As you are welcome to do; however, I think this thread may have derailed a bit. My original intent was not to bash STOked and RSA, but rather to try and find out where these two podcasts are getting their 'facts' from.
Well, Chris would put out feelers with devs and has a friend who's a dev... But the freakout wasn't prompted by ANY facts but rather because Perfect World PR wouldn't give him any and was requesting an interview embargo until they had news they wanted to promote, rather than just having devs on to chat.
RSA has considerations like their fleet size or length of PvP queues and STF queues (and I think a lot of people stopped doing these publicly or quit STFs and PvP altogether) but they have zero access to any sources. So their guess is as good as yours or mine.
The end of podcasts such as RSA and STOked is more related to the fact that the game and the majority of audience feels differently than the hosts/sponosrs of the podcasts. Most people who run podcasts see themselves as guardians of the Faith, so to speak, and that deviance from the True Path (according to them) is heresy. So, when that deviance comes from the publishers of the game itself, how can they fight it?
They announce the end of the show in a dramatic fashion. The podcast equivalent of a rage-quit.
I know this is harsh, it's my own opinion... but I will remind people that this board, while dominant by virtue of its vocalness, still represents a notable minority of STO players. We may comfort ourselves by saying "we are the most active and valued players," but when it comes to $, whether it comes from a forum member here or a casual F2P player, the value of our $ and their $ is the same... and we Forum denizens are very outnumbered.
Isn't that the podcast that Mavgeek guy belonged to? The one who's every post here seemed to be made with the sole intention of insulting every dev and every decision?
But STOked didn't really end, it just changed hands to a new host and mostly reverted back to an audio format with some visuals on Youtube.
And the other Podcasts are thriving nicely and they are even joining the Trek Radio, which means they are expanding beyond just STO. Which means reaching out to a greater audience, encouraging potential new players.
I think its difficult to have community podcasts in free to play games.
Its difficult to generate excitement with new content when its designed to remove cash from your pocket.
The Fleet system for example.
STOked Radio was Live today, is on Trek Radio, and Maverick is a DJ for Trek Radio. STOked evolved because Chris moved on from STO, not because the player community moved on from STO.
Not sure what tea leaves RSA is reading, but every single metric we can measure as players suggests STO is doing well, and F2P is a huge success. Maybe this topic should be covered on... STOked.
The end of podcasts such as RSA and STOked is more related to the fact that the game and the majority of audience feels differently than the hosts/sponosrs of the podcasts. Most people who run podcasts see themselves as guardians of the Faith, so to speak, and that deviance from the True Path (according to them) is heresy. So, when that deviance comes from the publishers of the game itself, how can they fight it?
Yep. They see things a certain way, and their views are usually good intentioned, but extreme, and often unrealistic. Completely detached from reality. It's no surprise they lose viewership like this.
Isn't that the podcast that Mavgeek guy belonged to? The one who's every post here seemed to be made with the sole intention of insulting every dev and every decision?
Edit - one other thing to consider is STO only came to steam about 5 months ago. everyone here before then, even the early free to play players was not playing through steam. so it is probably only showing the players added after f2p launched.
STO has been on Steam as a F2P game since January, trust me, I joined because of Steam telling me it was F2P.
I couldn't really care about anyone who makes bold statements without backing it up. More than likely, whoever these Redshirt people are (never heard of them) , they're wanting to do something they think will bring in more viewers.
Right now, every single MMO I'm playing is full of people shrieking "the sky is falling! the game is dying!" So, I think it's just people being stupid....as usual.
As we said, the Steam numbers example is only just that, an example. We will never truly know the exact population of regular players because Cryptic will never tell us. However if you look at the Steam numbers as a certain percentage of the player base, then look at how over time those numbers have risen then just steadily fallen over time you could extrapolate that possibly the same thing is happening for the total player base. To "back it up" more, take a gander at the "Comments" section of the various news posts on the main page here. Every time a new Lockbox is announced, or a new huge Dilithium sink Starbase Project, there are far more people against it and those saying that such things make them want to play less, than more. And every mmo as you say does have people who think the sky is falling so to speak, but I think almost three years before that has begun to happen in STO is fairly good. Look at SWTOR, even before it was announced it would go F2P it had people claiming the sky was falling, and it came out in January, of this year.
More likely its that they do not like the way the game is going, ask any pre-F2P player and most will have a similar sentiment. I've come to realize the problem isn't the f2p business model, its just that Cryptic is a really mediocre developer that has some great ideas
The "free to play model" can easily work for online games. Look at League of Legends. It's not an mmorpg, but it's one of the most widely played games online, and their entire system is set up fairly similar to Cryptic's; pay real money for a in-game currency to buy skins, characters, etc or grind through in-game content for that in-game currency. LoL has millions of players world wide, it's one of the top streamed games on TwitchTV every day, it's like the Kevin Bacon of online games even if you don't play it you know someone who has or someone who knows someone else who has. Cryptic's issue as we've said all along is, PWE's focus for them has been the cash shop. We went from over 10 full Featured Episodes (ranging from what, 3-5 missions each) in a year, down to 2. Yet we've gotten more costumes, more skins, more ship variants and more +1 ships in the cash shop. It's not a bad game, it's still fun to play and free to play works, when your focus is not 100% cash shop and you at least make some actual playable content.
The podcasts should just be honest and say they don't feel like contuining because they themselves have lost interest in the game. This was especially apparent with Chris from STOked. I never listened to RSA so I dunno what their deal is. But blaming the playerbase sounds like a cop-out to me.
We do not blame the player base. It's not the players fault. We are continuing, with some changes to the show, because we owe it to you guys (and gals) that do listen. Over the years we've gotten amazing letters written to us, fan art people worked really hard on, and monetary donations. I'm not saying other podcasts should continue because of the community that they may owe something to, but us? As long as there's at least one person listening out there, in the verse' as Whedon would say, we'll keep broadcasting. It wouldn't be fair to anyone to just call it quits. I'll touch on that again in a moment.
Some things that I think Red Shirt could do to save the podcast....
(edited rest of quote to save space)
Trust me, we agree with you a thousand percent about our forums. We simply, cannot fix them. Which is why in the new site redesign there will be no forums. We've tried every form of captcha, anti-bot pluggin's, you name it. The bots get through. Even when we set it to require an admin to review each new user, a lot of modern bots are sophisticated enough to mimic enough basic information to make them appear legitimate. Aside from getting paid forum software where we could have guaranteed technical support by the forum software creator's, there is no fix. As for Cryptic, I won't go into that (mainly because I do not wish this thread to be locked.) Suffice to say there is a history there, going back years now of how lord knows how many emails, private messages and even phone calls have been ignored (some of it is detailed here on the STO forums if you want to search it out). We can only beg them so much before we're tired of begging.
