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Subspace Radio Interviews dStahl

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited March 2012 in Galactic News Network [PC]
In a recent interview, Subspace Radio sat down to talk with Executive Producer Dan Stahl. Listen to the recording here.


Link to the news article.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Bah. Not iPhone compatible
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    A direct link to the mp3 has been added to the post on our site for those of us with iOS devices...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    This appears to have been recorded with a potato. Pretty neat so far though!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    A direct link to the mp3 has been added to the post on our site for those of us with iOS devices...

    Ooooooo. Thank you
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Cool stuff. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    He sure skipped that kdf content question
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    This appears to have been recorded with a potato. Pretty neat so far though!

    i noticed the same thing on stoked. i think dan needs a new mic. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Staran wrote: »
    He sure skipped that kdf content question

    There's a surprise, huh?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    There's a surprise, huh?

    In the STOked before last, I got the very definate impression they weren't even going to try. Too much effort needed, not enough ways to monetise it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    In the STOked before last, I got the very definate impression they weren't even going to try. Too much effort needed, not enough ways to monetise it.

    yep. and you know that they will say the EXACT same thing with the fe's.

    Too hard. Not financially feasible.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Thanks to dstahl and subspace radio for a great interview. A little more hostile than what the community is used to hearing, which was welcome.

    Rofl @ Dan "It wasn't me fiddling the cords 'Ugh, I'm breaking Up'" ^^

    I'm now convinced that Dan Stahl is the voice behind Microsoft Sam.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    I am in the process of transcribing the interview to text and will provide the transcription in this thread when done.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Staran wrote: »
    He sure skipped that kdf content question
    There's a surprise, huh?
    In the STOked before last, I got the very definate impression they weren't even going to try. Too much effort needed, not enough ways to monetise it.

    Sadly, its just more of the same old, same old. The KDF has always been and continues to be a "long term" goal TWO YEARS after the game's launch. I hate to say it, but I've given up on the KDF. Not on the desire to see them expanded, but on any real hope that Cryptic can actually do it.

    I'm at the point now where I wish they would just say "Star Trek has always focused mainly on the story of the Federation, and this game will be too" and just add Roms and Cards as "mini factions":
    Romulan "mini faction" announced!

    Have you ever wanted to fly your own Romulan war bird? Now you can in Star Trek Online with the introduction of the Romulan "mini faction"!

    What is a "mini faction" anyway? Well, basically it means they wont have the same amount of faction specific PvE episode missions as the "main" Federation faction. The Romulans will be launched with their own faction specific episode series introducing players to the storyline of the Romulans in the time period that STO takes place, but after completing that storyline Romulan players will have access to more generic types of content:
    • Star clusters/exploration
    • PvP
    • Special Task Forces
    • The Foundry
    • Fleet Actions
    • Daily events
    • Featured Episodes

    The Romulans will also have their own home world that they start on, as well as fleet of ships to acquire and ranking system to progress through. The Romulan faction will be launching on 2/3/13 to celebrate STO's 3 year anniversary, so stay tuned for more details and enjoy the Romulan mini faction preview!

    Then they could do the same thing with the Cardassians on the 4 year. I might not be everything I'd like to see, but I can honestly say I would enjoy playing Rom/Card alts on the side even with limited content.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Sadly, its just more of the same old, same old. The KDF has always been and continues to be a "long term" goal TWO YEARS after the game's launch. I hate to say it, but I've given up on the KDF. Not on the desire to see them expanded, but on any real hope that Cryptic can actually do it.

    I'm at the point now where I wish they would just say "Star Trek has always focused mainly on the story of the Federation, and this game will be too" and just add Roms and Cards as "mini factions":



    Then they could do the same thing with the Cardassians on the 4 year. I might not be everything I'd like to see, but I can honestly say I would enjoy playing Rom/Card alts on the side even with limited content.

    War hammer was focused on the alliance. Wow focussed on humans and elves. Star wars focused on jedis. After the initial flood of subscribers factions always even out.
    Even in star trek. Despite the poll you took
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Staran wrote: »
    War hammer was focused on the alliance. Wow focussed on humans and elves. Star wars focused on jedis. After the initial flood of subscribers factions always even out.
    Even in star trek. Despite the poll you took

    You can keep saying that all you want, but it will never be true in this game. And while I havent played WH or WoW and therefore cant comment on the stories, you are completely wrong about SW. The original trilogy constantly jumped back and forth between scenes of the good guys and the bad guys, and the prequals told the story of a good guy who became a bad guy. So the story of SW was much more balanced between "good guys" and "bad guys" than Trek is.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    You can keep saying that all you want, but it will never be true in this game. And while I havent played WH or WoW and therefore cant comment on the stories, you are completely wrong about SW. The original trilogy constantly jumped back and forth between scenes of the good guys and the bad guys, and the prequals told the story of a good guy who became a bad guy. So the story of SW was much more balanced between "good guys" and "bad guys" than Trek is.

