Different seasons have different objectives
i dont think its in a bad place.. just a place that has limited potential for me at this time
season 5 was my heaven.. story line episode content.. thats why i returned to this game
i play for story..
yeah i even loved the new klingon mission.. go the KDF! but
season 6 was essentialy useless to me.. but that doesnt mean it not somebody else's idea of a great time
yeah there are bugs, lock boxes a dirty dirty things.. but this is trek.. the furture hold unlimited possibility, who know whats around the next nebula!
also one this that irks me is character unlocks.. anything bought with CP/Zen should be account/faction wide period! adjust the price of combat EV 1000zen and make them faction unlocks
p.s PAID RACE CHANGE pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! (not class / faction)
i will pay $60 for his.. no not really..
Historically, this community has not responded well to content freezes; even when there were perfectly good reasons for them. Don't assume everyone would suddenly be reasonable about it now.
Historically, this community hasn't seen much return on content freezes. You know, back when we were still paying to be here. I don't see how it can be considered unreasonable to not relish the idea of a repeat performance.
Besides, I think people said it already, Cryptic can't afford a content draught. Not anymore. The content, if you can call it that, is the only thing bringing in any revenue at all. Last time around, they had an army of brand-loyal chumps paying for their little vacation, this time, not so much. There's really no reason to have a subscription in STO. Another well-known sci-fi franchise's MMO will be going F2P this fall. You can guess the name, but the forum censors the word describing the craft of war, so I don't expect it to be any less jumpy about warfare of the stars. (Now there's celebrity show I'd watch!) That MMO already has a much clearer, and harsher line between subscribing and playing for free outlined on its website. If STO's silver status were anything like that, it might stand a chance to get through a draught without applying for a whole load of free creditcards, but frankly I don't think it even could do that. Not enough different kinds of content to gate.
As for vocal minorities not being representative and whatnot... Maybe it's right to listen to them, and maybe it's wrong. Who knows? Who cares? Certainly no one who matters. Minimalizing any number of people because there's more people you haven't heard from is absolutely no better. There's a reason when people take polls, we generally only regard the answers people have actually provided, and not miss Cleo's crystal ball for the answers that we wish we'd gotten from other, nicer people we didn't invite to take part in the poll, but definately should've, or maybe some positive reinforcement from the afterlife from recently dearly departed nana who was always so supportive about all the things we told her about she didn't understand.
If you're not going to listen, or dismiss the people in it as inconsequential, why have a forum at all? Is it an addiction? Will someone at PWE throw himself off the top floor if he doesn't get to censor some post at least once every couple of hours?
Also, just for the record. I reported Lt. Marrien's doppleganger during open beta. It may take 30 months, but bugs already get fixed. We'll have working cloaks by Christmas 2013.
I'm surprised there isn't a special shared fleet project (for all fleets from both factions) that requires 20,000 fleet ship modules, and once that goal is reached then Cryptic begins fixing long-standing issues (with a completion time of TBD).
Or at least special projects for each outstanding bug. 200 FSM here (new exchange functionality), 150 there (cloaking dialog bug). Maybe a whole series of projects for KDF fixes alone.
It's the wave of the future, y'know. Maybe they're just building up to it?
Star Trek: Online - Now with 100% more dinosaurs!!
Judging from the forums, I think we can all agree, that Cryptic is in a really, bad place right now. (Can't seem to do anything right, or get out of their own way, for that matter) Who thinks it would probably behoove them to put a freeze on new content, up to, and including, Season 7, in favor of addressing some of the major technical issues with STO. Recent bugs, antidiluvian bugs, latency, etc... ? Possibly even cleaning up/streamlining the code?
First. don't Judge anything my the forums.
Also, I thought they already put a freeze on new content a while back?
We need to ramp up the new playable content.
The sky is falling the sky is falling though is not neccassarily true or accurate nor indicative of iether the minority, the majority or even reality as we may or may not agree to percieve in this virtual representation of a science fiction based gaming enviroment
Forget what percentage of the playerbase the forum users are, it's not relevant and I'm not entirely sure it's completely trackable even by Cryptic with these forum name changeovers to PWE.
The problem here is that STO is still running with and operating like a skeleton crew. We were told brighter days were ahead in 2010, 2011, and now 2012 with PWE being our ultimate saviors.