I'm pretty sure RSA is one of those podcasts where the hosts have been saying this game is dying since... well, since they've been around. I stopped listening to them last year because I couldn't stand to listen to the trollish whining of (RSA's) Mav anymore. (Also his damn smoke alarm that he refused to get batteries for... Did his house ever burn down?)
EDIT: I thought they were already dumping STO when SWtOR came out... how did that go?
Uh, no? We've been going for almost 3 years now, with almost 120 episodes, about where STOked got to. We really didn't start saying "dooooom" as you put it, until well after F2P. We certainly had our reservations last summer when it was announced STO would become F2P because many of us had played other games that were F2P or went F2P and became shells of what they formerly were. As I've said personally since then, I don't think the game itself is "doomed", or "bad" since going F2P but I do question the company's business decisions and ethics, especially considering we're talking about the Star Trek IP here. You may consider me a troll, you are entitled to your opinion but I've never been anything but upfront and honest about STO, since beta. When praise was due I gave it. When something need to be spoken out about, I said it. I'm sorry if the truth about certain aspects of the game we all love bothers some people. You and I will simply have to agree, to disagree.
Always amusing to see claims like this without the slightest bit of real evidence. Besides instead of activity accounts I would want to see how much money sto is bringing in.
Again, there is no way to prove anything. Cryptic will never tell us hard numbers. We can only make educated guesses based on certain third party services that track numbers such as Steam, Raptr, Xfire, etc. It's not a total accurate answer but as stated previously it's not hard to notice the downward trend which at the very least, warrants questioning of the status of our playerbase. Also you'll note (since you're the second person to claim we said this) we never specifically said the phrase "STO is dying", we said STO's playerbase was in decline, and there was a lack of content. When you write such things you tend to choose your wording very carefully otherwise it's easy for people to twist what you say, or take it out of context.
RSA has considerations like their fleet size or length of PvP queues and STF queues (and I think a lot of people stopped doing these publicly or quit STFs and PvP altogether) but they have zero access to any sources. So their guess is as good as yours or mine.
We have about 55 people in the Fleet itself (only maybe ten of those are alt characters). Of that 55 we have about on average 12 active players on a weekly basis. Spread out across several timezones in about four countries (USA, Canada, UK and Australia). Public PvP queues are.. fairly long. Especially ground combat which is what quite a few of us prefer, though space combat is fun as well. The OrganizedPvP channel in-game has been a great tool for years now to find some folks to set up matches with. We've set up matches with a few other Fleets time to time over the years using that channel. Though I can say queue times are worse for those of us that have a KDF alt.
The end of podcasts such as RSA and STOked is more related to the fact that the game and the majority of audience feels differently than the hosts/sponosrs of the podcasts. Most people who run podcasts see themselves as guardians of the Faith, so to speak, and that deviance from the True Path (according to them) is heresy. So, when that deviance comes from the publishers of the game itself, how can they fight it?
They announce the end of the show in a dramatic fashion. The podcast equivalent of a rage-quit.
I know this is harsh, it's my own opinion... but I will remind people that this board, while dominant by virtue of its vocalness, still represents a notable minority of STO players. We may comfort ourselves by saying "we are the most active and valued players," but when it comes to $, whether it comes from a forum member here or a casual F2P player, the value of our $ and their $ is the same... and we Forum denizens are very outnumbered.
I couldn't disagree more. Here's a little history, I'll keep it brief; the entire premise of RSA was a round table show to discuss news, events and gameplay of STO with differing opinions. Since there's usually 5 of us, we have never all agree unanimously on an issue. Not once in RSA history. We built the show that way because, that is how a mmo's playerbase is; you have people from all age groups, various countries and everyone has an opinion. Some will agree, some won't and there is always at least one person that will disagree on a topic. We felt it really mimic'd a mmo playerbase. And it's worked out. We've never condemned someone for their opinion of STO, the Foundry folks love their story writing, the GoS guys are KDF super fans, to even the small group of folks that like to RP on K7. A niche of a niche of a niche, we respect those. Always have and always will.
Isn't that the podcast that Mavgeek guy belonged to? The one who's every post here seemed to be made with the sole intention of insulting every dev and every decision?
Good riddance, I say.
That would be me. And if you look back at older posts prior to the forum change, I never insulted every dev member, I was quite happy to see Gozer take the reins of PvP getting back on track, or Zero's dedication to the Foundry. When one of them made a mistake, I would call them on it. Again I apologize if the truth is not what people want to know. Sorry to hear you aren't a fan, can't please everyone.
To clarify it's not "my" podcast, I co-created it with Athos almost three years ago. Every cast member has equal say in what we do and what we say. We all have our tasks within the show we perform, everyone has a hand in making it.
Please do not make political references. I only ask (and nicely I may point out) because I do not wish to give any moderator a reason to lock this thread. Again, sorry you are not a fan, we cannot please everyone.
---
As we said on our site, we are not "done" with STO, we simply have to expand. There is very little in the way of news each week, some weeks virtually none other than a screen shot and maybe a blog post. You can only stretch that out so much each week when you have 1 to 2 hours of airtime to kill. All of us play other online games, and we do talk about other games already on the show, especially when we make comparisons to STO. It seemed the most organic thing to do. Otherwise the show would devolve into about 20 minutes of "hey, here's this week's screenshot Cryptic released, or this new costume that looks nice but is 800 Zen" compared to months and months ago when we'd have more news than the five of us could cover in a 2 hour time block each week. So to reiterate we are not done with STO. We'll devote the first, third or so, of each episode from this point on soley to STO news, rumors, forum topics, etc as we've always done, then just talk about other mmo / game news that came out that week, especially for games we play (The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Path of Exile, Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, Smite, on and on and on). And to be fair, as much as I enjoyed STOked every week, the last few official episodes of it prior to Asmick taking over, Chris filled in time by talking about just actual episodes of Star Trek. To his credit he did link it to the related Featured Episodes and storylines but we didn't want to just throw in filler content for RSA. Sure we could make another PvP guide (for like the fifth time), or something similar but that wouldn't be fair to those that do listen to us.