    I really do think you may need more information to make an accurate conclusion.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Staran wrote: »
    I really do think you may need more information to make an accurate conclusion.

    About you being completely wrong about SW?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    About you being completely wrong about SW?

    That ip based dual-faction mmo populations even out.
    It may not be 50/50 but it is definitely 45/55.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    I'm so glad aion is going f2p soon will get into that for a year or two before spending another dime on this thing. Its obvious theres not going to be anything done this year besides grab bags...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Title: Dan Stahl Interview
    Transcriber(s): Yumene, Berryshine
    Date: March 17, 2012
    Original Air Date: March 9, 2012

    --- START ---
    <Music playing>
    Tanner: Ok, hopefully we have everything fixed this time. Not completely sure
    Dan: I’m still here <laugh>
    Tanner: <laugh> still got Dan I can hear on my end; hopefully you can hear him on your end.
    Dan: Or else it’s going to be a very private interview.
    Tanner: Yea, which I’m sure all our listeners... <scrambled>
    Dan: Or you could just make up things that I say, you could be like, well I was talking to Dan
    Tanner: <laugh>
    Dan: And he said <scrambled>
    Jahner: Yea, I got you both
    Tanner: Ok, so awesome <laugh><scrambled>
    Dan: He basically said we could do whatever we wanted in game, and he said everyone getting free, free ships from now until the end of time, so yes <scrambled>
    Tanner: Yea that would be totally awesome, a free Galor would be awesome right? Alright so, <scrambled> Now we <scrambled> Now that we got this issue fixed, which never happened, but okay, were good, so with that I got a list of questions here for Dan, and for those of you that don’t know, Dan is the executive producer of Star Trek Online, the game that we play here at Subspace Radio <laugh> So, yea, if you are ready, we’ll go ahead and get started with some questions here for you.
    Dan: I am ready, I have the questions and I am ready to answer the questions, let’s just say that. Let’s see how we do.
    Tanner: Alrighty, sounds good, I’m going to start with some of the qui… questions that we had picked out here from us. The biggest one that, here is a question on the server stability, as of late, it seems to have reached a boiling point recently with two or three downtimes, in as many weeks, are there any plans to add more servers to not only handle the load but also improve queue times especially with queues reaching to the sixteen hundreds on weekends
    Dan: So let’s talk about that server stability because it’s a great question, I’m glad someone asked this, I’ve been wanting to bring it up. The problem is not hardware, we’ve identified the problem, we've been adding hardware since we launched free to play so it's really not that, what it boils down to some operating system issues with our servers so honestly it has to do with our database and you know some windows architecture issues and so what what's been happening is that it's not a matter of having capacity or things being too full the software team has been trying to debug whatever this is that has been causing the servers to go offline every once in a while so we are really close to tracking that down and in fact have been working on it, they been pretty much working on it twenty four hours a day, they would ever come by my office today to say that they're making progress um and I don't think we’re, they said we're not completely of the woods yet but the hope is that this whatever this operating system issue is we’ll get this ironed out, they have multiple new machines in the data center to switch over to try different OS configs, so we can get this all ironed out, but honestly it has very little to do with not having capacity or having a bug in the game it's really a bug with how the, all of this technicality behind running a MMO with this many players on the database that's really where we’re at. In terms of the queues on we have been seeing just a ridiculous amount of people on the weekends for key, for the featured episode series to my expectation is that <scrambled>I do expect the intentionality of time the finale tomorrow, featured episode five, there’s a very good chance there could be a queue, but I just say, bear with us but we’re really trying to get as everybody into these episodes as possible there's tons and tons and tons of people all at one specific time trying to log in. <scrambled>Typically you don’t have everyone trying to log into a MMO all at once. Most MMOs only a percentage of your user base is logged in at any given time. But with these episodes you just get these shear humongous spike, so it’s not like that capacity isn't there it's just that the of the land rush is there so we're working it out and, we could definitely get everybody in but it’d be rubber band city so we don’t want to do that, <scrambled> trying to keep the performance were trying to balance performance versus how many people can we get.
    Tanner: Right, we don’t want to be sitting there trying to go against the Jem’Hadar and be bouncing back and forth and totally missing and … yeah.
    Dan: Yeah. And so we’re trying to find a balance between that and having eight minutes between you and firing your weapons. That’s terrible, we don’t want to do that.
    Tanner: Right. Exactly. Alright, so that definitely answered that question. That was one that was definitely on my mind, I know for sure. So, alright, another one from here, from the list is about PvP. One of the biggest complaints seen about PvP is getting continuously getting steamrolled by PvP fleets or premades. Are there any plans for making any quote unquote tier system for PvP that will match players against each other with similar skills or, to a lesser extent, gear levels? Or perhaps a premade versus premade or PUGs versus PUGs system?
    Dan: <scrambled> I’ll answer some of those questions. In terms of coming up with a PvP system that uses a ranking system or some sort of leveling system in order for matchmaking, which I think we’re talking about
