Better late than never, it's time to start gathering your questions for another Ask Cryptic!
I hope you'll all forgive us for the delay, but we really wanted to get the F2P announcement out there before posting this, as we know that you all have loads of great questions for us!
So please, post your questions below, and we'll make sure you get some great answers!
Can you give us a couple of alien races that you would like to see added to the game as non player factions? Such as Talarians, more ferengi, or Sona. And are these things that we are most likely to see coming to us in a featured episode or a Season 6 "Expanding the Universe" type release?
What are your immediate/short-term plans for the Foundry? Us authors would love more assets, triggers, cut-scene tech and more, but we've seen nothing for a long time.
Also, will you be adding additional mission slots for Gold Members when F2P hits?
Finally, the F2P matrix feels a bit wonky...I feel that the Silver members are getting a lot of game for nothing...and those that pay or who are Lifetime Subscribers like myself are only getting some sort of point stipend.
Are you actually going to deliver new content to the subscriber base, prior to going to F2P? There were a lot of statements about new content post Season 4 and until the end of the year, which has just not happened.
Can you tell us more about these Borg Ground Invasions.
I saw the veteran rewards have been changed from every 100 days (post 500 days) to 750 and 1000. Is this accurate and does this mean those rewards will be extra nice to compensate for the longer gap?
The Borg space invasions have been really good, but they are a little repetitive. Any plans to mix them up a bit by adding different objectives or changing any part of them, to keep the play fresh? Any chance of having the Borg attack combat instances of space social zones like DS9 or ESD to provide a better backdrop than just space?
Question 1: With the acquisition by PW complete, What are the chances that the small fixes that people have been requesting such as Caitian hair, rescaled ship interiors etc. will be addressed?
Question 2: What is one thing that you are super excited that is coming up soon that you would like to share with us?
Has there been any progress toward selling account-wide Bridge Officer, Ship, Bank and Inventory slot unlocks on the C-Store? Perhaps in addition to the character-only unlocks currently available?
As there is very little to encourage a Silver player to buy additional character slots instead of rolling a new account; this could prove to be a nice little earner.
I really like the look of the TOS Constitution interior, so what new ship interior packs will we see in the future?
Will we see the ability to apply just the visual effect from a ship modifier?, I understand there may be PvP concerns, but the same could probably be said with the separation of kit and armor visual effects.
Will we see the separation of unique powers from existing T5 refits like the new ones are?
For us lifers, will we see the unique Borg visuals from the liberated Borg Human's / Klingon's made available to us in the alien creator?
I don't know if this idea has been discussed before, but I feel it makes a great question so here goes!
Holodecks are a standard feature aboard starships. Would it be possible to incorporate working holodecks into our starships? These holodecks could be used for social gathers, Foundry missions, or even... replaying episodes from the TV shows! Cryptic could set up holodeck programs to recreate some of the great episodes of Star Trek that players could experience without "messing with the timeline" or causing canon issues. Is such an addition like this possible? Would make for some GREAT content!
What does it mean that premium playable species are unlockable? does that mean we can unlock certain species through gameplay and not through the c-store? If so would you consider moving species around between default and premium? (such as moving Tellarites to default, it just seems wrong that one of the Founding Species is a premium race)
Will we get the new dilithium at a faster rate compared to the old currency to compensate for the fact that now people will no longer will be getting a free ship every time they level, and will be using this resource for more than just getting fancy new gear?
Will Klingon tricorders ever be fixed? Currently if i pick up all the anomalies i get no use towards finding objectives, many Klingon(a few fed, the rocky ones) ground maps still have buried anomalies that can not be picked up, but still show up on tricorders.
The last two big updates have made fabulous leaps for both Klingon play and ground actions. (Thank you) Will we now see a push to advance the benefits and organization of fleets and the advancement of Starbases for fleet interaction and functionality?
Are there any plans to allow us to use the visual effect from one ship item but having the stats from another?
For example, the look of the reman shield on a borg shield?
Any plans for allowing cross faction uniform,clothing to be obtainable in some way?