While they converted to F2P and are certainly cashing in at every (and I do mean EACH AND EVERY) opportunity and claim to have greatly expanded the team, they all still do the same thing. They're either 100% heads down on a release and not listening because they're killing themselves on nights and weekends, or not 100% heads down and doing random fixes as and if they have time. Admittedly the community's disproportionate reactions to even the smallest changes don't help but Cryptic has almost hilariously bungled more than its fair share of major changes (Stephen D'Angelo, "Season 5", dilithium conversion, PWE website conversion all spring to mind in the past 12 months).
What needs to happen is they need to split up a bit where they can simultaneously run some teams on major releases while there are other, smaller teams focused on bug fixes and minor enhancements. But because they're so resource (people) constrained, they have to make everybody do the same thing (the dreaded production schedule) so as not to further overload the weakest points of the team which appear to be QA, development, and possibly design with the recent departures according to the jobs page.
That's why they keep underwhelming and focusing on the minimum for everyone. All this stuff about "bang for the buck" for Featured Episodes (which are vital and necessary to keep the story moving forward), moving away from story content, doing more "endgame" content (translation: endlessly grind arcade action where faction doesn't matter), in favor of an ever more expensive Z-Store and breathtaking currency sinks is just a cover for the fact that they don't have the resources to make STO what it needs to be to thrive. It's been in a vicious cycle since launch and anyone including Daniel Stahl himself who tells you this game is on the upswing is schizophrenia-level delusional at best, outright lying at worst.
It'll survive another few years in this state but eventually people will get tired of $25 spaceships and will complete their year of grind for their 20% better gear. Eventually Cryptic will run out of overpowered twinkships to stuff into lockboxes for the players to pay hundreds of dollars for (did you see how long the Ferengi Lock Boxes ran?). And then those players will be done with it for good, as so many others have been already.
I'm not saying anything the folks at Cryptic don't know, it's obvious through their actions and they are privately probably just as worried as we are about the longevity of STO (see recent departures). While it's too early to write STO's epitaph, I wouldn't pass up any RL experiences to make STO gains... they won't last as long as you think.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
The problem here is that STO is still running with and operating like a skeleton crew. We were told brighter days were ahead in 2010, 2011, and now 2012 with PWE being our ultimate saviors.
They always had a skeleton crew, even in pre-launch development. The whole reason why Atari bought Cryptic is they were a small studio with low staffing costs that touted high productivity via the Cryptic Game Engine.
I believe Atari recognized it looked good on paper but in reality the studio does not have the capacity to keep up with customer demand. And the profits just weren't there so they decided to sell Cryptic.
I don't think PWE plans to expand Cryptic to be a large development studio. PWE payed a lot for Cryptic. Maybe if they can get PWE out of the red and into the black they will consider expanding them. I think we got what we got right now and that's a small studio that will remain small until they prove their profitability.
They always had a skeleton crew, even in pre-launch development. The whole reason why Atari bought Cryptic is they were a small studio with low staffing costs that touted high productivity via the Cryptic Game Engine.
I believe Atari recognized it looked good on paper but in reality the studio does not have the capacity to keep up with customer demand. And the profits just weren't there so they decided to sell Cryptic.
I don't think PWE plans to expand Cryptic to be a large development studio. PWE payed a lot for Cryptic. Maybe if they can get PWE out of the red and into the black they will consider expanding them. I think we got what we got right now and that's a small studio that will remain small until they prove their profitability.
True, throwing a bunch of money at STO is an extremely risky proposition for PWE or anybody else. They can't prove their profitability (in the long-term anyway) without ramping up development. They can't ramp up development without people. Their people problems appear to be three-fold: one being skills, two being location, and three being money being competitive with other places in the area.
On top of that, they're burning the existing team out getting even these releases out the door so naturally there's just nothing left for Featured Episodes or any of the other stuff that just needs fixing.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
I believe Atari recognized it looked good on paper but in reality the studio does not have the capacity to keep up with customer demand. And the profits just weren't there so they decided to sell Cryptic.
Actually the profits were there but Atari was so far in debt and being sued by so many companies that STO's profits weren't enough to offset all the corporate liabilities.
I don't think PWE plans to expand Cryptic to be a large development studio. PWE payed a lot for Cryptic. Maybe if they can get PWE out of the red and into the black they will consider expanding them. I think we got what we got right now and that's a small studio that will remain small until they prove their profitability.