    Tanner: Right
    Dan: In terms of a matchmaking system, we are looking at some new tech like I said in a previous interview I was talking about, there’s a team at Cryptic that’s been working on a PvP game over the last year and they built out a lot of this tech that allows us to do things like matchmaking. So we’re actually getting our hands dirty on that code right now, trying to figure out if we can port it over to Star Trek and what we can and can’t use out of that system. So I fully expect in season six, as we get closer I’ll have a better idea of whether or not we’ll have something. I’d certainly love to have something like that. But in the meantime what I really want to do is get our new, is get the PvP maps updated and working on this better code, so that we can make our PvP maps better than they’ve ever been. And we’re just trying to fix some of the issues that we have in some of them and in addition I’m hoping that we’ll also add some new modes, or changing some of the PvP maps over to different types of gameplay. Because I know for example, one of the things that we … there’s a capture the flag mode, maybe there’s a king of the hill mode in this new tech, so if we can get some of our maps ported over to that, or new maps made in that system, we’re definitely gonna do that. We have dedicated resources for season six to add that PvP update.
    Tanner: Okay, awesome. Now another question along that line that was in here was about any chance of a tournament or ranking system for the PvP.
    Dan: That would be, in my mind the third thing that we could do. We could certainly do leaderboards and that’s one of the things we are talking about doing that I didn’t mention. First of all we want leaderboards working for PvP and once we get once get, not just match leaderboards, but an overall standing leaderboard, that kinda goes <scrambled> So, once we get matchmaking, once we get leaderboards then I could see us maybe doing something along the lines of a tournament. But that’s sorta the last thing that we would do in that list of stuff.
    Tanner: Alright, let’s see here. Um, how bout the, another question that was in here was about the specialty ships like the Jem’Hadar ship and the Cardassian Galor. Is Cryptic gonna continue to offer specialty ships like this? Has there been any thought of just putting it on the Cstore and having it be there for people to buy instead of getting it randomly? Just trying to get a better understanding of the reasoning behind the way its currently being done. Any thoughts on that?
    Dan: Sure. The question, are we gonna continue to offer specialty ships like the Jem’Hadar ship, yeah?
    Tanner: Yeah
    Dan: The answer is yes. We’re gonna continue to offer ships in every way we possibly can. Some ships you can earn in-game, some ships you can buy with energy credits, some you can buy with microtransactions, some you get in what people are calling these chance boxes, so yeah. We’re gonna continue to do that, and we’re gonna add new ways to get ships as well. So, for example, one of the ways I’m looking at is I would love to put in high-end ship crafting for fleets. I think fleets should be able to build a starbase or a drydock and be able to craft their own ships as well.
    Tanner: That would be cool
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Dan:: And some new specialty ship. So maybe there’s something like that. I really like the idea of being able to drop parts or have people pick up parts for ships in that mode where they can sort of mix and max things and make their own ship. Those are all things we definitely want to do. So I don’t think .. so yes. The answer is we’re definitely gonna continue to offer ships in every way possible so that we can just have a wide variety in terms of how ships are available. Now, we’re, you know, if there’s some ship that people want to get <scrambled> I’m a big proponent of there needs to be a <scrambled> to get a lot of this stuff, so that’s sort of the mindframe I’m going at when I look at things like chance boxes. I really want people to have a way ... for example, the Jem’Hadar bug, I never got that ship, I want a way that I can go get that ship again. So, you can look at me to once its past its exclusivity timeframe, whether that’s a year, six months, I think Stephen De’Angelo had talked about it being some timeframe. It would certainly be nice if people who had missed out on that ship had another way to get it. So, you can look for me to do something like that in the future.
    Tanner:: Alright, another addition to the question about the specialty ships was about the global announcement thing that goes across for the Cardassian ship. Basically, just wondering why have that, and are there any plans to completely turn it off?
    Dan:: Yeah <scrambled> The question is marketing, right? So why do you see TV commercials on Hulu, why not just offer me the movie for free, or the TV show for free? It sells, it makes money right? So whether people like it or not, you can just turn it off. That’s why I, I agree. I don’t necessarily like the spam, I turned it off on mine. But, you know, it equates to money and in a free to play game that’s one of the ways we make money. So, sorry. <laughs> But that’s why we added the option for you to turn it off, right. I don’t think you’re gonna see us turn that off any time soon
    Tanner:: Right. At least we’re able to turn it off individually on our end.
    Dan:: Yes.
    Tanner:: That’s a plus. Alight, let’s see. We’ve got that … the, um … since we’re talking about ships let’s go on to the other question about ships. What kind of ships are in line to be brought into the game? Are there any consideration into allowing players to … I don’t exactly understand how he had this worded, but I’m guessing, kitbash their own ships to offer better customisation, maybe a T5 Akira or Fed Carrier or real battlecruiser?
