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Season 5 Dev Diary #1

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited December 2011 in Galactic News Network [PC]
Stephen recaps all of the updates coming to Holodeck, and announces a name for Season 5 in the first installment of the Season 5 News Dev Blog series.

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Post edited by Unknown User on
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I never thought I'd see the day where you'd actually roll up the F2P changes and actually call it Season 5. :eek:

    I suppose next you'll tell us there were two major Seasons released in 2011. Sir, I think we've encountered a "reality distortion field".

    I get taking credit for your work but come on.

    Meanwhile, nothing on that conversion...and no post-conversion previews...we haven't forgotten...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    So not going with S4.1, eh? Right to S5? Okaaay....

    It's interesting to "hear" the PR-spin on the "Tribble F2P Build".

    A Call to Arms? Really? That's what you're going with?

    Meh... I'm whelmed. :(

    Edit: Oh, and First! :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    And thus our existing concerns are???????

    I am sorry, but there are many concerns we have that remain ignored some movement has been made on some issues, however. I think there does need to be some dev-player discussion about what you guys can live with and what we will continue paying for.

    You know a resolution is successful when both parties are not the happiest with the solution but can live with it.

    I still don't think this build is ready given the concerns the playerbas has:
    • Dilithium tax and loss on conversion
    • Additional currencies replacing older ones
    • Exploration is in a shambles and now useless to do more than three missions in, not to mention aid missions.
    • What happened to DSEs? Are they getting a facelift?
    • Illogical placement of the FEs in the interwoven story.
    • Finalizing the mission veteran rewards
    • The utter wreck that the meager crafting system is now in.
    • Still the lack of anything additional to do on the Klingon side.
    • The additional burden of carrying the new currencies in our inventories.
    • The removal of ship interior functionality (at least half of it...yes we can say that).

    Those are just off the top of my head. What are the "plans" for these?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Battlestar Galactica ended after 4 great seasons, Lost after 6. Should i be worried? :(

    While i can't wait for everything to go live and i appreciate everything you've all done, i'm a little :eek: at the sudden and early jump to Season 5. 4.1 indeed makes more sense, or at least call it maybe what it is, a mid-season break and 4.5
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Faster Leveling – The leveling curve has been adjusted through the game, particularly at the earlier levels.

    Ummmm, are you f**king kidding me? This game is already easy enough to level up in! Why make it easier? You should make it a little more challenging at least AND be adding content, featured episodes, more missions..... Seriously you guys. It's as if you all are enjoying this content drought. Sure the defera Borg mission might be fun for some, but come on!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Tighter Klingon Storyline – The Klingon game play was tightened up to play starting at level 21, so that the whole experience for Klingon play is improved.

    That is so awsome I am going to make this my sig from now all.
    My goodness has it improved the KDF.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    That is Season 5? :confused:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Funny - no mention that the MAJORITY of this was supposed to be released DURING (IE as a part of)Season 4. I also love how the Federation Star Fleet Academy zone is somehow a 'new' map of Season 5 even though it was released during the first few days of Season 4.

    Go go Cryptic spin machine. (Marcom did a masterful write up fior Mr. Stephen D'Angelo.)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I'm a bit confused about the faster leveling as well. I thought it was faster only because it was to allow testing on Tribble. Keeping it at that pace is a bit too fast. I thought the idea was to 'slow the game down'. I made VA before even finishing the Romulan story arc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    So...I guess Season 4 "the Season of the Klingon Empire" is over...?
    So much for all the promises of more missions...*sigh*
    Oh, wait...it was more "content" wasn't it...that must of meant the new look of Qonos...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Honestly I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

    Faster leveling? Yeah that's totally needed. :rolleyes:
    Tighter Klingon play? Once again Klingons are tightening their belts if that's what you mean.
    General Game Polish. It's good that we get bug fixes in lump sums at season releases. Some other games release them as regular patches. Foolish them. :rolleyes:

    Don't get me wrong. I love this game and appreciate all the work Cryptic devs have put into it. But to take promised Season 4 content and slap a new Season 5 face on it is ludicrous.

