andromeda has a mobile app that you can do their version of DOFFing in it by sending out you strike teams and completing the missions.

    Putting a ship on sale doesn't take the same level of investment as mobile app development for a team of ~40 people, interfacing with a game whose development (Cryptic side) began only a few months after the release of the first iPhone (it's probably safe to say that STO wasn't built with this kind of thing in mind), whose primary effect would be to reduce pressure for players to get back in game, and would in no way tap new customers (companion apps don't help non-players.)

    It's pretty understandable why Cryptic doesn't want to pursue these kinds of projects. An STO app would be nice, but it ain't a priority.
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  • darthgreaterdarthgreater Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    Really saw nothing to do in there other than just look at what your characters have. So with no real function, why is Cryptic surprised it didn't catch on. Mass Effect Andromeda has a mobile app that you can do their version of DOFFing in it by sending out you strike teams and completing the missions.

    Putting a ship on sale doesn't take the same level of investment as mobile app development for a team of ~40 people, interfacing with a game whose development (Cryptic side) began only a few months after the release of the first iPhone (it's probably safe to say that STO wasn't built with this kind of thing in mind), whose primary effect would be to reduce pressure for players to get back in game, and would in no way tap new customers (companion apps don't help non-players.)

    It's pretty understandable why Cryptic doesn't want to pursue these kinds of projects. An STO app would be nice, but it ain't a priority.

    The reason Cryptic is giving is "not enough interest" by us players. I am saying why there was no interest. They should just say they don't have the manpower to do it but the "not enough interest" is almost like the United CEO trying to blame the guy dragged out for the incident.
  • gagocashgagocash Member Posts: 150 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    It's a shame. the gateway had so much potential, but the developers never really bothered to finish the feature.

    they could have added doffing and admiralty to the gateway and also a feature to check your player stats and achievements, or just change your traits or your spezialisation and customize your ship and player loadout or costume or catch up on the latest sto news and videos. so many possibilities and nothing of it was used.

    or just see how your friends and fleet mates are doing or if they are online and playing.

    but guess what, they are only good in copy and pasting another lockbox ship.
    c'mon i want my 15 console slots capx10 shields borg cube with 10 x tripple antiphaserproton threesixty torps and superduper xyz threesixty allaround tripplebeams.
    M.A.C.O. ELITE COMMANDER & KIRK'S PROTEGE
  • lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    They should just say they don't have the manpower to do it but the "not enough interest" is almost like the United CEO trying to blame the guy dragged out for the incident.

    If they had the manpower, they would have time for a lot of things they put off for years.

    Examples:
    - Doff assignment crits/success mechanic - Borticus knows it's broken, but not enough time to fix since they have to do it one by one.
    - PvP revamp - Promised since way back in the dark ages. Took what, 6 years to get to?
    - Bug fixing - Since December, they've just been dealing with the major ones because there just doesn't seem to be time given the ground and space mechanics revamp.


  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    lucho80 wrote: »
    Did they kill it one day early? I'm not getting the e-mail with the "one-time code". Quotes because every time Chrome updates, it thinks it's the first time you log in.
    Nah, their thing forgets your computer pretty much every time.
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  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,279 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    i don't think they killed it at all...i just logged into it

    unless they're planning to do it in the evening​​
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  • lordmalak1lordmalak1 Member Posts: 4,681 Arc User
    ROFL, "the system never garnered enough interest to warrant further support" sounds so much like the argument against creating more KDF ships and content.
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  • megacharge07megacharge07 Member Posts: 476 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    [quote="dkeith2011;c-13196000"]

    [b]More like never garnered enough support to warrant further interest.[/b]

    [i]Excellent business decision to completely ignore the mobile market. Keep up the good work guys.[/i][/quote]

    Exactly this.
    tumblr_mt0cmzAQpC1rm3hhlo2_500.gif
  • doctordnadoctordna Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    Keeping sto from becoming bot-riddled via the gateway was a good call.

    Its not hypothetical it happened in their other game.