    Dan:: So, similar to what we were just talking about with, you know, ships and ideas for opening up new ships. We’re definitely going to be bringing more ships into the game. I don’t have the list of all the ships we’re working on, there’s a lot of ships I used to talk about back in the engineering reports, most of them are actually in the game now. So we will continue to be coming up with a list of existing IP ships that we want to add into the game. But then on top of that, the second part of that question, whether or not we will allow people to kitbash their own ships for better customisation, I think you’re going to see something like this but it might not be exactly make a T5 Akira or make a Fed carrier. It could be something where you can take an existing ship and you can, like I said, can craft a better version of it. Or maybe you can <scrambled> Kind of the kind of station configuration that you like. Or maybe one that has four nodes in the front and two in the back, or vice versa. Maybe that’s the kind of customisation we’re looking at. I’m not sure because we haven’t gotten that far. But what we do know, is that in our future is starship crafting, we just haven’t worked out a design exactly I mean, there’s tons of designs, we just haven’t figured out which one we’re gonna do. But in terms of ships coming, yes, there are ships coming. I’m not gonna spoil any of them because I just haven’t looked at Al’s whiteboard lately. <laugh>
    Tanner:: <laugh> Okay. Alright, lets, er … alright. Next question here is about the state of the game. Someone argue that many promises or near promises have been broken along the path between your departure and your return, to PWE’s purchase of Cryptic and then the released free to play. Um, Klingon Content, weekly episode, bugs that are reported on Tribble are still released onto the Holodeck. Bugs that are still around from launch, or closely thereafter. What are your thoughts and what are your plans to win the, quote unquote, naysayers? What’s your focus for the next year with Star Trek Online?
    Dan:: Well that sounded like a pretty good rant. Let me try and focus on a few things there. So, um, let’s go back to the bro- to the promises. So you said something about arguing that promises have been broken. Um, so, in terms of promises, if you’re referring to the engineering reports, the engineering reports had a pretty good caveat on them that everything’s subject to change. And I think my feedback, that I took away when I left, is that that caveat just didn’t work and that anything I said on the forums and anything that I said on the engineering reports just got taken as verbatim or a promise and that all my good intentions should have just <scrambled> in my head. So yes, I can see where someone who’s watching the engineering reports looking at everything we were talking about can say where’s this content, where are they gonna fix this, and despite our, our continued efforts and our continuing improvement of this game, it might not be going as fast as some people might want. But I also think the game is getting better every day and every week. I look at the game now and I play the game far more than I ever played. I look at all the people online, there’s something about the energy of having so many people on the universe in Star Trek with free to play, it’s a lot of fun and I’m enjoying it. So I think the game’s getting better and I’m having more <scrambled> than I think I ever have. Er, but in terms of, er talking about Klingon content and weekly episodes and bugs. Let’s talk about bugs, right. Yes, there’s bugs in MMOs, there’s bugs in our game. We’re trying to improve that, I mean, there’s been some pretty good <scrambled> about all the bugs that have been going out since the dawn of time. But it really boils down to the team’s need to really focus on bugs. They need to focus on not checking in bugs. So it’s a constant struggle between production and QA to just get all these bugs out and to get them ironed out and discover them. So that’s one of our continued efforts and one that everyone here at the company gets involved with, and we take seriously. It’s not that we like, nobody likes putting bugs in software but it happens. And when it happens we need to figure out why its happening and address those issues. And so right now bugs are happening, so we have to figure out why certain bugs are happening and address that any way we can. In terms of, let’s see, winning over the naysayers, Um, if I’m gonna say naysayers, there’s always gonna be naysayers and there’s no way to win over naysays because naysayer are gonna stay naysayers. <scrambled> It’s almost like arguing against someone who’s agreed not to agree with you. Um, I think that main thing is for me to just continue doing my job and just continue making Star Trek as awesome as it can be, and I think the last question was around focus, um.
    Tanner:: Right. Focus over the next year.
    Dan:: So, focusing for the next year, you know, a lot of it is looking at where the game is at, looking at what we’re gonna do next and where we’re gonna spend our resources and making sure that we’re doing the right things. I mean, if I look at what’s the focus for Star Trek in year 2012, its putting the content and features in the game that need to be there next. There’s no end to that list of things we want to put in the game, but does that really need to be the next thing that we do? And so coming up and making sure that we’re clear about what’s going to be our priorities and what gonna be the healthiest thing for the game. I mean, sure I would love to do content X or content Y, or feature B, but if that’s not gonna help the <scrambled> If that’s not gonna improve things, you really have to justify why that content is being made and why we’re spending our dollars there. So, if anything, you’re gonna see a continued effort from me to make sure that we’re spending our dollars wisely and we’re making the content that’s making the game just that much more awesome. And, you know, I think we’ve added some really good things over the last year and two years for that matter and we’ve continued to improve the game since day one.The game I play right now, like I said, is a heck of a lot better than the game I played day one. And that’s just credit to our efforts to continue to add to this game and I think the game’s gonna continue to get better. I’m very committed to it, that’s why I’m here.
