So STOked "did" know something..

solomace

So, remember when Stoked alluded to something happening behind the scenes and that they were not happy with the future direction of STO? Well it looks like were right, things are not going too good eh.

1. Forum changes that they didn't inform the community of.
2. Said forum changes that reserved your name, but didn't tell you, so you had to choose a new one.
3. New ship is released bugged (nothing new there) even though the mighty Stahl said Q&A was going to change for the better (he does say a lot of things that are so untrue. KDF eh).
4. Prominent Dev 1 leaves
5. Prominent Dev 2 (and PVP revamper) leaving
6. New way to scam people not using lock boxes but "promo packs".

Yep, looks like SToked new what was happening and got out of dodge.

What's next? Fleet bases are a white elephant with tons of bugs and unfinished features?

Roll on NWN, the true PWE game... (another game I will not be touching)...

Dooom.

anazonda

Can you honestly say you did not sense it as well?

There have been alot, not quite obvious, indications that theres something wrong.

The things mentioned above are just a fraction...

theindefatigable

Okay, the forum changes suck. I haven't seen anybody...ANYBODY...say otherwise yet. Losing good devs always sucks. Is the "bugged new ship" the Akira, and was it not able to be used in STF's the day it was released? Didn't they fix that right away?

I'd say there's still a lot to be happy about. The Akira looks great, plays great, makes powergamers and Trekkies alike happy, and in fact the only reason I can think of to really complain about the Akira is if you are Klingon and dealing with runabout spam. I've been previewing and "testing" Season 6 on Tribble and I have to say I am excited about the new pve missions, the focus on team effort, and the potential for yet more ways to enjoy this game.

There's undeniably a lot of things left to tweak and fix in STO...we all have our lists. I'm just glad that the game appears to have a good future and that I'm enjoying this game more now than ever before. So yeah...I'm not ignoring the bad, but I'm not going to proclaim doom either.

shakesfistatsky

How dare any of you try to be rational!?!!

This thread is supposed to be about DOOOOM!

People switch jobs all the time...get over it. The only reason we even know about this is because the devs made the mistake of getting too familiar with the board embers. There's no way to win with some of you people...the devs don't post and you complain...they do post and you complain.

It would be better if the devs never posted. All of these "I demand a dev answer this question" is ridiculous. Do you really believe that they have NOTHING better to do than to cater to the whims of the most eccentric and demanding fanbase in the world?

thoroon

Ya, tested S6 a bit as well, and for the first time in STO I think I should join a fleet.
Its definitely the right way.

A Transition from F2P is always hard.
For Players and Devs alike, especially when ownership changes as well.
Don't get me wrong, I really don't like PWE for some things they do (e.g. their "Free Zen" surveys). Devs leaving is bad, but I know, it is common (I did that three times already, and I'm 31).
The forum transition was executed badly. I do facelifts, frameworkchanges etc. at work for two years now, our trainees could have done better.
QA could be better, playerfeedback from testservers should be more cared for.

I hate lockboxes, they are annoying, but I like the DOFF system. I like collecting DOFFs, buying packs, and special inserts are nice. If anyone collects Trading Cards: you know what I mean (getting a costume card e.g.)

But one thing I really like the most is, in theory you can achieve everything ingame without paying a penny, it just takes time. There are no required items to level your char, no sub etc.
Anything from the store can be bought, if you take your time grinding dili.
And it's exactly the reason I had no problem buying me some points and get some items "faster".
The Game now starts to move on, get new content, new funnier(!) ways to play etc.

woghd

anazonda wrote: »

Can you honestly say you did not sense it as well?

There have been alot, not quite obvious, indications that theres something wrong.

The things mentioned above are just a fraction...

AND A VERY SMALL FRACTION...
Anyone with two eyes can see that the better devs are all jumping ship.
Just look at the facts. They speak for themselves.

Wow. Gozer's gone too.

n0vastarone

PWE just like to dump on games it seems. A big steaming pile of rip off the player base and pump out or eastern bullhonkery.

utio

solomace wrote: »

So, remember when Stoked alluded to something happening behind the scenes and that they were not happy with the future direction of STO? Well it looks like were right, things are not going too good eh.

1. Forum changes that they didn't inform the community of.
2. Said forum changes that reserved your name, but didn't tell you, so you had to choose a new one.
3. New ship is released bugged (nothing new there) even though the mighty Stahl said Q&A was going to change for the better (he does say a lot of things that are so untrue. KDF eh).
4. Prominent Dev 1 leaves
5. Prominent Dev 2 (and PVP revamper) leaving
6. New way to scam people not using lock boxes but "promo packs".

Yep, looks like SToked new what was happening and got out of dodge.