    If you believe that, you also believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. They shutdown the gateway claiming botters were using it. They never claimed it was used to bot the game itself. No it wasn't botting, people who had cell phones were using it at work and school to do their professions (crafting) for free. They pulled the NW gateway to force players back online, simply that and nothing more. When I left NW 8 or 9 months ago, they still had botters running spam ads in chat and botting all the dungeons. You would cue up a 3 man PUG and at least one was a bot that just followed us through to get the prize. They shut down the dungeons for more than a year in 2015 and some dungeons never returned. They shutdown the Foundry, I hear it has been out for "repairs" for 6 months or so. I moved on to play Black Desert but when I was about to return they announced the upgrade that eliminated me from returning. So I stayed out. They sent me a code for free merchandise. I gave their code to friend who still plays but he couldn't use it (locked to my account). If they really wanted me to stick around, and spend my cash, I would say start by rolling back all the stupid changes since April 2015 would be a good start.

    It makes no never mind to me how they kill their games and this non-feature of a gateway may not be important to anyone. Next they will kill the Foundry, then make some more dumb changes in the future. It is my opinion, their ambition is to push you into playing via game consoles. Both STO and NW are available on the XB1 and PS4. If you can't shell out the cash for a console, they don't want you in their "free" game.
  • allurahunterallurahunter Member Posts: 18 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    You know, I had always thought they invented the Foundry to help get support from players to make missions and to help make STO more interesting.

    Why couldnt they ask for player support again to redo the Gateway, or at least make a good app that did the same functions that Gateway was supposed to do in the first place?
  • jtfrost1jtfrost1 Member Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    Please Don't shut down the gateway...I mean what does it take just to keep it running? And how else can I evaluate new fleet members and how much help they really need? What really frustrates me is when others don't realize when their hidden from it. Not everyone judges. Some just want to know how to better quip them.

    Some pvp heads like to show off their builds while others prefer to hide their exploits.

    It's also better at sorting the columns of fleet rosters
  • mattbzhmattbzh Member Posts: 10 Arc User
    Being a sort of WoW veteran (I guess 7 years in game gives you that kind of "title") I was hoping that the gateway was some kind of WoW armory (and it should have been!): A place where not only I could see my toons and ships (and not just the current one but the whole roster including drydocks), monitore my tokens monneys and such, see achievements and commandations (well that was in) and most of all, compare all of this with other players...
    We have no way (that I know of) of seeing the other players' ground and ship gear (which can be good to learn how to build a ship, what ground set can exist) or even compare progress in the game.
    It would be nice if when we click on player's info in the game we could see that kind of information. Thegateway could have been a great place to put all that as well. But since cryptic did fuckall with that feature, players indeed lost interest and it died.
    They're not wrong when they say " the system never garnered enough interest to warrant further support ", but it is entirely their fault.

    What a shame.
  • aoav160aoav160 Member Posts: 443 Arc User
    Considering the quality of management at cryptic I am sure we can expect more features to disappear.
  • iosysiosys Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited May 2017
    Gosh, never support a feature and then turn it off instead of updating it, why don't ya'! It was a wonderful feature for fleet managers - It allowed us to programmatically, and otherwise, retrieve information on fleet members, contribute to projects while away and review potential armada fleets. Although I typically used it for fleet related activities, it was useful for the standard player as well (well, that is until it became so terribly outdated that it was largely unusable). It allowed everyone to be able to view their statistics out of game, share them with others easily and, heck, show other folks what they might be missing when you're on-the-go.

    I would say that I'll miss the feature, but I'm leaving the game anyway. While I think this is a bad move, I can't say that it isn't exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from this team. I've been playing since the beginning, am a die-hard Trekkie and have a lifetime membership, but this game has strayed so far from canon that it doesn't give me my Trek fix anymore and, to-boot, I've grown tired of the move towards a habitual play-model instead of one I feel happy to sit down to. With every release, more bugs go unfixed, more useless cash-grab content is added and more grind-inducing options added (and, apparently, they've added "remove useful features" to their repertoire).

    [Warning: Belligerent Rant]: Why the heck is the column sorting still not working on the variable column in the fleet roster tab after seven years? Why?! Why, when the majority of fleets promote based on fleet credits earned, is there still no automated promotion feature (I'm tired of logging into the game every day)?! Why does the UI still have issues with 2D image rendering and scaling?! WHY?! Why is the Foundry still in beta?! WHY?! Why is my ship's view-screen still only a bitmap?! Why can't I freely exchange dilithium between characters instead of positing nonsense transactions and then withdrawing them?! Why do you want me to have the same relationship with this game that a crack-head does with their stash? I already have a job, thank you.