    Tanner:: Right. And we’re glad your committed. We enjoy all the content that you help bring to us and I’ve only been playing for within the last year myself. I started playing about ack in early November of last year, so coming up on a number of months. About five months or something like that. And in just that time period I’ve seen a lot of great improvements that I absolutely love.
    Dan:: Well, good!
    Tanner:: just me. A buddy of mine got me into the game and I just absolutely love it, so for me, I appreciate everything you’ve done to make the game what it is.
    Dan:: And the whole team. It’s not just me, I’m just trying to make sure that we’re staying focused.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Tanner:: Right, yeah. The whole team over there at Cryptic has done a wonderful job. Um, the … let’s see here, looking through the questions here, uh, got some questions that were submitted by some of the listeners here. The first question here is what are the long term plans for the Romulan and/or Cardassian factions? In Ask Cryptic it was mentioned that it was being worked on, so what kind of hurdles are involved with bringing this to fruition?
    Dan:: <scrambled> Well, that’s sort of a misperception. I don’t think I ever said that we’re working on Romulan or Caradassian factions. I did say that we would love to do them and what do we need to do in order for us to start working on Romulan and Cardassian factions. So, those are the questions there at the top of my mind and one of the things, reasons why I’m back in this role is I really think we need to get to a point where, you know, there’s a lot of Romulan and Cardassian fans out there, I’d love for them to have their own faction and for that matter, that adds to the Klingon faction, what are we doing about the Klingon faction. In terms of long term plans, I think the long, long term plan is that there are four factions and that there’s Federation, there’s the Klingons, there’s the Romulans and there’s the Cardassians. And maybe even more than that. But we need to make sure that faction gameplay is fun, that there’s a reason to play other factions and that the factions have enough gameplay and fun gameplay to justify you wanting to <scrambled> The biggest questions I have in my mind is when you roll a Klingon is the experience enough that you feel like you’re creating a different character and that’s really the ultimate test in my mind as to whether or not that faction’s viable. Does that faction have any conflict with the other factions? In our game it’s a little bit of both, right? There’s a little bit of faction gameplay in PvP, then we also let you team up. It’s, there’s a lot of oddities to how we’ve done factions and how factions have evolved in Star Trek Online. So before we start working on Romulan and Cardassian factions we definitely have to solve this question and come up with the right answer. And it is something I’m working on, I’m just not gonna talk about how specifically we’re gonna get there because there’s a lot of ifs and buts in there and I don’t want to, uh, I don’t want someone to say but you’ve been working on Kling- on Cardassians since you did that interview and I’m, we haven’t started working on it yet.
    Tanner:: Right. So, thank you for clearing that up. Um, the, another thing, another question that was asked that I’ve actually seen and been keeping track of a forum post on the Star Trek Online Forums was talk of making more usefulness of the bridge of the ship interior. The one post I had seen was talking about making it possible to travel from system to system while on your bridge. I’m assuming that might be one of the things they’re talking about with the question. So, the question is, are there any plans to add more usefulness or interactivity to the bridge, the ship interior like being able to use the viewscreen to show game specs of ships, adding poker to the mess hall, Star Trek chess, holodeck games?
    Dan:: Sure. That’s a great, there’s a lot of great ideas there like doing the chess and the holodeck and the poker. In fact I think we’ve been talking about this for a long time as these being great ideas. Even the idea of travelling across the galaxy <scrambled> For those who might be new to the game I’ve been answering that question since beta. So, in terms of what are the plans, there are no plans at this time to add anything to your bridge and ship interiors because we would like to change how your interiors work. Another problem I don’t like how bridges and ship interiors were made is A; you can’t customise them other than the trophy room and B: We can’t make content in them. Like for example, you make your starship interior look like, you know, configuration X and someone else makes their starship interior look like configuration Y, it’s very challenging for us to make a mission in which someone boards your ship or something happens because we have to tell the enemies where to go and what to do and there’s a lot tech to that. Now, one of the things we’d need to do, we’d sorta reengineer how all of that works so we can get to the ultimate goal of your bridge and ship interiors having functionality. Now that said, we’re absolutely looking at what we can do in the short term to make ship interiors useful. Like, I think we’re super close to being able to do things similar to duty officers system. I would love to be able to go to my engine room and have some duty officers do something in my engine room and have different assignments that are available on my ship. I think that would, that’s a cool thing. I would love to be able to craft on my ship, I would love to be able to have a poker game on my ship. Those are all things we absolutely want to do and some of those things are closer to reality than others, but nothing I’m ready to say ‘yes, that’s coming’ yet. But they are all ideas that are out there and we’ve been thinking about them for a really long time. The one caveat that I would say is that travelling through the sector from your bridge has been the oldest question that I can think of where I’ve continually said we’re probably not going to get there any time soon if ever. But that <Scrambled> is just to say with the current thinking the idea of travelling through the sector from your bridge, we made the call we wanted you to travel in ship mode so that you can see your ship, you can see other ships and get a sense of where you are in the galaxy.