Any news, hints, etc about the skill tree revamp?
Any plans to allow for crafting our own items with the boni we choose? for example, [acc]x2 [crth] on a space weapon or a [spd]x3 hyper impulse drive?
Any plans for expanding the ships to allow more individual components, computer core, warpdrive, hull armor etc as its own slots?
Same for weapons, will we be able to build and customize our own weapons, like using the tryp3 phaser rifle as base, add a scope, etc etc
This is the second time I've ever asked some questions for the Ask Crypic thread, so here goes
1.Will we ever be able to visit the Starfleet Museum (as mentioned by Captain Picard in Relics), so we can see classic ships such as the Constitution class (maybe the Lexington?) or even the Enterprise NX-01, and let us visit the interiors, perhaps with different items on display in each room?. Or even visit the Phoenix from First Contact (where ever it is, back in it's silo at Montana?)
2. We have a briefing room in the TOS bridge pack, and we can visit the briefing room during the diplomatic missions, so is there any chance we can visit the same room when we visit our interiors when not in a mission? Maybe even let us display trophies, like we saw on the Enterprise-E in First Contact (and no, I don't want to smash the models like Captain Picard did)
3. Speaking of the Enterprise- E, if it is being decommissioned, why is this the case? There are still Miranda and Excelsior class ships in service, and they are alot older then the Sovereign class. If it has been destroyed, please don't kill Captain Data, as his return was a pleasant surprise in the STO/Countdown comic. Please either make him the commanding officer of the Enterprise-F, the commanding officer of another ship (another Odyssey class?) or promote him to Admiral, and have the Enterprise-F as his personal flagship (like Admiral Riker had the refit Enterprise-D in All Good Things)
4. Will we ever see more classes of shuttle for Starfleet, as either pets or flyable ships? Especially something like the Argo shuttle, or the type 11.
5. When Betazed becomes somewhere we can visit, will we be able to meet Barin Troi, Lwaxana Troi's son? Or even Lwaxana Troi herself?
Can we have more direct actions coming from our ships rather than travelling to the nearest starbase. Nothing major, simply alowing us to pilot shuttlecraft from our ships and general ship functions?
Also the Galaxy Dreadnought. The main weapon HAS to be fixed. Either increase its DPS or reduce its cooldown time. Make the ship worth owning.
The Free to Play Matrix and FAQ, along with posts made by Stormshade, have described how with the launch of Free to Play, Klingons will now be unlocked once a player has achieved level 25 as a Federation character. This has been explained as Cryptic's way of compensating for an underdeveloped faction while a new Klingon update is coming sometime down the line. This has many KDF players concerned.
My questions:
1) What, if anything, does Cryptic plan to do in order to incentivise new players to play a Klingon? A new STO player will have invested 25 levels of development and time in a Federation character, possibly joined a Federation fleet, and invested C-Store points into gear for their Federation character before they can even consider playing a Klingon. What will be done to encourage them to put aside that investment and try out Klingons?
2) Stormshade has acknowledged that this will be rough on the Klingon faction. There is already a dispartity of something like only 12% to 18% of players having a KDF character. Are you all not concerned that this plan will not create am even greater disparity?
3) With regards to the Klingon update coming that will restore the first 25 levels of Klingon play, what do you envision being in that update? A tutorial for Klingons? New Klingon missions? DSEs? Patrols?
4) What, if any, release of Klingon content can we expect while we are waiting for this Klingon update?
5) Finally, although you may not be ready to announce a date for the Klingon upate, what season do you envision launching it in? Five? Six? Something later?
EDIT: Since I posted this, Stormshade has posted saying that the Devs have not decided what level Klingon players would begin at after being unlocked. This seems to fly in the face of the professed desire to make the current amount of content fit 26 levels of gameplay and giving the Devs an opportunity to redesign the first 24-25 levels of play for Klingons. What would the justifiation be for starting Klingons at anything but Level 25 if you they have to level a Federation character to 25 in order to play a Klingon in the first place? If it is set any lower than that then the Klingon faction is being handicapped twice, one: because we have to wait for players to reach level 25 in order to start Klingons, and two: they would potentially have to start at a lower level and experience the content drought that this later unlock was designed to prevent.
