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Season 8 or a new Season 1?
gstamo01
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Just curious if folks would rather see a new Season One under a new STO subtitle like "Star Trek Online: The Blah Blah: Season One" or just carry on with it as Season Eight.
I only ask because Star Trek doesn't do eight seasons.
I only ask because Star Trek doesn't do eight seasons.
You know Cryptic has Jumped the Proverbial Shark when they introduced Tractor Pulling to Star Trek Online! 
Post edited by gstamo01 on
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renaming the game to something slightly different and going back to season 1 will just confuse people.
Oh I know, but they were the ones that decided to call it "Seasons" and all other mmo's tag a new subtitle under the main name with each expansion.
The Star Trek Online we have now is not the one that was released nearly three years ago. Tagging a new subtitle under the name might even help bring in new or coax old members to return.
I am not for or against whatever they want to call it, so long as they keep them coming.
It was just something that's been on my mind since season one. Though back than, it was more "I wonder if they will even make it to eight seasons.."
Well, given that the Season updates are architectural rather than purely story driven, I'd prefer it if they'd just refer to these things as PATCHES like most other game developers. Making it something like Patch 2.3. I think the communication would be clearer.
But given the choice between Season 8 (which has no meaning in Star Trek as shows never go past 7 seasons and no meaning in real world calendar terms since the goal is now 2 a year) and Star Trek Online (Superlative or Phrase) Season 1, I think the latter is at least snappier and more effective at building anticipation.
Season implies one a year, as-in TV shows (and thus implies story), or four a year, as-in calendar (and thus implies frequency).
Moreover, if you want to get into semantics (and I usually do), then I would point out that naming your big patches SEASONS tends to emphasize a chronology of systems updates. Your "story" becomes not an in-world story but a story of system updates and features. This may be useful as an internal tool for patting your designers on the back for how far they've come since launch but probably de-emphasizes proper in-world story at the development level.
Additionally, it causes players to look at the history of your game as a series of buffs/nerfs/code changes. Which has an interesting set of psychological effects on how they view the game. When good changes come around, people may say, for example, "Season 8 IS great." But they rarely say "Season 8 WAS great." Generally, emphasizing chronology of game development has three effects:
- People look back on changes negatively, breeding fundamentalism. ("Patch 1.5 ruined the game.") People also dread changes. Ask any player about Issue 6 of City of Heroes. Do they talk about super-group bases or dual core support? No. They talk about the enhancement diversification nerf. (As a side note here: I'd encourage people to go back through the history of CoX, Champs, and STO. Which big ticket mechanical changes were ever seen as successes? Which ever caused a game to gain players? I'd argue that a winning scratchoff lottery ticket is far more common than mechanical updates actually enhancing value or attracting players. Content is king. Systems is playing the lottery. Doesn't mean you don't play but you put food on the table before you hit the slot machines.)
- People begin to demand new patches and code branch mergers when what they want is not a code update but content. ("When will Patch 2.7 get here? I'm out of things to do!") Regardless of whether content could be released independent of a major patch or whether 2.7 contains content. It's like asking for a new watch because you want it to be lunchtime. And people will do this when you push code update chronology.
- People will ignore the content you release as "not counting." ("Yeah. That was just a minor release at the end of Patch 5.6. I'm waiting for Patch 5.7!") When it may be that the developer sees that content as a significant push. And the developer either winds up with marginalized content or holding content until the patch/season release.
Cryptic over-markets code updates and under-markets content updates. And this harms them, repeatedly.
But developer priorities are not player priorities and expecting them to match up is both what drives players off the deep end and get forum bans and causes developers to go on career ending rampages.
You need people at Cryptic -- not just on the community team but in design meetings -- who understand the different priorities.
I won't name names but, as an example:
We have several devs here who have repeatedly said in interviews, "We're making money!" They use this to justify the validity of a decision or to proclaim the health of the game. And this is a boneheaded move. And I've had numerous fleetmates, also unnamed, who have gone into lengthy vent tirades about how much this kind of statement enrages them, how it illustrates a culture of greed, lack of sustainability, and differing priorities. And maybe, sometimes, when I come to these forums cranky, it's because I just had a thirty minute shouting match where I tried to defend Cryptic and wound up coming around to the other side of an issue.
Now, I don't think Cryptic is full of greedy sociopaths. I know folks who have flown out there for interviews. I've known a few devs outside the game for awhile. And people with a foot in both worlds get the dev perspective. They get that it means cups in the cupboard, replacing broken down hardware (I get the impression my PC is better than a lot of the ones used at Cryptic). It means no furloughs. It means paying rent, getting a weekend off, paying for little Suzie's braces. I know Jack Emmert drove a broken down car until the PWE acquisition.
BUT... There are two priority streams in place. And "Thank you, my kid got braces! We made money last week! We can feel validated about our work!" is like speaking Swahili to someone thinking, "My brother just overdrafted his bank account buying lockboxes! What's the deal with this Undine plot? I can get a movie for $2 on iTunes and no matter how much money I keep jamming into this game, you aren't giving me a movie's worth of story. I paid you $1000 to make a Star Trek movie and you're talking about your kids' dental visits!"
"Second star on the right, and straight on till morning."
U.S.S. Weatherlight
Thank you for stating the obvious..
Right. And then when it launched, it was exactly the same as the beta. That would funny as a hernia truss.