    Tanner:: Right, and one of the other things that I had remembered reading from that forum post about the travelling from the ship interior was the fact that area is all, it’s a social zone and you’re effectively bypassing that travelling from your bridge, of which the whole point is socialisation.
    Dan:: But who knows? I’ve heard some great proposals over the last two years. One of the ones that I really like is that, is the idea of maybe at some point you can head off on your own on exploration, in which case you don’t need there to be a social zone and you can go explore the Gamma Quadrant or something on your own, and maybe in that case it makes sense to be okay to do that.
    Tanner:: Right.
    Dan:: <scrambled> When you’re on your bridge your on a different space <scrambled> than when you’re in sector. It’s a completely different world. We could make it happen, but it’s just not something in the <scrambled> future.
    Tanner:: Alright, so you, you’re breaking up a little bit there. So, it’s something that you could make happen, but nothing that’s gonna be happening any time soon, is that what you’re saying?
    Dan:: Yeah, not the immediate future for travelling from your bridge.
    Tanner:: Alright, gotcha. Just wanted to make sure that was clearly said. <laughs>
    Dan:: <laughs> It wasn’t me fiddling with the cords going “Ah, I think I’m breaking up!”
    Tanner:: <laughs> Yeah <scrambled> no. Alright, next question on the lsit here is about a chance of maybe some new STFs. The current format’s great, but is there any chance that there could be at least one or two of the old style of STF? There’s a real sense of accomplishment getting through all of the Cure with the old style. But now some people are feeling that the STFs seem to be a little less rewarding. Is there any possibility of having both styles?
    Dan:: I’m really glad someone asked this question because I want to talk a little bit about this. So, the previous STFs, the way - Special Task Forces, that’s what it stands for for someone who may not have heard that before. Special Task Forces are content in the game that was originally designed to be very challenging content for a well co-ordinate group of people to be able to undertake. And it was very difficult and especially with the difficulty slider was almost impossible in some cases to finish without good gear and without good tactics. What we found is not many people played them. Partly because of the challenge, partly because of the rewards, partly because of time involved and you know, you’d get an hour in and if there was a bug or something it would just be frustrating. So, we made the <scrambled> shorter, to break them up into sections, and to add good rewards. Now, I think you’ve seen a lot more people playing the STFs than have ever played the STFs because of that. Now, that’s not an excuse to say we’re not gonna do Special Task Forces in the future, but here’s kinda what I’m thinking and how we want to tackle this. We do want to add challenging group-based gameplay, but I think that needs to be for fleets. I think that is something that well-organised groups of people, which are fleets, should be able to undertake challenges that, um, that allow them to progress their fleet or to have a unique challenge that is specifically designed for fleets. I mean, in a sense, that’s kinda what fleet actions were expected to be, you know, fleet actions made for the fleets but fleet actions have sorta become group PUG content. And I can see, I can see something in the future where, maybe in the near future, where we look at making <scrambled> high-level challenging content with good gear progression, with good rewards and maybe even some new enemies for, uh, that might make people reminiscent of the old STFs. But really, part of that is thinking out is this a five man thing, is this a twenty man thing? How many people are we talking about? If this is for fleets, maybe these are twenty man instances. That would be something kinda new for Star Trek to do something that challenging for that amount of time. But maybe that’s where we’re headed <scrambled> talking about guilds and fleets. Maybe that’s the kind of content that I’m looking for. So, stay tuned on that. It’s a definite ‘we’re looking at it’ and its something that could be coming as part of season six.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Tanner: Okay, that would be awesome. Um, I know that, for me, I finally got around to playing the STFs once I hit that Rear Admiral level and once I got into them I can’t stop playing them. I just love them myself. So that would be really cool to see come around. I know that the one fleet that I was around for a little while they loved doing group events and that’s something that I can guarantee that they would love. So that’s something to look forward to.
    Dan:: Let me add one thing to that. For the person who’s like I’m not in a fleet, I don’t want to be in a fleet, well, uh, for those people I think the idea is we want to offer the idea of a public fleet where you’re just sort of loosely, casually tied to other groups of players, maybe that’s one solution I’ve seen in other games, something that we’re considering for Star Trek.
    Tanner:: Alright, yeah, um, alright, cool. Let’s see here, that’s all for the listener questions and the main part of the question list except for, down at the bottom here, the wonderful question that I’m sure everyone is wanting to know at some point. What’s a typical day in the office like for you?