    So Season 4 was shooter mode and...

    Yeah. Good work, but don't feel like you've accomplished something great here. I for one see you as a Season behind the times.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    So...I guess Season 4 "the Season of the Klingon Empire" is over...?
    So much for all the promises of more missions...*sigh*
    Oh, wait...it was more "content" wasn't it...that must of meant the new look of Qonos...

    Cryptic thinks empty zones are content.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    wow....... just wow. kinda reminds me of that peanut said of santa ana.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    This is all stuff that was promised for season 4. If this is going to be season 5 then 4 was a complete failure and 5 is not looking good. Lack of content for over a year now!!!! :mad:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Soon (after the Tribble push to Holodeck in December), many hundreds of players will be posting about how much they love the Duty Officer System, about how much they hate the new signs in ESD and asking, what happened to Season 4.1?

    Are well, it's nothing but a change of name for a content push... Got my fingers crossed for Fleet Starbases still being in the pipeline for Season 6, formally known as Season 5.

    Plenty more testing to be done after this December push, let's just hope the final patch to Tribble doesn't include any new bugs that mess everything up.

    /Boldly going to test some more stuff.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Honestly I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

    Faster leveling? Yeah that's totally needed. :rolleyes:
    Tighter Klingon play? Once again Klingons are tightening their belts if that's what you mean.
    General Game Polish. It's good that we get bug fixes in lump sums at season releases. Some other games release them as regular patches. Foolish them. :rolleyes:

    Don't get me wrong. I love this game and appreciate all the work Cryptic devs have put into it. But to take promised Season 4 content and slap a new Season 5 face on it is ludicrous.

    So Season 4 was shooter mode and...

    Yeah. Good work, but don't feel like you've accomplished something great here. I for one see you as a Season behind the times.
    I was just going to comment on how faster leveling is a good thing?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I really were surprised when I saw that F2P was going to be labelled season 5. But it fits the pattern of one season at each 6 months (roughly). Also, officially makes Season 4 a fail. I was going to say a complete fail, but on season 4 they added a much needed revamp on ground combat. Even if you don't use the shooter mode, ground combat is better now

    About all the new things that it is being launched with "season 5". Well, there is a lot of good things, that has the potential to make the game awesome. Unfortunately, it is shadowed for some bad things, like Dilithium eveywhere and a lot of other problems that people are complaining a lot. So on my opinion, this makes a neutral release that makes the game becomes just good, as it is now (the game is good by now on my opinion. It just isn't awesome. It would become awesome with some changes that is on tribble. But the bad changes that are coming together just neutralizes it).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    JKOgden wrote: »
    I was just going to comment on how faster leveling is a good thing?

    Sarcasm dude. Hence the eyeroll smiley. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    How can this be called season 5 ??
    Obviously it can be , but who are you trying to kid here. The only people who know or care what season it's called are those already playing the game. F2P players don't care so why oh why would you try to pass this of to the established player base as season 5 ?? In order to get the new players all you had to do was call it Star Trek Online A Call To Arms. That would have been fine. But to call it Season 5 feels like your throwing this back in our faces.
    We all know that alot of this content was supposed to be introduced during season 4 with season 5 being focased on Fleets and the possibility of getting the exploration revamp. So i ask again who are trying to kid.
    It may not seem like a big deal cause the old season 5 will now be called season 6, but it's wrong on alot of levels.


    This is my own personal opinion and maybe i'm wrong to feel lke this, but the way this announcement has come accross has really shocked me. This is not a season update. This is the game going free to play with season 4 content.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I really were surprised when I saw that F2P was going to be labelled season 5. But it fits the pattern of one season at each 6 months (roughly). Also, officially makes Season 4 a fail. I was going to say a complete fail, but on season 4 they added a much needed revamp on ground combat. Even if you don't use the shooter mode, ground combat is better now

    About all the new things that it is being launched with "season 5". Well, there is a lot of good things, that has the potential to make the game awesome. Unfortunately, it is shadowed for some bad things, like Dilithium eveywhere and a lot of other problems that people are complaining a lot. So on my opinion, this makes a neutral release that makes the game becomes just good, as it is now (the game is good by now on my opinion. It just isn't awesome. It would become awesome with some changes that is on tribble. But the bad changes that are coming together just neutralizes it).