1. I know youre really busy with all this new stuff coming up soon but what about bug fixes? Are there some guys working on that or is everyone busy with Doff, STF, F2P and so on? Dont wanna complain about the lack of pvp content again but bugs like disappearing buff/debuff icons in the buff bar are game breaking for this part of STO. So fixing that would be like a huge pvp update.
2. In several Release Notes we could read about known issues. Could there be a bigger part about that in the Engeneering Reports to let us know which bugs you are aware of? (not talking about every uniform texture but bugs like broken aft torpedo arc, empty reward boxes or the disappearing buff icons.)
1: Do you have a general idea of a time frame for bringing the Klingon Faction up to a point comparable to the Feds? Not equal but to a point that you are happy with it.
2: Before you mentioned more to do in social zones such as andoria or vulcan. Any details or thoughts for social zones?
With the F2P happening soon will Gold members get first access to weekly episodes and other similar content over Silver members when released to prevent possible server lag or crashes?
Will the Lifetime Subscription still be offered after the F2P launch? I have a fleetmate that wont be able to afford a lifetime until later this year and we are concerned that after F2P, that option might be taken away.
Comments
Servers, are we going to have enough servers to play the game once is goes F2P?
Also, will you be adding additional mission slots for Gold Members when F2P hits?
Finally, the F2P matrix feels a bit wonky...I feel that the Silver members are getting a lot of game for nothing...and those that pay or who are Lifetime Subscribers like myself are only getting some sort of point stipend.
Thank you!
Question 2. Can we get a Romulan Material skin for our ships? Something green and sexy to tide us over until "beyond season 5" gets here?
I saw the veteran rewards have been changed from every 100 days (post 500 days) to 750 and 1000. Is this accurate and does this mean those rewards will be extra nice to compensate for the longer gap?
The Borg space invasions have been really good, but they are a little repetitive. Any plans to mix them up a bit by adding different objectives or changing any part of them, to keep the play fresh? Any chance of having the Borg attack combat instances of space social zones like DS9 or ESD to provide a better backdrop than just space?
Question 2: What is one thing that you are super excited that is coming up soon that you would like to share with us?
As there is very little to encourage a Silver player to buy additional character slots instead of rolling a new account; this could prove to be a nice little earner.
We are scheduled to have one in October, but what is planned beyond that?
How many and how often?
How long a break between them?
2012 outlook for them?
Will we see the ability to apply just the visual effect from a ship modifier?, I understand there may be PvP concerns, but the same could probably be said with the separation of kit and armor visual effects.
Will we see the separation of unique powers from existing T5 refits like the new ones are?
For us lifers, will we see the unique Borg visuals from the liberated Borg Human's / Klingon's made available to us in the alien creator?
Holodecks are a standard feature aboard starships. Would it be possible to incorporate working holodecks into our starships? These holodecks could be used for social gathers, Foundry missions, or even... replaying episodes from the TV shows! Cryptic could set up holodeck programs to recreate some of the great episodes of Star Trek that players could experience without "messing with the timeline" or causing canon issues. Is such an addition like this possible? Would make for some GREAT content!
With all the schedule revisions due to the F2P changeover, are you still planing to do five (5) to nine (9) Featured Episode series a year for STO?
(You had stated the above when discussing what would be happening in STO post Season 4 Update launch)
Will we get the new dilithium at a faster rate compared to the old currency to compensate for the fact that now people will no longer will be getting a free ship every time they level, and will be using this resource for more than just getting fancy new gear?
For example, the look of the reman shield on a borg shield?
Any plans for allowing cross faction uniform,clothing to be obtainable in some way?
Any news, hints, etc about the skill tree revamp?
Any plans to allow for crafting our own items with the boni we choose? for example, [acc]x2 [crth] on a space weapon or a [spd]x3 hyper impulse drive?