    Dan:: Well, what is typical? I moved to San Fransisco, Cryptic Studio offices are in <srambled> California which is about, uh, fifty miles from where I live. So my day starts early in the morning, getting in the car and driving down beautiful 280 on the east bay. Or not east bay, the, uh, basically south bay. And it’s a beautiful drive first of all, and it’s one that I actually enjoy right now, I love living in the city. So, by the time I get to the office I’ve usually listened to a bit of NPR and some radio, maybe checked my email a little bit. By the time I get into the office I’m well ready for the day. First thing we do is we have the production meeting, where myself and the other producers uh, and the other leads, sit down and talk about what the team’s doing that day, talk about any issues we’ve had overnight and talk about game <scrambled> that needs to be followed up on immediately. So that’s our first touchpoint of the day. And to be fair, email’s happening 24 hours a day on this team. Any live service, you see, that’s why I was sending emails at one o’clock in the morning last night, it’s a 24 hour game. Uh, so we’re constantly working. But once I’m in the office first thing that happens is that we have that production meeting. And then from there really depends on the meeting schedule, whether or not we’re looking at planning, or scheduling or maybe we’re talking about new features. So my day’s a lot of the time filled with meetings and reading lots of emails and responding to issues and trying to quickly answer questions and to make sure that we’re on track with as many things as possible. So, for example, today we were talking about season six, we had a company meeting, we talked a little bit about, you know, how the company’s doing, how Star Trek’s doing, how Champion Online’s doing, <scrambled> coming out they were just doing presentations at GDC, so we had a good sort of day today at talking about that kind of stuff. But, you know, a lot of times I’m walking around looking, checking in with my leads, going in their office, seeing how things are going, seeing if there’s anything I can do to help. And in terms of the rest of the day, that’s kind of what my day is. And that’s the fun of it, you never know from day to day what you’re gonna be doing uh, and if I didn’t have my phone with me 24 hours a day, checking my calender, telling me where I need to be next, I wouldn’t necessarily, I would get kind of lost. In fact,e very once in a while, I see Jack wandering around, looking at his phone trying to figure out where he’s supposed to be. And <laughs> and so its kind of that little thing you know, where at the EP level we’re really trying to be involved in as many thigns as possible. But there’s a great team here, especially the team on Star Trek Online, really proud of this team. You know, there’s a great <scrambled> effort going on day in, day out to making new things. So even today we were talking about season six, we were talking about fleets and starbases and all kinds of crazy stuff, and every once in a while I get a break and get to sit in my office and do a fun interview like this and even during that I’ve got people like Jack and Craig outside my window dancing and trying to make me laugh. So that’s, they’re doing it right now, it’s hilarious.
    Tanner:: <laughs> Nice. So, yeah, um, wow, time sure flies. Holy cow. It’s been forty minutes plus so far.
    Jahner:: I have one question , though, for you Dan.
    Dan:: Sure.
    Jahner:: When aCe-
    Dan:: This is the mysterious, who’s this? Is this Scott?
    Jahner:: This is Jahner
    Dan:: Okay. <laughs>
    Tanner:: <laughs> Yes, Jahner is in the house as well.
    Jahner:: When we interviewed you a while back, it’s been a little while, you had said you had a plan to bring V’Ger in the game, that was like on thing that you really wanted. So, is that gonna happen?
    Dan:: Well that was, was sort of a dream. I really like the story of V’Ger, I really do think that there, you know, the Motion Picture is one of my favourite movies and so I really enjoy anything having to do with that. That said, there’s a hint of V’Ger in the Borg Red Alerts, and, um, whether or not we ever get to that story is sort of up in the air. I would certainly love to do it. The team would certainly maybe or maybe not like to do it. <laughs> They might be sick of me talking about V’Ger. Um, but there’s so many things that we want to get into the game that I can’t be selfish and say, you know, let’s do V’Ger next. Um, I think Iconians and Tholians and other critters are going to get into the game well before V’Ger does. But that’s not to say I’m giving up. I’m not giving up. V’Ger is out there somewhere and there’s some connection now between V’Ger and the Borg and we have to figure out what it is and I want to tell that story, or actually, I want someone to <scrambled> Great question, I love V’Ger.
    Tanner:: <laughs>
    Jahner:: Well I know you had mentioned earlier that its a different game than when you first started and I mean, I’ve been around since closed beta and it is definitely just the difference between night and day. And I mean that’s one thing that we do hear a lot of, is when people come back into the game they’ve said, you know it’s been six months, eight months, twelve months since I’ve played, I don’t even recognise the game. So I mean, obviously you guys are doing, making a lot of additions and doing the right thing because it’s a totally different game, it’s a lot better experience and you know, I speak on behalf of most everybody else that even plays, we’re anxious to see what you guys have in store for us.
    Dan:: Well, thank you a lot. I really appreciate you saying that, it’s going back to the question about, you know, why isn’t this feature done yet or why is there still bugs or why is the server crashing, i mean, yes. It’s been a labour and a challenge but it’s <scrambled> the game. We have made the game better, and we’re gonna continue to do that. And like I said we’re hiring, had two new people start in the last week, so our team just continues to get bigger and in addition to that we’re also to get resources, you know, Perfect World Studios has armies of people working in their studios in Beijing and elsewhere, so we’re trying to hook up with them. I know that they’re looking at doing some, what would be called insourcing, I guess, and so there’s all this opportunity and potential for Star Trek Online to get more effort and more energy poured into it than ever there ever has been. And so for me, it’s an exciting time for Star Trek because