    I've seen saying for awhile that I thought F2P should be called Season 5. Whenever I said that, some folks would say, "That makes Season 4 a failure then." To which my reply was... and remains... that it's better to lump the dark period of drought into Season 4, declare that era over, embrace it as a tumultuous and frustrating era of the game's history, and acknowledge that it's over.

    In any case, seasons are not tied to content and a "season" as Cryptic defines it, is a big patch with major new features. I think that's what this coming patch IS and to call it anything but a "season" patch would just be trying to make up for season 4 instead of moving forward.

    If ANY big patch isn't called a "season", you might as well just hold off on calling something a "season" update until the playerbase is largely happy, just so you can artificially declare every season a success. When, in reality, every clump of features really deserves the "season" moniker, whether or not everyone loves it or it contains new content.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I really were surprised when I saw that F2P was going to be labelled season 5. But it fits the pattern of one season at each 6 months (roughly). Also, officially makes Season 4 a fail. I was going to say a complete fail, but on season 4 they added a much needed revamp on ground combat. Even if you don't use the shooter mode, ground combat is better now

    About all the new things that it is being launched with "season 5". Well, there is a lot of good things, that has the potential to make the game awesome. Unfortunately, it is shadowed for some bad things, like Dilithium eveywhere and a lot of other problems that people are complaining a lot. So on my opinion, this makes a neutral release that makes the game becomes just good, as it is now (the game is good by now on my opinion. It just isn't awesome. It would become awesome with some changes that is on tribble. But the bad changes that are coming together just neutralizes it).

    Most of the stuff added was back-end stuff which is stuff to be updated on a routeing bases. anyway The way I see it is a season should be like an expatiation pack not a batch of patches to fix things at most this is season 4.5 and that's me being generous.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Sarcasm dude. Hence the eyeroll smiley. :)
    Sorry, I meant my comment as a sarcastic one towards the blog posting and agreeing with you.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    "Dilithium adds value to players at all levels from the early game onward. It replaces many of the narrow use currencies previously in the game, such as Marks, Emblems, Badges, and Merit."

    That made me laugh. I'm being taxed practically 50% of my earnings across my account without including the vendor price hike. How is this adding value? In some ways I'm better off with my emblems for endgame stuff and the rest of the currencies for buying low end loot for new characters later or put on the exchange for EC.

    True I get more dilithium if I lumped all my assets in to endgame currency but I stand to lose so much in the process. This quite simply isn't adding value this is basic maths and even without the formula I can work out I'm losing value do I really need to do maths 101?

    I'm not even going to comment on the rest of the blog I'm sure the rest of the community will cover it in enough detail.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I've seen saying for awhile that I thought F2P should be called Season 5. Whenever I said that, some folks would say, "That makes Season 4 a failure then." To which my reply was... and remains... that it's better to lump the dark period of drought into Season 4, declare that era over, embrace it as a tumultuous and frustrating era of the game's history, and acknowledge that it's over.

    In any case, seasons are not tied to content and a "season" as Cryptic defines it, is a big patch with major new features. I think that's what this coming patch IS and to call it anything but a "season" patch would just be trying to make up for season 4 instead of moving forward.

    If ANY big patch isn't called a "season", you might as well just hold off on calling something a "season" update until the playerbase is largely happy, just so you can artificially declare every season a success. When, in reality, every clump of features really deserves the "season" moniker, whether or not everyone loves it or it contains new content.

    If crypitc defines it that way where are all the major new features? The DOFF system another borg thing. Oh big woop! that like I said is stuff that was promised before the season 4 launch for season 4. The Champs team does a better job of season launches then this !
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Wasn't there supposed to be a FE series in season 4?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Wasn't there supposed to be a FE series in season 4?