What's next? Fleet bases are a white elephant with tons of bugs and unfinished features?

Roll on NWN, the true PWE game... (another game I will not be touching)...

Dooom.

Ahhh, another hour, another sky is falling thread:rolleyes:
Every mmo i've played has changed their forums at some point. If they told you a month in advance, what would that have changed? Granted, the name thing is a bit of a bodge job though.
Every mmo i've played has bugs. Bugs are no indication of something in the background concerning the future of sto.
People leave their jobs every day, and just because 2 have left, it does not indicate anything sinister, and I have to say, if I was leaving my job on good terms, and a bunch of people started presuming otherwise on forums, i'd tell you to mind your own! kinda puts a cloud over it really.
Lockboxes were never a scam(look the word scam up). Did it occur to you that they listened to all the whinging about them on these forums, and decided to give the players something else?
Season 6 will undoubtedly launch with some bugs. What major patch, in any mmo hasnt had some bugs?

mustrumridcully0

I thought that STOKed just did now a bit more about the Fleet Starbases. I don't think they knew much about the other stuff. They could probably tell us what they knew.

peregrine0falcon

woghd wrote: »

AND A VERY SMALL FRACTION...
Anyone with two eyes can see that the better devs are all jumping ship.
Just look at the facts. They speak for themselves.

Wow. Gozer's gone too.

Normally a job in the gaming industry has got to be like a dream come true. I mean, you go to work and you make video games, how could that not be a ton of fun?

But can you imagine what it must be like to be a STO Dev right now?

They know that their game is junk and their new overlords are forcing them to make it worse every day. Most of their long-time customers have left in disgust and even the few die-hards that remain are very critical of the game. The community is dying, podcasts are shutting down, the forums are awash in anger, their co-workers are abandoning ship, and they can't see the light that marks the end of the tunnel.

Just coming in to work for the STO Devs must be downright depressing right now.

- Peregrine Falcon

leviathan99

Wow. STOked knew Heretic and Gozer were leaving before THEY even knew!

solomace

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

Wow. STOked knew Heretic and Gozer were leaving before THEY even knew!

Oh? How do you know that their inside man, didn't tell Stoked they were leaving way before we knew? I'm sure it wasn't just yesterday they decided to leave.

I take it you have never worked with people before? There's always talk at the water cooler about who's leaving, planning on leaving, sleeping with whom, etc,etc.

Just saying, no facts obviously, just seems a bit of a "coincidence" eh...

Dooommm....

leviathan99

solomace wrote: »

I'm sure it wasn't just yesterday they decided to leave.

Why would you say that, exactly?

tebsu

i hope, one day, another developer will pick up the star trek ip and create a good game without so much bugs, with enough story and all the other things that should be standard but arent in sto.

bluegeek

reyan01 wrote: »

And what exactly would have been the point?

Give people a month's notice of pending forum changes and you simply end up with a month's worth of complaining.

Don't get me wrong, I preferred the old board too - but there is no going back to that and I don't blame them for doing things the way they did; at least the multitude of complaint threads are about an existing board rather than an upcoming one.

No, I wouldn't have given a month's notice if I'd been in charge.

And you have a point about the complaining, which would have happened one way or the other.

BUT.

A little bit of advance notice would have softened the blow a little. An email notification a few days in advance, maybe. Providing no notice whatsoever is really poor customer service and forces people like Brandon to spend a whole lot more time on damage control than is strictly necessary.

Also, I find myself wondering whether they did a test merge before they pulled the trigger on this.

If they had known in advance what was going to happen when they did it, they might have been able to avoid some of it and let people know up front what was going to change.

That said, demanding to have the old forums back is unrealistic.

kobayashlmaru

While I doubt STOked knew about everything on that list, they certainly did have a heads up on something. He was always pretty good at pointing out things about the game, it's community, and developers that others would miss because they aren't paying close attention to the subtleties.

zadama

The doom and gloom in this thread is something that creeps into the forums in a different shape or form every few months, it seems. It's silly. Right now, we're getting more 'content' that we have been for quite a long time. The game is doing well with the F2P model, and Cryptic has hired more people onto the Dev team.

Could Heretic and Gozer's departure not have been planned for a long time? And anyway, they're entitled to move on to a new job, just as any of us are. It doesn't mean that the company is going down in flames, it means that they want to move on with their respective careers.

Sometimes, people need to sit back and look at the wider picture. Chris seemed to have stopped STOked because he was burned out - and in all honesty, it had been on a gradual decline ever since Jeremy left the show.