We're here to stay and still talking about STO, we're just tweaking the show format to make it more open to other games and more communities. We hope folks do continue to tune in and listen for the STO segments and the other segments. If not, we understand. We aren't everyone's cup of tea. If you listen we appreciate it, if not that's cool too.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
I wish RSA well, just as I did with Stoked. But, I'd really like to say something now, since this is the 2nd veteran group of folks who claim the need to expand, in part, due to the lack of content in STO.
Every single week, more and more content is added to this game and its Star Trek lore. Yet, every week, these podcasts ignore the new content and focus on whatever forum nerd rage is going on.
Stoked did it best: Ignore the heaps of new content added to the game, but launch into a tirade about some forum rage. Meanwhile, their "foundry Files" got bumped relentlessly. I'm not sure if RSA did it also, because I didn't really listen to it. I know they reviewed a few missions, including one of my own.
But, the bottom line is this: These podcasts eventually claim to fizzle out due to the "lack of new content," after these podcasts mostly ignore the new content added to the game via the Foundry. "It's not official Cryptic TRIBBLE, so we'll take about an overpriced EV suit for an hour." RSA may or may not fit that category. I know other podcasts do, even ones that claim to be about the Foundry.
You could not hope to entirely cover the new content added to this game each week in one podcast. But, if you ignore the ugc, then it's easy to rage about nothing.
The devs release two episodes in a year and you'll spend an entire show talking about it.
But, when one of us spends 500+ hours making an epic 4 part mission series... well that is worthy of dead air, especially if there isn't a rage against it on the forums.
There is no "content drought." You're just not talking about the actual content that is added to the game. If you're going to burn out because of a lack of content, well then you're a podcast about Cryptic, not a podcast about this game's community.
My two cents randomly cast off toward the entire podcast community.
I wish RSA well, just as I did with Stoked. But, I'd really like to say something now, since this is the 2nd veteran group of folks who claim the need to expand, in part, due to the lack of content in STO.
Every single week, more and more content is added to this game and its Star Trek lore. Yet, every week, these podcasts ignore the new content and focus on whatever forum nerd rage is going on.
Stoked did it best: Ignore the heaps of new content added to the game, but launch into a tirade about some forum rage. Meanwhile, their "foundry Files" got bumped relentlessly. I'm not sure if RSA did it also, because I didn't really listen to it.
But, the bottom line is this: These podcasts eventually claim to fizzle out due to the "lack of new content," after these podcasts mostly ignore the new content added to the game via the Foundry. "It's not official Cryptic TRIBBLE, so we'll take about an overpriced EV suit for an hour." RSA may or may not fit that category. I know other podcast do, even ones that claim to be about the Foundry.
You could not hope to entirely cover the new content added to this game each week in one podcast. But, if you ignore the ugc, then it's easy to rage about nothing.
I'll admit we are not heavy into the Foundry. That is what PodcastUGC, PrimetimeUGC and BroadcastUGC, are for. Shows dedicated to it. We talk about Foundry missions now and them, whenever people email us one and say "hey, can you guys check out this mission", we play it and talk about it. I think the Foundry has great potential.
As for "content", please point me to what content Cryptic is releasing? We got a few new missions when Season 6 launched, most of which we've all been grinding off and on for a while now. The Tholian stuff was great, but it's like the Borg Invasion; fun the first handful of times you do it but after that there's nothing there "meaty" enough to sink your teeth into on a regular basis. As I've always personally said, "content" really needs to be something that either takes a while to complete without grind, or a renewable form of gameplay that you can do repetitively and not get bored of (i.e. pvp, for myself).
To be honest we don't cover Foundry stuff, every week, mainly because there are shows that do that. They know more about the Foundry than we do, can provide you with better Foundry information than we can, etc. Now if you want PvP stuff, or KDF stuff, or Featured Episodes stuff, we can easily go into those topics. Those are things most of the hosts do. None of us are really Foundry authors, so it wouldn't be fair for us to critique a mission regularly when we don't have the necessary knowledge to properly judge it.
If you are craving Foundry news, reviews, tips and such, I recommend one of the above mention Podcasts.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
You may wish to ignore the above post, I was not aware Kirksplat was Kirkfat. (Not a fan of the new forums and new names).
It's a bit unfair to say we don't talk about the Foundry, now in hindsight, considering we've reviewed several of your missions on the show over the years.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
I'll admit we are not heavy into the Foundry. That is what PodcastUGC, PrimetimeUGC and BroadcastUGC, are for. Shows dedicated to it. We talk about Foundry missions now and them, whenever people email us one and say "hey, can you guys check out this mission", we play it and talk about it. I think the Foundry has great potential.
As for "content", please point me to what content Cryptic is releasing? We got a few new missions when Season 6 launched, most of which we've all been grinding off and on for a while now. The Tholian stuff was great, but it's like the Borg Invasion; fun the first handful of times you do it but after that there's nothing there "meaty" enough to sink your teeth into on a regular basis. As I've always personally said, "content" really needs to be something that either takes a while to complete without grind, or a renewable form of gameplay that you can do repetitively and not get bored of (i.e. pvp, for myself).
To be honest we don't cover Foundry stuff, every week, mainly because there are shows that do that. They know more about the Foundry than we do, can provide you with better Foundry information than we can, etc. Now if you want PvP stuff, or KDF stuff, or Featured Episodes stuff, we can easily go into those topics. Those are things most of the hosts do. None of us are really Foundry authors, so it wouldn't be fair for us to critique a mission regularly when we don't have the necessary knowledge to properly judge it.
If you are craving Foundry news, reviews, tips and such, I recommend one of the above mention Podcasts.
that's fair enough. But, at some point, you have to admit that there is a ton of content added to the game that your podcast chooses not to talk about or cover. You can't point to a "content drought" to explain why you don't have stuff to talk about. It's a choice of what counts v. what doesn't.
And you don't have to know how the foundry works, to talk about new content added to the game via the foundry. There are new stories. There are new missions. There are new arcs. Every single week.
"But if it's not Cryptic, then it's not important." That's a choice. If you're a podcast about new content added to STO, then your show notes should be full every week, no matter what other podcasts talk about.
There is new content added to this game every day. 10 or 20 more podcasts couldn't hope to fully cover it all.
where Foundry Fan Fiction Missions have to pick up the slack for Cryptic's inability to deliver their own Soft-Canon story content.
For the record i am the first to say that the Foundry needs more updates, better UI integration and NEEDS to be tied into that Reputation System for Season 7 to get some real player attention.
all the foundry *Spotlights* are nice and so on, but it isn't even an in-game spotlight, just a Website thing, and only a minority visits the Website as they always love to tell us when they choose to ignore our feedback.