    Yes there was! but never happened. :eek:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I've seen saying for awhile that I thought F2P should be called Season 5. Whenever I said that, some folks would say, "That makes Season 4 a failure then." To which my reply was... and remains... that it's better to lump the dark period of drought into Season 4, declare that era over, embrace it as a tumultuous and frustrating era of the game's history, and acknowledge that it's over.

    In any case, seasons are not tied to content and a "season" as Cryptic defines it, is a big patch with major new features. I think that's what this coming patch IS and to call it anything but a "season" patch would just be trying to make up for season 4 instead of moving forward.

    If ANY big patch isn't called a "season", you might as well just hold off on calling something a "season" update until the playerbase is largely happy, just so you can artificially declare every season a success. When, in reality, every clump of features really deserves the "season" moniker, whether or not everyone loves it or it contains new content.

    Don't disagree with the logic but this is a technicality.

    If they think creating a new Season out of the Tribble changes that we mostly don't want and writing off 2011 as a "bad year" and papering over it is going to work, it won't. People have already given up, I'm only still around to put aside some crafting stuff. Then I'll ignore it until some new content (whether they want to call it a Season or not) interests me, do that, then go back to ignoring it again. Maybe pop back in briefly when I feel like ship-spinning.

    The worst part about the STFs and those gear grinds is that they'll be like the Red Alerts. Everyone will be all over it all the time during the initial Gold Rush, then it'll be way more difficult to get that stuff because nobody will still be playing.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Most of the stuff added was back-end stuff which is stuff to be updated on a routeing bases. anyway The way I see it is a season should be like an expatiation pack not a batch of patches to fix things at most this is season 4.5 and that's me being generous.

    The way it's been explained before, a season in STO is basically the equivalent to a +0.1 patch in a game like City of Heroes or Warcraft.

    Release = 1.0 (I know, I know, some players would beg to differ)
    Season 1 = Patch 1.1
    Season 2 = Patch 1.2
    Season 3 = Patch 1.3
    Season 4 = Patch 1.4

    An expansion would theoretically be a full number jump to 2.0, as I understand it.

    Calling this Season 4.1 would be like calling this patch Patch 1.41, which would be disingenuous given the amount of changes the players will encounter.

    I think calling it Season 5 or Patch 1.5 is more honest and less of an attempt to string Season 4 along until players declare it a success.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    JKOgden wrote: »
    Sorry, I meant my comment as a sarcastic one towards the blog posting and agreeing with you.

    Gotcha *retracts previous statement and tips hat* I wasn't sure
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Don't disagree with the logic but this is a technicality.

    If they think creating a new Season out of the Tribble changes that we mostly don't want and writing off 2011 as a "bad year" and papering over it is going to work, it won't. People have already given up, I'm only still around to put aside some crafting stuff. Then I'll ignore it until some new content (whether they want to call it a Season or not) interests me, do that, then go back to ignoring it again. Maybe pop back in briefly when I feel like ship-spinning.

    The worst part about the STFs and those gear grinds is that they'll be like the Red Alerts. Everyone will be all over it all the time during the initial Gold Rush, then it'll be way more difficult to get that stuff because nobody will still be playing.

    Valid points. It's just we've been presented with seasons as +0.1 patch increments before. I think if they'd called this Patch 1.41 (or season 4.1) and the next patch 1.42 (or season 4.2) and so on would be an attempt to downplay the severity of the changes beingmade in the patch and paper over how underwhelming season 4 was for many players by stopping the clock and keeping it artificially season 4 until players are happy with it.

    This way, you may not be HAPPY with season 4 or season 5 but at least you have a convenient way of labeling a large chunk of systems changes when giving feedback. The alternative would be the potentially even more deceptive tack of extending Season 4 until players have a list of features they like in it like a couple of Featured Episodes, so that Cryptic can point to those and say, "But you LOVED some parts of Season 4! See? It was a mixed bag!"
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