When PWE purchased Cryptic they had 20 employees on the STO team - that's what Atari had dwindled the team to. They now have close to 40. And PW is not in the red. They made over $150 million dollars last year - though 90% of that money was paid to shareholders via dividends. IIRC I think I made a little over $3.00 per share - not bad for an $8.75 per share investment.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Actually the profits were there but Atari was so far in debt and being sued by so many companies that STO's profits weren't enough to offset all the corporate liabilities.
When PWE purchased Cryptic they had 20 employees on the STO team - that's what Atari had dwindled the team to. They now have close to 40. And PW is not in the red. They made over $150 million dollars last year - though 90% of that money was paid to shareholders via dividends. IIRC I think I made a little over $3.00 per share - not bad for an $8.75 per share investment.
And I hear 40 employees is getting them back to where they were at launch. Meaning they are still a skeleton crew compared to other studios. This is better but they are still not being expanded into a large studio with a much greater capacity to meet customer demand.
Putting a freeze on anything is like telling the frelling developers to go to Club Med for a long need vacation. They need to be chained to their PCs 24 hours a day with a large hooded man holding a whip standing behind them.
This is only true when discussing a random cross-section. The people who come to gaming forums are generally there for a specific reason rather then being a random cross-section of the community. IE, a large percentage of gamers come to forums for no other the reason then to specifically complain where-as the majority of players who are happy with a game just keep playing itand don't really have any desire to interact on a forum - unless they need an answer to a specific question.
In most cases the people you encounter on a gaming forum are not indicative of the gaming community as a whole.
I always get a kick out of the premise that just because the larger group does not speak they MUST be happy. This is just plain wrong. In fact the second half of your sentence speaks to the larger truth regarding why they don't come to a forum. HEH! I think if a poll were done of all those who do not come to these forums you would find that the most common answers are:
1) What? That game still exists?
2) What Forums?
3) I only play a few hours a week so I really don't care that much.
Forums such as these are more likley to be attended by those whom regularly spend money (or significant time) on the game, and thus you could say have some measure of investment in it (please don't play with the semantics of the word :P). It is only natural that such people will want to voice thier concerns.
To to be dismissive of them as "a minority" is not only rude (in general, not you specificly ), it's bad for business long term. In fact some of the most sucessfull games I can think of had or have active forums where the devs regulary interact with, and listen to it's forum members.
Cryptic was sold because it was a profitable business and worth at least $50 million to Perfect World.
The STO leadership team is triaging bugs weekly to prioritize bug fixes to go out as soon as possible. After the Season 6 launch, it has been all hands on deck for the Foundry, which should be turned on for editing this week if all goes well.
We will be making some tweaks to the amount of Fleet Marks several missions reward so that the various PVE Queue Missions reward similarly. (this means bumping up some of the missions that reward on the lower side of the scale)
We are meeting regularly to review Fleet Progression and have and will continue to make adjustments to projects. In the near future we expect to drop the Fleet Mark requirements on higher tiers (T4 and T5)
STO is not dying by any means and continues to grow stronger. Just last month we took over as the top performing game for Perfect World in North America.
The STO development team continues to grow month over month and we still have several positions open.
As the team grows larger our Seasonal plans are getting larger. We expect Season 7 to be bigger than Season 6, and Season 8 to be bigger than Season 7. More content, more fixes, more updates across the board.
Our development efforts to improve PvP continue and while we aren't discussing it and did suffer a setback with Gozer leaving, we are working towards a goal of having more efforts put into addressing this part of the game.
Season 6 brought with it several new video features from the Core Video Card team, some of which have been awesome, and some of which have caused some issues. We are working with that team (who in turn work with the Video Card makers) to get some fixes for odd glitches that crop up.
The Starbase Fleet Action map (20 man) does have performance issues. We have several people assigned to this specifically to address this and expect improvements over the upcoming month.
We haven't forgetten about KDF, or PVP, or Crafting, or Exploration, or any other feature we've all talked about addressing. We are simply being more pragmatic about how fast we can get to specific features - but our intention is to absolutely get to all of them as fast as we can.
We do listen to feedback, and while we don't always address every post, we certainly take note. As a F2P game, our business model is different, but the same hard working team will continue to develop STO into a bigger and better MMO year after year.
We are glad that players are enjoying Season 6. We realize there are some issues, but we also realize it has been great for Fleets and group game play. We expect that the second half of this year is going to be even better for STO than the first half was.
Thank you for continuing to support this game and for continuing to voice opinions. We hear them and are working behind the curtain to improve the game in every way.