yes, we’ve been growing as fast as we can, but we’re gonna start growing even faster. And that’s what I’m looking forward to day in, day out. And what I’m really, I can’t wait to see where we’re at in year three because its, we’re gonna have so much fun over the next year. I’m gonna be planning <scrambled> that you didn’t even think we were thinking of, and <scrambled> a lot of fun and we can really continue to grow this game and you know, when we have our five year, ten year anniversary, we’ll be looking back, kind of like how the five and ten year games are looking back now. Look at, you know, remember how WoW was in its first years, and I play WoW now and its such a different game, you know. Same thing with EVE, same thing with any MMO that’s been out for that long and I really think Star Trek’s gonna be one of those games. It’s gonna be one of those MMOs where five, ten years down the road, you’re gonna take for granted everything that’s been added and you’re gonna go wow, this game continues to get bigger and better.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Jahner:: Awesome. I, I’m anxious to see it. Tanner? You got anything else?
    Tanner:: may as well. I’m totally excited to see what you and the team over at Cryptic are capable of over the next years with new coding, new technologies that come out, it’s just gonna be amazing, I see it now.
    Dan:: Weill I <scrambled> and here’s a self plug here, you know, the team, tomorrow’s episode is probably gonna be the craziest thing we’ve ever done. It is probably the most effort and the most crazy we’ve ever tried to put into one episode. So, uh, if you, if you’re listening to this, then you owe it to yourself to play through the Featured Episode series, the Dominion series, the 2800, play through all the episodes so that you’re ready to go tomorrow because, because it’s gonna be a treat, its going to be something completely different, something you’ve never done before in the game and, you know, it’s just one of those episodes where there’s so many little, little things packed into it that you’re gonna be going oh my gosh I can’t believe this is one episode, uh, and hopefully it’ll be a lot of fun. Not to oversell it, I mean its just a Featured Episode, Featured Episodes are only really designed to be, you know, thirty minutes or less of content, but man, if this Featured Episode isn’t pushing the boundary of that, I don’t know what we’ve ever done in the past to push boundaries. Uh, and hopefully that doesn’t mean <scrambled> just bear with us. We’re trying to get this episode out of the door and make it as badass as possible. So, you owe it to yourself. Make sure you log in, play this latest episode, finish out the series, find out how the story ends and get your Shard of Possibilities. And uh, really just enjoy all the amazing rewards we’ve made for this series. I don’t know if you guys saw the blog post but they posted all the rewards that have been given out during this series, there is a ton of rewards guys. I mean there’s more rewards than we’ve ever done for anything else. I hope you continue to see that moving forward.
    Tanner:: I hope so to. I know I’ve palyed, uh, I’m pretty sure I’ve played every single episode so far uh, and I’ve absolutely loved every single one of them. I think its great, uh, its definitely answered a lot of questions uh, especially with the 2800 returning, uh, totally awesome, I myself definitely can’t wait until tomorrow.
    Dan:: I’ll see you guys tomorrow morning then. I’ll be online and I’ll be playing it along with you. As long as I’m not, as long as <scrambled>
    Tanner:: <laughs> Right. I guess before, uh, I guess before we let you go, was there anything else that you want to add that maybe wasn’t a question that was asked that you wanted to mention? Uh, anything at all?
    Dan:: I think that’s, that’s <scrambled> for me. I, plugging the 2800 was really what I wanted to say. The team’s just done a phenomenal job you know, we’ve got three great content designers here and one great, great writer. Uh, and thanks to the audio team and the environment team. I think you’re really gonna see the labour of love this team has for Star Trek. Not only in this series but in the game in general and this series is just a great way to see just how much people care about Star Trek, how much we care about the story and how much we care about, you know, wrapping up loose ends and letting you know what happened to people and little insider tidbits here and there. It all makes sense and its all good writing and <scrambled> I really hope you enjoy it.
    Tanner:: Awesome. Thank you, uh thank you very much, uh Dan for answering all of those questions. I’d like to thank our listeners for, um, joining us for this wonderful interview and so, uh, yeah. It was great to sit down and have this chat with you uh, and I look forwards to playing tomorrow’s featured episode.
    Dan:: Thank you, thank you very much. I’m going to go back to dancing in my office.
    Tanner:: Alright, take care.
    Jahner:: Thanks, Dan.
    Dan:: Cheers.
    <music plays>
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Grave, I'm not hearing impaired at all, but I would like to thank you profusely for providing that transcript for our players. It is very much appreciated.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    It is our pleasure. We will try and make sure all future interviews are transcribed...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    very nicely done Jahner :) kudos to the team for getting this done! :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Staran wrote: »
    Bah. Not iPhone compatible

    Aaaahhhhh, played perfectly on my rooted HTC Evo 4G Android 2.3.5 phone.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    Great interview!

    Grave and to the team, wanted to say biiiig thanks for transcribing the interview! It is deeply appreciated! I'm sure many others feel the same way as well! :D Big thanks! Looking forward to seeing your future interviews!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2012
    That is very well done. Makes me proud to be on the team! :P
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