    My belligerent rant took the wind out of me. I think I'm done.
  • hfmuddhfmudd Member Posts: 881 Arc User
    I believe the traditional thing at this point is to ask for your stuff.
    Join Date: January 2011
  • gonaliusgonalius Member Posts: 893 Arc User
    The only thing I used the gateway for - And pretty much the only thing it did reliably, was as a medals page. It was pretty amusing to see the various medals for achievements that you'd earned. I'll miss that, though I only accessed it a few times over the years.
  • mattachinemattachine Member Posts: 504 Arc User
    Sadly an other great but poorly developed (neglected) feature gone. It was to be expected after they killed the Neverwinter gateway. But in all honestly, very many poor decisions has been made about the Gateways leading to them being killed off. There are ways to make an integrated gateway for out of game mobile features that add to the value of the game and the shareholders. While still keeping the botters/goldspammers at bay. But as many say, there are always ways to get rid of something. Neglect is one. Then when usage plummet they kill it and say that is the reason. Same thing will happen to the Foundry I suspect.

    Instead of investing resources in to making the Foundry a key part of the game economy, that with each game expansion would get all the new resources from the previous expansion added to it. That way the new expansions would still have all the shiny stuff but the Foundry would keep on evolving, creating more and more content that the company haven't had to pay an employee to make. The same would of course be true of the Foundry for Neverwinter and Champions too. No wait, there isn't a Foundry available for the game that the whole game engine that Star Trek Online and Neverwinter Online is built around. It's just a superhero game, no users would be interested in making superhero missions and share them with others, someone at the company must have said. As it makes no sense that there is no Foundry for that game.

    Just as it makes no sense that the text chat and voice chat isn't developed more. Sure you can create a custom chat channel. It is even accessible from different factions and all three games as well. That is great! Love that. But why does it not support voice chat. When there are other channels, that the company made, that has that. Such as the Team/Party channel. And while I can understand that there has to be a lot involved in making it possible for players from different gaming platforms to play together, it would be much easier to tie the chat (including voice chat) together so we at least could communicate with each other.

    But back to the Gateways, they were great. The ability to run browser based missions using your pets (boffs/doffs/admirality ships/companions/sidekicks) as well as tending to your crew skill and training, fleet/guild/supergroup management, accessing your mail, sort out your inventory, crafting, having your combat logs analyzed to find ways to improve and much more. All of which are possible to do without making it exploitable by bots. If the company and shareholders cared, that is. :p

  • gethralkin1gethralkin1 Member Posts: 108 Arc User
    Ambassador Kael,

    I agree with comments that it is insulting to blame the community for the removal of the Gateway.

    The community has no responsibility or ability to maintain the upkeep or functionality of the app, so it isn't because of the lack of use by the community that has relegated it to the ax.

    I personally used the Gateway on a tablet to keep track of things while playing the game on PC, and it added an immersive quality to game play. It also was handy for showing other gamers, when I was out and about, what STO ships and characters were like, thus getting them interested in the game (so it had promotional value).

    If we, as a community, were solicited for suggestions to make Gateway better and more relevant to the game in general, and then failed to give our voice in the matter, then we would be at fault for Gateway not moving forward. However, this has nothing to do with the community, but has everything to do with getting rid of something that would take more time and resources than it is worth to further develop.

    It would not insult our intelligence to just say so. It would let us know that focus and efforts are being directed to more important aspects of game developing. Better that than shift blame to the player base, which it seems that Cryptic is doing by this announcement.

    However, I do not agree with comments directed toward you personally. You are doing a great job in keeping us informed, and are merely passing along a memo handed to you by the company that you are the face of.

    To the rest of the forum community: That is what being a Community Manager is all about. They are the whipping boys, the heralds, the harbingers that are merely given the memos to disseminate to us. They are not invoking their opinions in the matter, but merely stating what they have been told to relay to us.
  • lordgyorlordgyor Member Posts: 2,820 Arc User
    I would have used it more if it had actually worked right. I tried donating to fleet holding using it and out of the countless attempts it worked once, that's it.

    What a huge waste of an opportunity.

    If Cryptic couldn't manage it in company, they should have farmed it out to a mobile developer like Beam Dog.
  • kaspa000kaspa000 Member Posts: 45 Arc User
    Sad to see this feature gone. I really enjoyed using it. :)
    Who made the pool yellow? :confused:
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