We do listen to feedback, and while we don't always address every post, we certainly take note. As a F2P game, our business model is different, but the same hard working team will continue to develop STO into a bigger and better MMO year after year.
and yet, when asked direct questions, especially regarding an apparent development oversight, all we get is silence.
People (myself included) have been asking about the lack of a T5 Fleet Cruiser, given that the same tier Nova and Sabre are getting T5 variants.
We all understand the "no T5 Connie" policy, yet the Excalibur, Vesper and Exeter are 25th century vessels, and their only tie to the Connie is a similar shape in profile view.
But, anytime the question is asked, all we get is silence as we are ignored.
That doesn't exactly suggest that our feedback, nor our questions, are being listened to. Instead, it suggests "selective hearing" as my mother used to call it.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Cryptic was sold because it was a profitable business and worth at least $50 million to Perfect World.
The STO leadership team is triaging bugs weekly to prioritize bug fixes to go out as soon as possible. After the Season 6 launch, it has been all hands on deck for the Foundry, which should be turned on for editing this week if all goes well.
We will be making some tweaks to the amount of Fleet Marks several missions reward so that the various PVE Queue Missions reward similarly. (this means bumping up some of the missions that reward on the lower side of the scale)
We are meeting regularly to review Fleet Progression and have and will continue to make adjustments to projects. In the near future we expect to drop the Fleet Mark requirements on higher tiers (T4 and T5)
STO is not dying by any means and continues to grow stronger. Just last month we took over as the top performing game for Perfect World in North America.
The STO development team continues to grow month over month and we still have several positions open.
As the team grows larger our Seasonal plans are getting larger. We expect Season 7 to be bigger than Season 6, and Season 8 to be bigger than Season 7. More content, more fixes, more updates across the board.
Our development efforts to improve PvP continue and while we aren't discussing it and did suffer a setback with Gozer leaving, we are working towards a goal of having more efforts put into addressing this part of the game.
Season 6 brought with it several new video features from the Core Video Card team, some of which have been awesome, and some of which have caused some issues. We are working with that team (who in turn work with the Video Card makers) to get some fixes for odd glitches that crop up.
The Starbase Fleet Action map (20 man) does have performance issues. We have several people assigned to this specifically to address this and expect improvements over the upcoming month.
We haven't forgetten about KDF, or PVP, or Crafting, or Exploration, or any other feature we've all talked about addressing. We are simply being more pragmatic about how fast we can get to specific features - but our intention is to absolutely get to all of them as fast as we can.
We do listen to feedback, and while we don't always address every post, we certainly take note. As a F2P game, our business model is different, but the same hard working team will continue to develop STO into a bigger and better MMO year after year.
We are glad that players are enjoying Season 6. We realize there are some issues, but we also realize it has been great for Fleets and group game play. We expect that the second half of this year is going to be even better for STO than the first half was.
Thank you for continuing to support this game and for continuing to voice opinions. We hear them and are working behind the curtain to improve the game in every way.
Is there any way instead of saying Ranks X, Y, and Z can purchase from provisioned stores, that there can be a daily limit for different ranks? Rank X can buy 1 per day, Rank Y can buy 2, etc. A daily limit system is already in place with the fleet bank withdrawls per tab. This would REALLY help in doling out provisions.
Funny how these KDF specific "bugs" never quite make that priority list and only get fixed after weeks of prodding if fixed at all. But you have been historically proficient at Stahling content.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
We haven't forgetten about KDF, or PVP, or Crafting, or Exploration, or any other feature we've all talked about addressing. We are simply being more pragmatic about how fast we can get to specific features - but our intention is to absolutely get to all of them as fast as we can.
Thanks for the visit Dan. I'm bunkering down and here for the long haul because STO is my MMO of choice. Really looking forward to Exploration so we can get a more Trek experience
Nice to see the "drive bye and wave" :P We need more regular rumour control like this.
Thanks for the visit Dan. I'm bunkering down and here for the long haul because STO is my MMO of choice. Really looking forward to Exploration so we can get a more Trek experience
Nice to see the "drive bye and wave" :P We need more regular rumour control like this.
Thanks for the post dan, glad to know so much is still on its way.
I'm more then willing to give Cryptic some time to fix up season 6. The game is F2P folks should learn to be a bit more understanding when big updates are pushed out.
I haven't been hit by the bugs and considering I'm in a solo fleet I'm not all angry about fleet progression. And I look forward to this month's ask cryptic.
Funny how these KDF specific "bugs" never quite make that priority list and only get fixed after weeks of prodding if fixed at all. But you have been historically proficient at Stahling content.