Any plans for expanding the ships to allow more individual components, computer core, warpdrive, hull armor etc as its own slots?
Same for weapons, will we be able to build and customize our own weapons, like using the tryp3 phaser rifle as base, add a scope, etc etc
1.Will we ever be able to visit the Starfleet Museum (as mentioned by Captain Picard in Relics), so we can see classic ships such as the Constitution class (maybe the Lexington?) or even the Enterprise NX-01, and let us visit the interiors, perhaps with different items on display in each room?. Or even visit the Phoenix from First Contact (where ever it is, back in it's silo at Montana?)
2. We have a briefing room in the TOS bridge pack, and we can visit the briefing room during the diplomatic missions, so is there any chance we can visit the same room when we visit our interiors when not in a mission? Maybe even let us display trophies, like we saw on the Enterprise-E in First Contact (and no, I don't want to smash the models like Captain Picard did)
3. Speaking of the Enterprise- E, if it is being decommissioned, why is this the case? There are still Miranda and Excelsior class ships in service, and they are alot older then the Sovereign class. If it has been destroyed, please don't kill Captain Data, as his return was a pleasant surprise in the STO/Countdown comic. Please either make him the commanding officer of the Enterprise-F, the commanding officer of another ship (another Odyssey class?) or promote him to Admiral, and have the Enterprise-F as his personal flagship (like Admiral Riker had the refit Enterprise-D in All Good Things)
4. Will we ever see more classes of shuttle for Starfleet, as either pets or flyable ships? Especially something like the Argo shuttle, or the type 11.
5. When Betazed becomes somewhere we can visit, will we be able to meet Barin Troi, Lwaxana Troi's son? Or even Lwaxana Troi herself?
Thankyou.
<--- Points at Captain Klaa from STV
Also the Galaxy Dreadnought. The main weapon HAS to be fixed. Either increase its DPS or reduce its cooldown time. Make the ship worth owning.
My questions:
1) What, if anything, does Cryptic plan to do in order to incentivise new players to play a Klingon? A new STO player will have invested 25 levels of development and time in a Federation character, possibly joined a Federation fleet, and invested C-Store points into gear for their Federation character before they can even consider playing a Klingon. What will be done to encourage them to put aside that investment and try out Klingons?
2) Stormshade has acknowledged that this will be rough on the Klingon faction. There is already a dispartity of something like only 12% to 18% of players having a KDF character. Are you all not concerned that this plan will not create am even greater disparity?
3) With regards to the Klingon update coming that will restore the first 25 levels of Klingon play, what do you envision being in that update? A tutorial for Klingons? New Klingon missions? DSEs? Patrols?
4) What, if any, release of Klingon content can we expect while we are waiting for this Klingon update?
5) Finally, although you may not be ready to announce a date for the Klingon upate, what season do you envision launching it in? Five? Six? Something later?
EDIT: Since I posted this, Stormshade has posted saying that the Devs have not decided what level Klingon players would begin at after being unlocked. This seems to fly in the face of the professed desire to make the current amount of content fit 26 levels of gameplay and giving the Devs an opportunity to redesign the first 24-25 levels of play for Klingons. What would the justifiation be for starting Klingons at anything but Level 25 if you they have to level a Federation character to 25 in order to play a Klingon in the first place? If it is set any lower than that then the Klingon faction is being handicapped twice, one: because we have to wait for players to reach level 25 in order to start Klingons, and two: they would potentially have to start at a lower level and experience the content drought that this later unlock was designed to prevent.
2. In several Release Notes we could read about known issues. Could there be a bigger part about that in the Engeneering Reports to let us know which bugs you are aware of? (not talking about every uniform texture but bugs like broken aft torpedo arc, empty reward boxes or the disappearing buff icons.)
1: Do you have a general idea of a time frame for bringing the Klingon Faction up to a point comparable to the Feds? Not equal but to a point that you are happy with it.
2: Before you mentioned more to do in social zones such as andoria or vulcan. Any details or thoughts for social zones?
2. How will this new F2P model affect monthly subscribers?
The Doff System, new FE or F2P?