So chill. The apocalypse is not nigh, and the sun will rise tomorrow. We should have a great next few months in STO, and I for one am looking forward to it.

askray

*eats his popcorn while reading another "ZOMG THEY KNEW" thread*

Here's my question - Who cares if they did or didn't? It's not like they could tell you anyways as I'm sure if they did they were under a nice little "do not release" contract


*PS - contract's the wrong word but it's 6:44am and I haven't drank any coffee so it's the word i'm going with hehe*

robeasom

shakesfistatsky wrote: »

the most eccentric and demanding fanbase in the world?

Thats Trekkies and Trekkers for you

kimmera

Given all the complaints people have been posting over the last couple months, why is the assumption that the departures are entirely voluntary?

I don't understand how people can think that nigh constant streams of negativity couldn't lead owners to consider changing management, especially when they are new owners.

It is like the assumption that every negative thing was at the request of the new owners. If it wasn't, all the complaints were really at the Devs people are now so sad to lose.

When poster after poster is insisting that they wouldn't spend another penny in STO (or any PWE game) it becomes hard to believe there would be no resulting consequences for management.

Calling for the heads of owners never works. Even if they really are the ones at fault they aren't exactly going to rush to decapitate themselves.

mkilczewski

solomace wrote: »

So, remember when Stoked alluded to something happening behind the scenes and that they were not happy with the future direction of STO? Well it looks like were right, things are not going too good eh.

1. Forum changes that they didn't inform the community of.
2. Said forum changes that reserved your name, but didn't tell you, so you had to choose a new one.
3. New ship is released bugged (nothing new there) even though the mighty Stahl said Q&A was going to change for the better (he does say a lot of things that are so untrue. KDF eh).
4. Prominent Dev 1 leaves
5. Prominent Dev 2 (and PVP revamper) leaving
6. New way to scam people not using lock boxes but "promo packs".

Yep, looks like SToked new what was happening and got out of dodge.

What's next? Fleet bases are a white elephant with tons of bugs and unfinished features?

Roll on NWN, the true PWE game... (another game I will not be touching)...

Dooom.

I especially like the "Dooom" part. Though the OP should have used all capitals, and about ten more Os, to really strike a chord.

daveyny

...zzzzZZZzzzzz... Huh ?... ? Whaa??? ...

... Oh... :rolleyes:

You woke me for this... ?... :mad:

...zzzzZZZZzzz.... :cool:

kimmera

nixboox wrote: »

Or...or...and bear with me on this one...in a similar situation where I worked the scenario was like this: management comes in with a list of things they want to do and tell the techs to "make it so", and after several long pauses whilst sipping on what could be considered the worst coffee in the history of the world, the techs say: "the programming, er, doesn't actually let us do any of those things..." More sipping and silence until the management says: "you spent 8 years in college getting your four year computer science degree, you can make it work!" And then no further communication happens until, several months later, the management returns to the conference room that doesn't have a proper conference table and says: "why didn't any of this stuff get done the way we asked for it?" Techs respond, again: "The programming doesn't let us do these things so we improvised." And, then, of course, the management says: "Well, why didn't you tell us that the programming doesn't support these things?" At which point the techs collectively call in sick for the rest of the week and show up on a Sunday morning to collect their stuff before moving on to a new job.

That was my experience, however, just for a matter of perspective.

This too, and that kind of scenario can play out at pretty much any level of communication in a company.

nyiad

anazonda wrote: »

Can you honestly say you did not sense it as well?

There have been alot, not quite obvious, indications that theres something wrong.

The things mentioned above are just a fraction...

We were screwed once I first heard PWE was possibly going to aquire STO...hell F2P was step 1...

STO has been on a timer....I fear that the timer is almost up.. :frown:

srspells

its not a contract your thinking of its a non disclosure act.
-Spells

quvbagh

sophlogimo wrote: »

I think you need to calm down. Seriously.



In fact, they did, at least on the German subforums the forum change was talked about several weeks before it happened. Yes, that forum software is not as good as the old one, but it is only natural for PWE to use the same software for the support of all their products. That's just the nature of a (relatively speaking) big company.



Well, such stuff happens with any software.



Well, Heretic leaves with a freighter named after him in the game, so I would call that a very friendly goodbye.

Which indicates that there is no bad blood or anything. It is just the normal nature of a market economy. Many people switch jobs. Don't you?



It's not scamming at all, and I find it much better than lockboxes, to be honest.

I agree with this guy, other than if all the old devs leave I'm worried about the future of STO.

psiameese

askray wrote: »

*eats his popcorn while reading another "ZOMG THEY KNEW" thread*

/steals some of Askray's popcorn.

robinsonfamily

A lot of us would agree that STOked did not leave its former host was burnt out of hosting! Like Chris or not, he did what was best for him not for the community. STOked is still around but in radio form!