I would like more KDF stuff but I see nothing sinister here.
Let me explain.
Bugs tend to be character or power specific. This is partly because much of what Cryptic's engine does, including missions, draws from character data. Bugs are frequently character specific issues. Even detailed repro steps may not reproduce a bug without knowing the species, ship, kit, weapons, and even character specific features. Anything less common is harder to track.
Beyond that, bug fixes and priority tend to be noticed based on frequency of reports and triaged based on number affected.
I'd guess there are as many or more Vulcans alone as there are KDF characters. A Vulcan species bug would probably face the same unfortunate hurdles that a KDF bug would experience.
A Bajoran or Bolian bug would probably fare a bit worse.
It doesn't make them any less frustrating and I sincerely doubt Cryptic throws parties when KDF encounter a bug but I also think it helps to understand that the KDF faction is, if anything, harder to support than the Vulcans in game and probably not really more common. It's about number of reports and ease of replicating an issue, which is not the same as knowing it exists.
Even if Cryptic can replicate a bug, it's not the same as knowing why it happened.
..People (myself included) have been asking about the lack of a T5 Fleet Cruiser, given that the same tier Nova and Sabre are getting T5 variants....
We simply haven't communicated what we are doing about this yet. That doesn't mean we aren't listening or have selective hearing. It means that we aren't ready to discuss our solution for this yet, or that the solution is still in the works.
Is there any way instead of saying Ranks X, Y, and Z can purchase from provisioned stores, that there can be a daily limit for different ranks? Rank X can buy 1 per day, Rank Y can buy 2, etc. A daily limit system is already in place with the fleet bank withdrawls per tab. This would REALLY help in doling out provisions.
Funny how these KDF specific "bugs" never quite make that priority list and only get fixed after weeks of prodding if fixed at all. But you have been historically proficient at Stahling content.
name calling aside, there are lots of bugs to fix, but we do fix bugs regularly. It has little to do with it being a KDF bug and more to do about having the person who needs to fix the bug have time scheduled to do it. It is frustrating when you encounter a bug. I'm sorry that you've had to prod to get a specific bug addressed. We continually work on triaging and addressing bugs impacting the most number of players first, so some issues do fall by the wayside. This sucks and we'll get to it eventually.
We simply haven't communicated what we are doing about this yet. That doesn't mean we aren't listening or have selective hearing. It means that we aren't ready to discuss our solution for this yet, or that the solution is still in the works.
Ok, fair enough.
Now, the tricky question...
Would it have killed someone to stick their head into one of the MULTIPLE threads on the topic, and said the exact same thing, a few weeks back?
A simple "We hear you, we are looking at some options, and we are looking for a workable solution. Stay tuned and thanks for the feedback" would have gone a long ways towards settling down the angst about that particular subject, and at least would have told us players that our question / request had been heard.
That's all I'm saying. I understand if you guys need more time, or you have some things to consider. It would just be nice if some of the larger, more talked about issues/suggestions/requests that float around these boards got an acknowledgement of some sort, rather than galactic background noise.
Thanks for answering the question though. Appreciate it.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Unfortunately it's like watching a car wreck at Daytona speedway, as much as I'd like to stop it from happening I can't do anything but sit here comfortably and watch it happen.
Their Feddie fanboys will save them.
:rolleyes:
I kinda like diehards like this because you can tell they're the same dudes who'll kick and whine about "Feddies" and Cryptic (MORE LIKE CRAPTIC) but they've been playing STO the full two years since beta and they'll be the ones begging for it to come back once the servers close
Comments
i dont think its in a bad place.. just a place that has limited potential for me at this time
season 5 was my heaven.. story line episode content.. thats why i returned to this game
i play for story..
yeah i even loved the new klingon mission.. go the KDF! but
season 6 was essentialy useless to me.. but that doesnt mean it not somebody else's idea of a great time
yeah there are bugs, lock boxes a dirty dirty things.. but this is trek.. the furture hold unlimited possibility, who know whats around the next nebula!
also one this that irks me is character unlocks.. anything bought with CP/Zen should be account/faction wide period! adjust the price of combat EV 1000zen and make them faction unlocks
p.s PAID RACE CHANGE pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! (not class / faction)
i will pay $60 for his.. no not really..
Historically, this community hasn't seen much return on content freezes. You know, back when we were still paying to be here. I don't see how it can be considered unreasonable to not relish the idea of a repeat performance.