I want a lot more from the Foundry system BUT i don't play Foundry missions.
Cryptic has trained me to do my daily dilithium / Zen / Fleetmark grind to get my hands on the C-Store items that i WANT.
Same with STFs and STF gear (got my 3 Armors, i think i'm done with STFs, at least for now...)
I have 11 Characters that i all want to bring forward in some way, and the Foundry in it's current form does not help me with that in ANY form or shape.
The Foundry is so disconnected from STO as a System it might not even be inside the same game as far as i am concerned.
Just like the Duty Officer System would work just fine as it's own game, without all the 3D STO stuff.
2. Get hosts that are interested in the podcasts they are doing if they aren't Trek fans they have no business covering STO. If Cohas or morblades can't or won't show to do a show then get rid of them; I'm sure there are members of the Red Shirt Fleet that would be glad to replace them. In my opinion this is what finally did STOked in, Jeremy was clearly the heart and soul of the show and Chris seemed to be along for the ride, as his interested waned so did the show. I would LOVE to see Cryptic start a podcast of their own with Jeremy at the helm!
I believe Cohas and I ARE Trek fans. Do I send out Facebook or Twitter messages every day citing a line in a movie or series episode? Nope, real life keeps me from doing that. I watched every one of the Original Trek episodes sitting next to my grandfather on the couch. My dad was in VietNam at the time and we lived with my grandparents. Siting with my grandfather watching those episodes, are some of the fondest memories I have. When The Next Generation started I was ecstatic. My mother, bless her soul sent me VHS tapes of the show once a month, because I was in Germany and only had one TV station, that didn't show Trek, heh. Over the years I have watched most anything Trek that appeared. If I'm not a real Trek fan because I happen to like the new JJ verse movies, then well then guilty as charged. Im not only a Trek fan but a Sci Fi fan, and just about anything Sci Fi, I dig. I also do not tend to read Trek novels, when I read its mostly, historical or fantasy. Again if I need to read all things Trek, guilty as charged. There are many Podcast out there that are Huge Trek fans, Colin has one that I know of and then there's the G and T Show. Anyone that ever listened to RSA knows I'm an MMO gamer first and a Trek fan second, I was just happy that somebody (Cryptic) brought both of those things together.
I can't speak for Cohas, but I believe he and I both log into STO every day. I still like the DOFF part of the game a lot. But I've run all of the STFs, many times. I have 4 alts, and have run all of the missions, for each, many times over. And well, PVP.... I believe that when Cryptic gets moving on content other than new ships and clothing in the C Store folks will come back in droves. For now all we hear from Cryptic is message from them about a new item up for purchase or GOD BLESS HIM, Brandon tweets or messages about something he's put together for the community ( MMOs need more folks like him dealing with the community ) and then there's the monthly? messages from our producer, telling us how awesome Season 7 will be. I hope its as awesome.
As for my recent absence from RSA, I've been absent from most everything MMO related over the past month because of health reasons. Those close to me know the deal, and that's all I care about. I tune into PodcastUGC, Tribbles in Ecstasy, Beyond the Veil, weekly to keep up on whats going on in the games I have interested in right now. I spoke to Mav a month ago about my coming absence, so that he could find a replacement while I was out. I hope that once I'm back up to 100% health I can rejoin my friends, even of its to talk about other games we are all playing besides STO.
For those of you that do listen to RSA, please keep tuning in, I'm sure there will be plenty of STO info, as well as other games people play.
that's fair enough. But, at some point, you have to admit that there is a ton of content added to the game that your podcast chooses not to talk about or cover. You can't point to a "content drought" to explain why you don't have stuff to talk about. It's a choice of what counts v. what doesn't....
Exactly, its a choice that most make in favor of NOT counting the Foundry as content. It doesn't diminish the effort put into the misions, or the fun the missions add to the game.
Because official has a different connotation than not official. No matter how good or bad the stories might be there is always going to be a segment of the audience who will see it as nothing more then fan-fiction; the type of thing you can find on blogs all over the internet. Just as many people do not consider Star Trek novels to be valid to canon many STO players will not consider Foundry content to be valid to its canon.
Because official has a different connotation than not official. No matter how good or bad the stories might be there is always going to be a segment of the audience who will see it as nothing more then fan-fiction; the type of thing you can find on blogs all over the internet. Just as many people do not consider Star Trek novels to be valid to canon many STO players will not consider Foundry content to be valid to its canon.
It seems strange, when this is "official" content for the game:
Explore the Afehirr Nebula
I get orders to go to the Afehirr Nebula, which is about as deep into Romulan space as I can fly, unless I'm confused about the galactic geography. Once near the nebula, I have to re-hail a different guy to get the mission. Apparently, I'm so far away from civilization that subspace is only reliable when I get there.
Alright, so I enter the nebula, and the dude that ordered me to explore immediately hails me. He has new orders for me to explore different nebulae. I don't think I'd want to work under such an ADD Admiral. So, I ignore his new orders and obey his old.
I'm going where no one has gone before. The great unknown.
I "explore unknown system."
"Sir, sensors are detecting a Reman base." It's not listed on our wiki of Reman bases, so they must be up to something. It might cause a diplomatic incident, since the Remans have no claims on this area. I'm not sure we have claims to police it either.
I mean, isn't that itself a diplomatic incident? I'm a Starfleet vessel exploring deep in or near Romulan space. I don't think the Remans would take kindly to my inspection of their papers.
But, I beam down and investigate. Paraphrasing: "Captain, this computer is junk. Go to the next room. Captain, this computer tells me a little more: It's a covert outpost." "Yes, thank you for stating the obvious." "Captain, the Remans are monitoring mercantile activities."
Then comes a glaring typo: "Captain, the transmissions the base was recorded..." I forgive it, since my own stuff probably still has typos. They breed like tribbles.
"Captain..." It turns out I've discovered a covert outpost not authorized by the Reman government so they cleaned up in a hurry. But, they were completely incompetent at hiding what was going on here. All it took was a Starfleet captain who know how to scan 5 computer consoles. That's the entire story.
Ok, moving on.
I'm just not sure how that mission is any better than the dumbest of console clickers, to be honest. And, I'm also not convinced that this gem of a mission called "Ghost Ship" can compete with a 3 star Foundry mission. They seem proud of "Ghost Ship."
These two examples are not the worst of the worst. They're the average quality of Cryptic stuff. There are exceptional missions too. But I'd wager that the good outweighs the bad far more often with UGC, if you can forgive the typos.
I play the odd foundry mission now and then, but as said above, so long as Cryptic does not support the foundry by adding skill points and proper rewards to them, they will always play second fiddle to Cryptic made missions.
I know for a fact that many missions in the foundry are far far superior to anything cryptic has released, but no one is going to spend an hour doing one of the good missions and not get rewarded for it when you can do a couple of stfs in that time.
It is up to cryptic to support the foundry properly and then more people will play them.
I believe the stories some folks have written for the Foundry are awesome. I've played your missions Kirkfat and have enjoyed them immensely . I believe the issue comes down to Rewards. While there are likely quite a few folks playing STO that are huge Trek fans, there are also many folks that are just MMO fans. Many MMO fans only have so many hours in a day to play games. When they complete a mission, they receive loot, experience, faction, etc. Like it or not, most game players expect some sort of reward after completing a quest/mission. As far as I know, there's not much reward to the Foundry missions, with the exception of a good story. Unless Cryptic makes a change to the way Foundry works in Neverwinter as compared to STO, they will have the same issue. Folks will not bother playing quest that have no rewards. Just my opinion, but coming from someone who spent 3 years in Everquest to do all of the quest and running around to get an Epic Ranger weapon, hah.
I believe the stories some folks have written for the Foundry are awesome. I've played your missions Kirkfat and have enjoyed them immensely . I believe the issue comes down to Rewards. While there are likely quite a few folks playing STO that are huge Trek fans, there are also many folks that are just MMO fans. Many MMO fans only have so many hours in a day to play games. When they complete a mission, they receive loot, experience, faction, etc. Like it or not, most game players expect some sort of reward after completing a quest/mission. As far as I know, there's not much reward to the Foundry missions, with the exception of a good story. Unless Cryptic makes a change to the way Foundry works in Neverwinter as compared to STO, they will have the same issue. Folks will not bother playing quest that have no rewards. Just my opinion, but coming from someone who spent 3 years in Everquest to do all of the quest and running around to get an Epic Ranger weapon, hah.
MorBlade
Rewards for all foundry missions are coming soon. It's based on a timer, most likely. If it's a short mission, you'll get junk. If it's a two hour epic battle, you'll get uber lootz. This is one of most immediate updates to the game, if the changes to NW are fully implemented here.
Rewards for playing spotlighted missions are coming much sooner. You'll get goodies for every spotlight you play, and then they'll probably extend it based on how the mechanic works.
Here is some info on how NW is implementing it. See the Ask Cryptics for info on Foundry spotlight rewards, coming prior to season 7, which is like next month.
There are over 20 spotlights. You'll get cool lootz for playing them. Stayed tuned for a new mission each week. Yes, new content with rewards, every Friday.
Think Cryptic could ever deliver that alone? Plus, you'll get to lvl your toons and have a completely unique experience every time.
It seems strange, when this is "official" content for the game:
As I indicated above, how good something is has no bearing on how official it is. There are good and bad STO missions and there are good and bad Fondry missions. There are good and bad Star Trek episodes/movies and there are good and bad Star Trek novels. No matter how good or bad, though, only the episodes/movies are considered canon/official by CBS. It is the same in STO. No matter how good, the Foundry is super-soft canon in an already soft canon game. That is the way many are going to see it, no matter what rewards you might get for doing it.
As I indicated above, how good something is has no bearing on how official it is. There are good and bad STO missions and there are good and bad Fondry missions. There are good and bad Star Trek episodes/movies and there are good and bad Star Trek novels. No matter how good or bad, though, only the episodes/movies are considered canon/official by CBS. It is the same in STO. No matter how good, the Foundry is super-soft canon in an already soft canon game. That is the way many are going to see it, no matter what rewards you might get for doing it.
hmm... I really have no comment to this. Those people have far more respect for missions where they killed bar patrons, Romulan scientists, etc. than they do for an awesome sequel to an actual episode seen on TV.
The only difference between a fan writing a Trek story and a staff writer writing one is that the staff writer gets paid to do it. A creative mind is a creative mind, whether you get paid for your creation or not.
I would say the difference is that one is written and then vetted by CBS and the other is just written. That vetting adds an aire of validity, which is important to some people.
I am not arguing against the Foundry: I like the Foundry. I am simply saying that in game missions there is a sense of canon: a sense that things will make logical sense within the Star Trek universe when we go to play them. In a Foundry mission we have no idea what we are going to get. It could be a dimensional travel mission to a Star Trek universe where Picard and Spock are TRIBBLE lovers, Westley is married to Guinan, and the new Enterprise F is a miranda class. Foundry authors are not bound by canon or continuity like STO's writer is. A lot of people do not want to have to pick and hope it makes sense.
Comments
Well, Chris would put out feelers with devs and has a friend who's a dev... But the freakout wasn't prompted by ANY facts but rather because Perfect World PR wouldn't give him any and was requesting an interview embargo until they had news they wanted to promote, rather than just having devs on to chat.
RSA has considerations like their fleet size or length of PvP queues and STF queues (and I think a lot of people stopped doing these publicly or quit STFs and PvP altogether) but they have zero access to any sources. So their guess is as good as yours or mine.
They announce the end of the show in a dramatic fashion. The podcast equivalent of a rage-quit.
I know this is harsh, it's my own opinion... but I will remind people that this board, while dominant by virtue of its vocalness, still represents a notable minority of STO players. We may comfort ourselves by saying "we are the most active and valued players," but when it comes to $, whether it comes from a forum member here or a casual F2P player, the value of our $ and their $ is the same... and we Forum denizens are very outnumbered.
Good riddance, I say.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
And the other Podcasts are thriving nicely and they are even joining the Trek Radio, which means they are expanding beyond just STO. Which means reaching out to a greater audience, encouraging potential new players.
Its difficult to generate excitement with new content when its designed to remove cash from your pocket.
The Fleet system for example.
Not sure what tea leaves RSA is reading, but every single metric we can measure as players suggests STO is doing well, and F2P is a huge success. Maybe this topic should be covered on... STOked.
Rules of Acquisition at Priority One
Yep. They see things a certain way, and their views are usually good intentioned, but extreme, and often unrealistic. Completely detached from reality. It's no surprise they lose viewership like this.
Bingo.
STOked and now RSA shutting down?
****s given: 0.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
lol
Yes, RSA is Mavgeek's podcast.
STO has been on Steam as a F2P game since January, trust me, I joined because of Steam telling me it was F2P.
Jim
As we said, the Steam numbers example is only just that, an example. We will never truly know the exact population of regular players because Cryptic will never tell us. However if you look at the Steam numbers as a certain percentage of the player base, then look at how over time those numbers have risen then just steadily fallen over time you could extrapolate that possibly the same thing is happening for the total player base. To "back it up" more, take a gander at the "Comments" section of the various news posts on the main page here. Every time a new Lockbox is announced, or a new huge Dilithium sink Starbase Project, there are far more people against it and those saying that such things make them want to play less, than more. And every mmo as you say does have people who think the sky is falling so to speak, but I think almost three years before that has begun to happen in STO is fairly good. Look at SWTOR, even before it was announced it would go F2P it had people claiming the sky was falling, and it came out in January, of this year.
The "free to play model" can easily work for online games. Look at League of Legends. It's not an mmorpg, but it's one of the most widely played games online, and their entire system is set up fairly similar to Cryptic's; pay real money for a in-game currency to buy skins, characters, etc or grind through in-game content for that in-game currency. LoL has millions of players world wide, it's one of the top streamed games on TwitchTV every day, it's like the Kevin Bacon of online games even if you don't play it you know someone who has or someone who knows someone else who has. Cryptic's issue as we've said all along is, PWE's focus for them has been the cash shop. We went from over 10 full Featured Episodes (ranging from what, 3-5 missions each) in a year, down to 2. Yet we've gotten more costumes, more skins, more ship variants and more +1 ships in the cash shop. It's not a bad game, it's still fun to play and free to play works, when your focus is not 100% cash shop and you at least make some actual playable content.
We do not blame the player base. It's not the players fault. We are continuing, with some changes to the show, because we owe it to you guys (and gals) that do listen. Over the years we've gotten amazing letters written to us, fan art people worked really hard on, and monetary donations. I'm not saying other podcasts should continue because of the community that they may owe something to, but us? As long as there's at least one person listening out there, in the verse' as Whedon would say, we'll keep broadcasting. It wouldn't be fair to anyone to just call it quits. I'll touch on that again in a moment.
Trust me, we agree with you a thousand percent about our forums. We simply, cannot fix them. Which is why in the new site redesign there will be no forums. We've tried every form of captcha, anti-bot pluggin's, you name it. The bots get through. Even when we set it to require an admin to review each new user, a lot of modern bots are sophisticated enough to mimic enough basic information to make them appear legitimate. Aside from getting paid forum software where we could have guaranteed technical support by the forum software creator's, there is no fix. As for Cryptic, I won't go into that (mainly because I do not wish this thread to be locked.) Suffice to say there is a history there, going back years now of how lord knows how many emails, private messages and even phone calls have been ignored (some of it is detailed here on the STO forums if you want to search it out). We can only beg them so much before we're tired of begging.
Uh, no? We've been going for almost 3 years now, with almost 120 episodes, about where STOked got to. We really didn't start saying "dooooom" as you put it, until well after F2P. We certainly had our reservations last summer when it was announced STO would become F2P because many of us had played other games that were F2P or went F2P and became shells of what they formerly were. As I've said personally since then, I don't think the game itself is "doomed", or "bad" since going F2P but I do question the company's business decisions and ethics, especially considering we're talking about the Star Trek IP here. You may consider me a troll, you are entitled to your opinion but I've never been anything but upfront and honest about STO, since beta. When praise was due I gave it. When something need to be spoken out about, I said it. I'm sorry if the truth about certain aspects of the game we all love bothers some people. You and I will simply have to agree, to disagree.
Again, there is no way to prove anything. Cryptic will never tell us hard numbers. We can only make educated guesses based on certain third party services that track numbers such as Steam, Raptr, Xfire, etc. It's not a total accurate answer but as stated previously it's not hard to notice the downward trend which at the very least, warrants questioning of the status of our playerbase. Also you'll note (since you're the second person to claim we said this) we never specifically said the phrase "STO is dying", we said STO's playerbase was in decline, and there was a lack of content. When you write such things you tend to choose your wording very carefully otherwise it's easy for people to twist what you say, or take it out of context.
We have about 55 people in the Fleet itself (only maybe ten of those are alt characters). Of that 55 we have about on average 12 active players on a weekly basis. Spread out across several timezones in about four countries (USA, Canada, UK and Australia). Public PvP queues are.. fairly long. Especially ground combat which is what quite a few of us prefer, though space combat is fun as well. The OrganizedPvP channel in-game has been a great tool for years now to find some folks to set up matches with. We've set up matches with a few other Fleets time to time over the years using that channel. Though I can say queue times are worse for those of us that have a KDF alt.
I couldn't disagree more. Here's a little history, I'll keep it brief; the entire premise of RSA was a round table show to discuss news, events and gameplay of STO with differing opinions. Since there's usually 5 of us, we have never all agree unanimously on an issue. Not once in RSA history. We built the show that way because, that is how a mmo's playerbase is; you have people from all age groups, various countries and everyone has an opinion. Some will agree, some won't and there is always at least one person that will disagree on a topic. We felt it really mimic'd a mmo playerbase. And it's worked out. We've never condemned someone for their opinion of STO, the Foundry folks love their story writing, the GoS guys are KDF super fans, to even the small group of folks that like to RP on K7. A niche of a niche of a niche, we respect those. Always have and always will.
That would be me. And if you look back at older posts prior to the forum change, I never insulted every dev member, I was quite happy to see Gozer take the reins of PvP getting back on track, or Zero's dedication to the Foundry. When one of them made a mistake, I would call them on it. Again I apologize if the truth is not what people want to know. Sorry to hear you aren't a fan, can't please everyone.
To clarify it's not "my" podcast, I co-created it with Athos almost three years ago. Every cast member has equal say in what we do and what we say. We all have our tasks within the show we perform, everyone has a hand in making it.
Please do not make political references. I only ask (and nicely I may point out) because I do not wish to give any moderator a reason to lock this thread. Again, sorry you are not a fan, we cannot please everyone.
---
As we said on our site, we are not "done" with STO, we simply have to expand. There is very little in the way of news each week, some weeks virtually none other than a screen shot and maybe a blog post. You can only stretch that out so much each week when you have 1 to 2 hours of airtime to kill. All of us play other online games, and we do talk about other games already on the show, especially when we make comparisons to STO. It seemed the most organic thing to do. Otherwise the show would devolve into about 20 minutes of "hey, here's this week's screenshot Cryptic released, or this new costume that looks nice but is 800 Zen" compared to months and months ago when we'd have more news than the five of us could cover in a 2 hour time block each week. So to reiterate we are not done with STO. We'll devote the first, third or so, of each episode from this point on soley to STO news, rumors, forum topics, etc as we've always done, then just talk about other mmo / game news that came out that week, especially for games we play (The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Path of Exile, Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, Smite, on and on and on). And to be fair, as much as I enjoyed STOked every week, the last few official episodes of it prior to Asmick taking over, Chris filled in time by talking about just actual episodes of Star Trek. To his credit he did link it to the related Featured Episodes and storylines but we didn't want to just throw in filler content for RSA. Sure we could make another PvP guide (for like the fifth time), or something similar but that wouldn't be fair to those that do listen to us.
We're here to stay and still talking about STO, we're just tweaking the show format to make it more open to other games and more communities. We hope folks do continue to tune in and listen for the STO segments and the other segments. If not, we understand. We aren't everyone's cup of tea. If you listen we appreciate it, if not that's cool too.
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
Every single week, more and more content is added to this game and its Star Trek lore. Yet, every week, these podcasts ignore the new content and focus on whatever forum nerd rage is going on.
Stoked did it best: Ignore the heaps of new content added to the game, but launch into a tirade about some forum rage. Meanwhile, their "foundry Files" got bumped relentlessly. I'm not sure if RSA did it also, because I didn't really listen to it. I know they reviewed a few missions, including one of my own.
But, the bottom line is this: These podcasts eventually claim to fizzle out due to the "lack of new content," after these podcasts mostly ignore the new content added to the game via the Foundry. "It's not official Cryptic TRIBBLE, so we'll take about an overpriced EV suit for an hour." RSA may or may not fit that category. I know other podcasts do, even ones that claim to be about the Foundry.
You could not hope to entirely cover the new content added to this game each week in one podcast. But, if you ignore the ugc, then it's easy to rage about nothing.
The devs release two episodes in a year and you'll spend an entire show talking about it.
But, when one of us spends 500+ hours making an epic 4 part mission series... well that is worthy of dead air, especially if there isn't a rage against it on the forums.
There is no "content drought." You're just not talking about the actual content that is added to the game. If you're going to burn out because of a lack of content, well then you're a podcast about Cryptic, not a podcast about this game's community.
My two cents randomly cast off toward the entire podcast community.
I'll admit we are not heavy into the Foundry. That is what PodcastUGC, PrimetimeUGC and BroadcastUGC, are for. Shows dedicated to it. We talk about Foundry missions now and them, whenever people email us one and say "hey, can you guys check out this mission", we play it and talk about it. I think the Foundry has great potential.
As for "content", please point me to what content Cryptic is releasing? We got a few new missions when Season 6 launched, most of which we've all been grinding off and on for a while now. The Tholian stuff was great, but it's like the Borg Invasion; fun the first handful of times you do it but after that there's nothing there "meaty" enough to sink your teeth into on a regular basis. As I've always personally said, "content" really needs to be something that either takes a while to complete without grind, or a renewable form of gameplay that you can do repetitively and not get bored of (i.e. pvp, for myself).
To be honest we don't cover Foundry stuff, every week, mainly because there are shows that do that. They know more about the Foundry than we do, can provide you with better Foundry information than we can, etc. Now if you want PvP stuff, or KDF stuff, or Featured Episodes stuff, we can easily go into those topics. Those are things most of the hosts do. None of us are really Foundry authors, so it wouldn't be fair for us to critique a mission regularly when we don't have the necessary knowledge to properly judge it.
If you are craving Foundry news, reviews, tips and such, I recommend one of the above mention Podcasts.
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
It's a bit unfair to say we don't talk about the Foundry, now in hindsight, considering we've reviewed several of your missions on the show over the years.
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
that's fair enough. But, at some point, you have to admit that there is a ton of content added to the game that your podcast chooses not to talk about or cover. You can't point to a "content drought" to explain why you don't have stuff to talk about. It's a choice of what counts v. what doesn't.
And you don't have to know how the foundry works, to talk about new content added to the game via the foundry. There are new stories. There are new missions. There are new arcs. Every single week.
"But if it's not Cryptic, then it's not important." That's a choice. If you're a podcast about new content added to STO, then your show notes should be full every week, no matter what other podcasts talk about.
There is new content added to this game every day. 10 or 20 more podcasts couldn't hope to fully cover it all.
the point where nobody wanted this to go
where Foundry Fan Fiction Missions have to pick up the slack for Cryptic's inability to deliver their own Soft-Canon story content.
For the record i am the first to say that the Foundry needs more updates, better UI integration and NEEDS to be tied into that Reputation System for Season 7 to get some real player attention.
all the foundry *Spotlights* are nice and so on, but it isn't even an in-game spotlight, just a Website thing, and only a minority visits the Website as they always love to tell us when they choose to ignore our feedback.
I want a lot more from the Foundry system BUT i don't play Foundry missions.
Cryptic has trained me to do my daily dilithium / Zen / Fleetmark grind to get my hands on the C-Store items that i WANT.
Same with STFs and STF gear (got my 3 Armors, i think i'm done with STFs, at least for now...)
I have 11 Characters that i all want to bring forward in some way, and the Foundry in it's current form does not help me with that in ANY form or shape.
The Foundry is so disconnected from STO as a System it might not even be inside the same game as far as i am concerned.
Just like the Duty Officer System would work just fine as it's own game, without all the 3D STO stuff.
I believe Cohas and I ARE Trek fans. Do I send out Facebook or Twitter messages every day citing a line in a movie or series episode? Nope, real life keeps me from doing that. I watched every one of the Original Trek episodes sitting next to my grandfather on the couch. My dad was in VietNam at the time and we lived with my grandparents. Siting with my grandfather watching those episodes, are some of the fondest memories I have. When The Next Generation started I was ecstatic. My mother, bless her soul sent me VHS tapes of the show once a month, because I was in Germany and only had one TV station, that didn't show Trek, heh. Over the years I have watched most anything Trek that appeared. If I'm not a real Trek fan because I happen to like the new JJ verse movies, then well then guilty as charged. Im not only a Trek fan but a Sci Fi fan, and just about anything Sci Fi, I dig. I also do not tend to read Trek novels, when I read its mostly, historical or fantasy. Again if I need to read all things Trek, guilty as charged. There are many Podcast out there that are Huge Trek fans, Colin has one that I know of and then there's the G and T Show. Anyone that ever listened to RSA knows I'm an MMO gamer first and a Trek fan second, I was just happy that somebody (Cryptic) brought both of those things together.
I can't speak for Cohas, but I believe he and I both log into STO every day. I still like the DOFF part of the game a lot. But I've run all of the STFs, many times. I have 4 alts, and have run all of the missions, for each, many times over. And well, PVP.... I believe that when Cryptic gets moving on content other than new ships and clothing in the C Store folks will come back in droves. For now all we hear from Cryptic is message from them about a new item up for purchase or GOD BLESS HIM, Brandon tweets or messages about something he's put together for the community ( MMOs need more folks like him dealing with the community ) and then there's the monthly? messages from our producer, telling us how awesome Season 7 will be. I hope its as awesome.
As for my recent absence from RSA, I've been absent from most everything MMO related over the past month because of health reasons. Those close to me know the deal, and that's all I care about. I tune into PodcastUGC, Tribbles in Ecstasy, Beyond the Veil, weekly to keep up on whats going on in the games I have interested in right now. I spoke to Mav a month ago about my coming absence, so that he could find a replacement while I was out. I hope that once I'm back up to 100% health I can rejoin my friends, even of its to talk about other games we are all playing besides STO.
For those of you that do listen to RSA, please keep tuning in, I'm sure there will be plenty of STO info, as well as other games people play.
Live Long and Prosper
MorBlade
www.STOportal.com
www.BladeMMO.com
Exactly, its a choice that most make in favor of NOT counting the Foundry as content. It doesn't diminish the effort put into the misions, or the fun the missions add to the game.
But why is the choice made?
It seems strange, when this is "official" content for the game:
Explore the Afehirr Nebula
I get orders to go to the Afehirr Nebula, which is about as deep into Romulan space as I can fly, unless I'm confused about the galactic geography. Once near the nebula, I have to re-hail a different guy to get the mission. Apparently, I'm so far away from civilization that subspace is only reliable when I get there.
Alright, so I enter the nebula, and the dude that ordered me to explore immediately hails me. He has new orders for me to explore different nebulae. I don't think I'd want to work under such an ADD Admiral. So, I ignore his new orders and obey his old.
I'm going where no one has gone before. The great unknown.
I "explore unknown system."
"Sir, sensors are detecting a Reman base." It's not listed on our wiki of Reman bases, so they must be up to something. It might cause a diplomatic incident, since the Remans have no claims on this area. I'm not sure we have claims to police it either.
I mean, isn't that itself a diplomatic incident? I'm a Starfleet vessel exploring deep in or near Romulan space. I don't think the Remans would take kindly to my inspection of their papers.
But, I beam down and investigate. Paraphrasing: "Captain, this computer is junk. Go to the next room. Captain, this computer tells me a little more: It's a covert outpost." "Yes, thank you for stating the obvious." "Captain, the Remans are monitoring mercantile activities."
Then comes a glaring typo: "Captain, the transmissions the base was recorded..." I forgive it, since my own stuff probably still has typos. They breed like tribbles.
"Captain..." It turns out I've discovered a covert outpost not authorized by the Reman government so they cleaned up in a hurry. But, they were completely incompetent at hiding what was going on here. All it took was a Starfleet captain who know how to scan 5 computer consoles. That's the entire story.
Ok, moving on.
I'm just not sure how that mission is any better than the dumbest of console clickers, to be honest. And, I'm also not convinced that this gem of a mission called "Ghost Ship" can compete with a 3 star Foundry mission. They seem proud of "Ghost Ship."
These two examples are not the worst of the worst. They're the average quality of Cryptic stuff. There are exceptional missions too. But I'd wager that the good outweighs the bad far more often with UGC, if you can forgive the typos.
I play the odd foundry mission now and then, but as said above, so long as Cryptic does not support the foundry by adding skill points and proper rewards to them, they will always play second fiddle to Cryptic made missions.
I know for a fact that many missions in the foundry are far far superior to anything cryptic has released, but no one is going to spend an hour doing one of the good missions and not get rewarded for it when you can do a couple of stfs in that time.
It is up to cryptic to support the foundry properly and then more people will play them.
I believe the stories some folks have written for the Foundry are awesome. I've played your missions Kirkfat and have enjoyed them immensely . I believe the issue comes down to Rewards. While there are likely quite a few folks playing STO that are huge Trek fans, there are also many folks that are just MMO fans. Many MMO fans only have so many hours in a day to play games. When they complete a mission, they receive loot, experience, faction, etc. Like it or not, most game players expect some sort of reward after completing a quest/mission. As far as I know, there's not much reward to the Foundry missions, with the exception of a good story. Unless Cryptic makes a change to the way Foundry works in Neverwinter as compared to STO, they will have the same issue. Folks will not bother playing quest that have no rewards. Just my opinion, but coming from someone who spent 3 years in Everquest to do all of the quest and running around to get an Epic Ranger weapon, hah.
MorBlade
Rewards for all foundry missions are coming soon. It's based on a timer, most likely. If it's a short mission, you'll get junk. If it's a two hour epic battle, you'll get uber lootz. This is one of most immediate updates to the game, if the changes to NW are fully implemented here.
Rewards for playing spotlighted missions are coming much sooner. You'll get goodies for every spotlight you play, and then they'll probably extend it based on how the mechanic works.
Here is some info on how NW is implementing it. See the Ask Cryptics for info on Foundry spotlight rewards, coming prior to season 7, which is like next month.
There are over 20 spotlights. You'll get cool lootz for playing them. Stayed tuned for a new mission each week. Yes, new content with rewards, every Friday.
Think Cryptic could ever deliver that alone? Plus, you'll get to lvl your toons and have a completely unique experience every time.
hmm... I really have no comment to this. Those people have far more respect for missions where they killed bar patrons, Romulan scientists, etc. than they do for an awesome sequel to an actual episode seen on TV.
To each their own. I'd say they're missing out.
I am not arguing against the Foundry: I like the Foundry. I am simply saying that in game missions there is a sense of canon: a sense that things will make logical sense within the Star Trek universe when we go to play them. In a Foundry mission we have no idea what we are going to get. It could be a dimensional travel mission to a Star Trek universe where Picard and Spock are TRIBBLE lovers, Westley is married to Guinan, and the new Enterprise F is a miranda class. Foundry authors are not bound by canon or continuity like STO's writer is. A lot of people do not want to have to pick and hope it makes sense.