Besides, I think people said it already, Cryptic can't afford a content draught. Not anymore. The content, if you can call it that, is the only thing bringing in any revenue at all. Last time around, they had an army of brand-loyal chumps paying for their little vacation, this time, not so much. There's really no reason to have a subscription in STO. Another well-known sci-fi franchise's MMO will be going F2P this fall. You can guess the name, but the forum censors the word describing the craft of war, so I don't expect it to be any less jumpy about warfare of the stars. (Now there's celebrity show I'd watch!) That MMO already has a much clearer, and harsher line between subscribing and playing for free outlined on its website. If STO's silver status were anything like that, it might stand a chance to get through a draught without applying for a whole load of free creditcards, but frankly I don't think it even could do that. Not enough different kinds of content to gate.
As for vocal minorities not being representative and whatnot... Maybe it's right to listen to them, and maybe it's wrong. Who knows? Who cares? Certainly no one who matters. Minimalizing any number of people because there's more people you haven't heard from is absolutely no better. There's a reason when people take polls, we generally only regard the answers people have actually provided, and not miss Cleo's crystal ball for the answers that we wish we'd gotten from other, nicer people we didn't invite to take part in the poll, but definately should've, or maybe some positive reinforcement from the afterlife from recently dearly departed nana who was always so supportive about all the things we told her about she didn't understand.
If you're not going to listen, or dismiss the people in it as inconsequential, why have a forum at all? Is it an addiction? Will someone at PWE throw himself off the top floor if he doesn't get to censor some post at least once every couple of hours?
Also, just for the record. I reported Lt. Marrien's doppleganger during open beta. It may take 30 months, but bugs already get fixed. We'll have working cloaks by Christmas 2013.
Nah we're discussing it:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=336051
Or at least special projects for each outstanding bug. 200 FSM here (new exchange functionality), 150 there (cloaking dialog bug). Maybe a whole series of projects for KDF fixes alone.
It's the wave of the future, y'know. Maybe they're just building up to it?
First. don't Judge anything my the forums.
Also, I thought they already put a freeze on new content a while back?
We need to ramp up the new playable content.
R.I.P
The problem here is that STO is still running with and operating like a skeleton crew. We were told brighter days were ahead in 2010, 2011, and now 2012 with PWE being our ultimate saviors.
While they converted to F2P and are certainly cashing in at every (and I do mean EACH AND EVERY) opportunity and claim to have greatly expanded the team, they all still do the same thing. They're either 100% heads down on a release and not listening because they're killing themselves on nights and weekends, or not 100% heads down and doing random fixes as and if they have time. Admittedly the community's disproportionate reactions to even the smallest changes don't help but Cryptic has almost hilariously bungled more than its fair share of major changes (Stephen D'Angelo, "Season 5", dilithium conversion, PWE website conversion all spring to mind in the past 12 months).
What needs to happen is they need to split up a bit where they can simultaneously run some teams on major releases while there are other, smaller teams focused on bug fixes and minor enhancements. But because they're so resource (people) constrained, they have to make everybody do the same thing (the dreaded production schedule) so as not to further overload the weakest points of the team which appear to be QA, development, and possibly design with the recent departures according to the jobs page.
That's why they keep underwhelming and focusing on the minimum for everyone. All this stuff about "bang for the buck" for Featured Episodes (which are vital and necessary to keep the story moving forward), moving away from story content, doing more "endgame" content (translation: endlessly grind arcade action where faction doesn't matter), in favor of an ever more expensive Z-Store and breathtaking currency sinks is just a cover for the fact that they don't have the resources to make STO what it needs to be to thrive. It's been in a vicious cycle since launch and anyone including Daniel Stahl himself who tells you this game is on the upswing is schizophrenia-level delusional at best, outright lying at worst.
It'll survive another few years in this state but eventually people will get tired of $25 spaceships and will complete their year of grind for their 20% better gear. Eventually Cryptic will run out of overpowered twinkships to stuff into lockboxes for the players to pay hundreds of dollars for (did you see how long the Ferengi Lock Boxes ran?). And then those players will be done with it for good, as so many others have been already.
I'm not saying anything the folks at Cryptic don't know, it's obvious through their actions and they are privately probably just as worried as we are about the longevity of STO (see recent departures). While it's too early to write STO's epitaph, I wouldn't pass up any RL experiences to make STO gains... they won't last as long as you think.
They always had a skeleton crew, even in pre-launch development. The whole reason why Atari bought Cryptic is they were a small studio with low staffing costs that touted high productivity via the Cryptic Game Engine.
I believe Atari recognized it looked good on paper but in reality the studio does not have the capacity to keep up with customer demand. And the profits just weren't there so they decided to sell Cryptic.
I don't think PWE plans to expand Cryptic to be a large development studio. PWE payed a lot for Cryptic. Maybe if they can get PWE out of the red and into the black they will consider expanding them. I think we got what we got right now and that's a small studio that will remain small until they prove their profitability.
I identified the bottlenecks clearly but thanks anyway for your drive-by troll which added so much to the topic of conversation. :rolleyes:
True, throwing a bunch of money at STO is an extremely risky proposition for PWE or anybody else. They can't prove their profitability (in the long-term anyway) without ramping up development. They can't ramp up development without people. Their people problems appear to be three-fold: one being skills, two being location, and three being money being competitive with other places in the area.
On top of that, they're burning the existing team out getting even these releases out the door so naturally there's just nothing left for Featured Episodes or any of the other stuff that just needs fixing.
When PWE purchased Cryptic they had 20 employees on the STO team - that's what Atari had dwindled the team to. They now have close to 40. And PW is not in the red. They made over $150 million dollars last year - though 90% of that money was paid to shareholders via dividends. IIRC I think I made a little over $3.00 per share - not bad for an $8.75 per share investment.
I remember reading about Atari's Official Divestment statement. Cryptic showed a loss of $7 million for 2010 & 2011. And a loss of $18 million the previous year. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34704/Atari_Drops_Champions_Online_Developer_Cryptic_Studios.php
And I hear 40 employees is getting them back to where they were at launch. Meaning they are still a skeleton crew compared to other studios. This is better but they are still not being expanded into a large studio with a much greater capacity to meet customer demand.
Was responding to op, but thanks for thinking everything is about you and your name calling which added even more to said topic.
I always get a kick out of the premise that just because the larger group does not speak they MUST be happy. This is just plain wrong. In fact the second half of your sentence speaks to the larger truth regarding why they don't come to a forum. HEH! I think if a poll were done of all those who do not come to these forums you would find that the most common answers are:
1) What? That game still exists?
2) What Forums?
3) I only play a few hours a week so I really don't care that much.
Forums such as these are more likley to be attended by those whom regularly spend money (or significant time) on the game, and thus you could say have some measure of investment in it (please don't play with the semantics of the word :P). It is only natural that such people will want to voice thier concerns.
To to be dismissive of them as "a minority" is not only rude (in general, not you specificly
Cryptic was sold because it was a profitable business and worth at least $50 million to Perfect World.
The STO leadership team is triaging bugs weekly to prioritize bug fixes to go out as soon as possible. After the Season 6 launch, it has been all hands on deck for the Foundry, which should be turned on for editing this week if all goes well.
We will be making some tweaks to the amount of Fleet Marks several missions reward so that the various PVE Queue Missions reward similarly. (this means bumping up some of the missions that reward on the lower side of the scale)
We are meeting regularly to review Fleet Progression and have and will continue to make adjustments to projects. In the near future we expect to drop the Fleet Mark requirements on higher tiers (T4 and T5)
STO is not dying by any means and continues to grow stronger. Just last month we took over as the top performing game for Perfect World in North America.
The STO development team continues to grow month over month and we still have several positions open.
As the team grows larger our Seasonal plans are getting larger. We expect Season 7 to be bigger than Season 6, and Season 8 to be bigger than Season 7. More content, more fixes, more updates across the board.
Our development efforts to improve PvP continue and while we aren't discussing it and did suffer a setback with Gozer leaving, we are working towards a goal of having more efforts put into addressing this part of the game.
Season 6 brought with it several new video features from the Core Video Card team, some of which have been awesome, and some of which have caused some issues. We are working with that team (who in turn work with the Video Card makers) to get some fixes for odd glitches that crop up.
The Starbase Fleet Action map (20 man) does have performance issues. We have several people assigned to this specifically to address this and expect improvements over the upcoming month.
We haven't forgetten about KDF, or PVP, or Crafting, or Exploration, or any other feature we've all talked about addressing. We are simply being more pragmatic about how fast we can get to specific features - but our intention is to absolutely get to all of them as fast as we can.
We do listen to feedback, and while we don't always address every post, we certainly take note. As a F2P game, our business model is different, but the same hard working team will continue to develop STO into a bigger and better MMO year after year.
We are glad that players are enjoying Season 6. We realize there are some issues, but we also realize it has been great for Fleets and group game play. We expect that the second half of this year is going to be even better for STO than the first half was.
Thank you for continuing to support this game and for continuing to voice opinions. We hear them and are working behind the curtain to improve the game in every way.
and yet, when asked direct questions, especially regarding an apparent development oversight, all we get is silence.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=303871
People (myself included) have been asking about the lack of a T5 Fleet Cruiser, given that the same tier Nova and Sabre are getting T5 variants.
We all understand the "no T5 Connie" policy, yet the Excalibur, Vesper and Exeter are 25th century vessels, and their only tie to the Connie is a similar shape in profile view.
But, anytime the question is asked, all we get is silence as we are ignored.
That doesn't exactly suggest that our feedback, nor our questions, are being listened to. Instead, it suggests "selective hearing" as my mother used to call it.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Wow!!!!!!!!!!!
Is there any way instead of saying Ranks X, Y, and Z can purchase from provisioned stores, that there can be a daily limit for different ranks? Rank X can buy 1 per day, Rank Y can buy 2, etc. A daily limit system is already in place with the fleet bank withdrawls per tab. This would REALLY help in doling out provisions.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
Thanks for the visit Dan. I'm bunkering down and here for the long haul because STO is my MMO of choice. Really looking forward to Exploration so we can get a more Trek experience
Nice to see the "drive bye and wave" :P We need more regular rumour control like this.
Hello, I'm Captain Vallent.
And, I approve of this message.
I'm more then willing to give Cryptic some time to fix up season 6. The game is F2P folks should learn to be a bit more understanding when big updates are pushed out.
I haven't been hit by the bugs and considering I'm in a solo fleet I'm not all angry about fleet progression. And I look forward to this month's ask cryptic.
I would like more KDF stuff but I see nothing sinister here.
Let me explain.
Bugs tend to be character or power specific. This is partly because much of what Cryptic's engine does, including missions, draws from character data. Bugs are frequently character specific issues. Even detailed repro steps may not reproduce a bug without knowing the species, ship, kit, weapons, and even character specific features. Anything less common is harder to track.
Beyond that, bug fixes and priority tend to be noticed based on frequency of reports and triaged based on number affected.
I'd guess there are as many or more Vulcans alone as there are KDF characters. A Vulcan species bug would probably face the same unfortunate hurdles that a KDF bug would experience.
A Bajoran or Bolian bug would probably fare a bit worse.
It doesn't make them any less frustrating and I sincerely doubt Cryptic throws parties when KDF encounter a bug but I also think it helps to understand that the KDF faction is, if anything, harder to support than the Vulcans in game and probably not really more common. It's about number of reports and ease of replicating an issue, which is not the same as knowing it exists.
Even if Cryptic can replicate a bug, it's not the same as knowing why it happened.
We simply haven't communicated what we are doing about this yet. That doesn't mean we aren't listening or have selective hearing. It means that we aren't ready to discuss our solution for this yet, or that the solution is still in the works.
This is being worked on to be released in August.
name calling aside, there are lots of bugs to fix, but we do fix bugs regularly. It has little to do with it being a KDF bug and more to do about having the person who needs to fix the bug have time scheduled to do it. It is frustrating when you encounter a bug. I'm sorry that you've had to prod to get a specific bug addressed. We continually work on triaging and addressing bugs impacting the most number of players first, so some issues do fall by the wayside. This sucks and we'll get to it eventually.
Thank you for the timely response. And you've also made me, as Subspace Radio's fleet leader, very happy with that information
Ok, fair enough.
Now, the tricky question...
Would it have killed someone to stick their head into one of the MULTIPLE threads on the topic, and said the exact same thing, a few weeks back?
A simple "We hear you, we are looking at some options, and we are looking for a workable solution. Stay tuned and thanks for the feedback" would have gone a long ways towards settling down the angst about that particular subject, and at least would have told us players that our question / request had been heard.
That's all I'm saying. I understand if you guys need more time, or you have some things to consider. It would just be nice if some of the larger, more talked about issues/suggestions/requests that float around these boards got an acknowledgement of some sort, rather than galactic background noise.
Thanks for answering the question though. Appreciate it.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
I kinda like diehards like this because you can tell they're the same dudes who'll kick and whine about "Feddies" and Cryptic (MORE LIKE CRAPTIC) but they've been playing STO the full two years since beta and they'll be the ones begging for it to come back once the servers close
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples