Considering at least one of the system's Devs (Bort in case you're curious, who happens to be one of the only Cryptic names I take at face value precisely because he has been so open with folks when it comes to mechanics and systems related situations) has spoken directly to the existence of QA, you're really reaching here.
Having people that test the client doesn't hang immediately on opening or that go through some perfunctory checks to make sure it's not DOA isn't exactly what I'd call QA though. The recent, examples of the Borg Doffs missing from the store and the frankly ridiculous Engineering Team bug would seem to indicate that Cryptic's QA is severely lacking.
Heck, they can't even fix bugs reported on Tribble before the build is pushed live.
You have proof that they have a QA and department? because a friend of mine sent in a resume to them and was told they had no intentions of creating a QA department at the present time.
considering the amount of bugs that happen with every patch are you really surprised that they have no dedicated QA department? I mean look at recent bug with bridge officers if they had a QA department that wouldn't have taken long to identify and could have been fixed before going live, heck they have Tribble too and yet failed to respond to the bug before going live.
Seriously if they did have a QA department they are doing a terrible job, lets not forget that the game was broke for an entire week from STF's down to the very first mission due to an NPC pathing bug that they didn't for an entire week.
I'm not slamming Cryptic at all these events did happen these bugs and the prevalence of such bugs do exist.
I don't play EVE because I hate the approach to that game, I also didn't touch SWTOR with a barge pole but I can say after having extensive time playing Turbine games that Cryptic falls way behind them way way way way behind. I find them to be as bad as SEO was.
What about in game DM's and a functioning ticket system, you've not addressed that yet.
you will see that they have no dedicated Q&A department and just comes under "publishing" they have just opened a job for a single Q&A tester on a short term contract probably for Neverwinter, as far as I can see they have little to no Q&A testers the job description doesn't even mention any concept of working as part for a Q&A Team!, though I will email my friend that they have a position open maybe he's still looking.
Just because they list no currenbt openings, doesn't mean they don't have a QA department.
Again, over the top hyperbole doesn't serve your argument.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Having people that test the client doesn't hang immediately on opening or that go through some perfunctory checks to make sure it's not DOA isn't exactly what I'd call QA though. The recent, examples of the Borg Doffs missing from the store and the frankly ridiculous Engineering Team bug would seem to indicate that Cryptic's QA is severely lacking.
Heck, they can't even fix bugs reported on Tribble before the build is pushed live.
Oh I'm making zero claims to the competency or effectiveness of said QA department, but there most definitely is one. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to be factually accurate when I make a principled stand against something. Running amok with wild accusations and general hysterics doesn't serve to get anything substantive accomplished.
Having people that test the client doesn't hang immediately on opening or that go through some perfunctory checks to make sure it's not DOA isn't exactly what I'd call QA though. The recent, examples of the Borg Doffs missing from the store and the frankly ridiculous Engineering Team bug would seem to indicate that Cryptic's QA is severely lacking.
Heck, they can't even fix bugs reported on Tribble before the build is pushed live.
Not to mention even basic spelling errors.
For me what counts is how many an hours of QA go into testing a patch?
From the looks of it not many.
I have been personally attacked for being to harsh about the company and it's practices and I may not always have the correct information but what I say really is irrelevant because anyone can see for themselves if they actually bother to look that game feels beta, has a truck load of bugs and with every patch has problems that really would not be there if any real level of QA was actually done or if the Tribble Testers were actually listened to.
Also I don't need to use hyperbole and indeed was speaking honestly when I was told they didn't have a dedicated QA department for STO I believed the person who told me.
The reason why I don't need to use hyperbole is because the state of the game speaks for itself as a testament for how seemingly non-existent QA is for this particular game. Do you dispute that?
^^^
And you've personally confirmed it's possible to get 8K dil from one Foundry mission (and I'm honestly not attempting to disparage you or your claim, as I've heard there was a hard max cap from Fleetmates; so it would be interesting to find that wasn't the case.)
no one mission gives you a max of 1440. but you can repeat said mission as many times as you want or play another mission and get the rewards from that one.
before there was play three missions get 1440
then there was play one with a 30 minute cool down to get 1440 repeatable
now it's just play mission after mission and just keep getting dilithium even the short ones that can be done in 15 minutes (ie the grind missions) give about 300 and just redo those
When a bug(ships not functioning properly or improperly showing turrets or even having visible texture breaks) or game-breaking exploit[Goonswarm exploiting the new Faction Warfare Mechanics to gain billions in ISK(EVE' EC)] has crept up, CCP has had the common sense to NOT wait a week to do something about it when told,....
It's also been the Policy of CCP, more so, since the micro-debacle that ALL the projects they were working on were to be shared openly with the community at large.
I don't understand why Cryptic has to hide everything and make some big secret about it...
"May 2013" okay, f--k we get it.... Now tell us what you PLAN to do so that we can help you MAKE it the biggest and best update ever. After all WE are your customer base.... if WE don't enjoy it You won't get paid....
I've broken up your post to highlight some of the more important posts. The part about bugs speaks for itself.
In regards to the upcoming whatever it is in May, I bet Cryptic is planing something major that will require real money to obtain. By using methods that many movie companies make (that is releasing tidbits of info to drive up hype) the more susceptible people will feel they must have it and will pay whatever Cryptic wants for it.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
I have to agree with most other posters here, boosting fleet mark rewards was a step in the right direction, but only one, and not a very big one at that. Most of the fundamental issues still remain. (Also, it was embarrassingly bad PR work, seriously, it they'd delayed the Foundry changes one week, or said that they were planning to make changes like those ones this week, this thread would never have gotten past page 50. I almost want to start a conspiracy theory that what's happened here was exactly Dan's plan to buy him some breathing room from PWE, because I can't imagine anyone being this foolish about it.) What's happened in this thread is somewhat remarkable. For the first time a protest movement on these forums has become sufficiently self-aware to realize collectively that it's about more than just the trigger event. Others have included brief mentions of other grievances, but none has become a movement about all of those grievances until now.
Moving forward, I still want to see less grind. These fleet mark changes have only made the fleet mark queues somewhat reasonable options for grinding marks for T3 and T4 projects, they haven't been a real paradigm shift and they haven't helped with any of the other grinds. For a next step, I'd really like to see the formula for Foundry dilithium rewards, since the devs say it's based on more than just average play time. Yes, releasing that formula likely will allow authors to deliberately write missions to max out rewards, but that was going to happen anyway within a month or two, and by releasing it now the community and the devs can have an open, honest, fully informed discussion about where the game is going to go and how we're going to get there. And if they choose to start that privately, just with a few of the leaders here, that's ok too, and it makes sense that they would want to avoid a flame war, at least at first. It can't stay private for long, of course, but that could be a way to get some ideas moving.
Let's keep up the good fight, and see if we can get some real changes started.
In regards to the upcoming whatever it is in May, I bet Cryptic is planing something major that will require real money to obtain. By using methods that many movie companies make (that is releasing tidbits of info to drive up hype) the more susceptible people will feel they must have it and will pay whatever Cryptic wants for it.
Wouldn't they drive even further hype, even further community support of an update, no matter the cost, if it was openly discussed with the community at large? Considering this community WANTS to be involved and help Cryptic because of the IP I don't understand how hiding makes us anything less but skeptical about how Cryptic advances any sort of "update"
It really really makes the community feel like the investigating Admirals in "The First Duty"
Except in this case we DO have proof of Cryptic trying to perform the Culbord(sp) Starburst Manuver... and failing, miserably.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
It's Cryptic so the fun activity is always Find the Changes not Mentioned in the Patch Notes.
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.
Wouldn't they drive even further hype, even further community support of an update, no matter the cost, if it was openly discussed with the community at large? Considering this community WANTS to be involved and help Cryptic because of the IP I don't understand how hiding makes us anything less but skeptical about how Cryptic advances any sort of "update"
It really really makes the community feel like the investigating Admirals in "The First Duty"
Except in this case we DO have proof of Cryptic trying to perform the Culbord(sp) Starburst Manuver... and failing, miserably.
Not really. You've had some people asking for Romulans. Cryptic releases a picture of a Romulan symbol and a date so people go bizzarko. This gets the rumor mill going and the players hype themselves up without Cryptic having to expend any further effort.
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.
Wouldn't they drive even further hype, even further community support of an update, no matter the cost, if it was openly discussed with the community at large? Considering this community WANTS to be involved and help Cryptic because of the IP I don't understand how hiding makes us anything less but skeptical about how Cryptic advances any sort of "update".
I can only go by past experiences. For whatever reason Cryptic does not like to involve the community in content updates. It's not like people haven't post constructive ideas as to how to finish the KDF, make non-grinding content, balance prices and resources output etc.
Cryptic just likes to go for the "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you" approach, like national security is at stake.
I think 10 to 12 months out would have been the time to anounce the May update, with updates and community input every month, and advance playtesting by random players starting maybe 2-5 months out (kind of like how most companies run their MMO betas).
Players like to have input.
Most companies like community input. I don't understand why this company doesn't.
It's Cryptic so the fun activity is always Find the Changes not Mentioned in the Patch Notes.
I feel that if something is borked to hell that the CDF will try to push blame on us for forcing Cryptic to put out a rushed patch.
The "Elitist Foundry Author" situation in reverse.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Players like to have input, and most companies like community input. I don't know why this company doesn't.
Because their plans aren't in your best interests.
Season 7 as launched, irrespective of Dan's PR speeches was a thinly-disguised attempt to turn off the Dilithium taps.
The content they delivered was predominantly art assets with very little actual game design - in fact, I'm not even sure they have a game designer working on STO - the 'Lead Content Designer' Goatshark seems to be predominantly responsible for Starbase fluff and there's been nothing on the scale of the old STFs put in place since Gozer left.
This scan the rocks, chase the Epohhs nonsense they put into Nomulus was genuinely the best they could do gameplay-wise. I won't even start on the Hive stuff because they're completely lacking in any of the ambition and design that went into the earlier STFs.
And the Nomulus ground missions and space patrols are largely, run-of-the-mill Foundry quality content. The only thing they've produced of note since Season 6 was the Anniversary Episode which was nice - not the best content they've produced but certainly better than anything else Season 7 had to offer.
Season 7 was such a departure from the style of gameplay that brought many of us to STO in the first place that even now, it seems ridiculously out-of-place.
I can only hope that some valuable lessons were learnt and that 'The Season Formerly Known As Eight' has some, well - gameplay.
My hopes certainly aren't high though - any developer that can drop something like S7 on it's players clearly has no clue how to entertain or challenge them.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
Another shiny example of how Cryptic/PWE is considering Star Trek as a milk cow, without intention to listen to their gamer base :
The jem'hadar attack ship pet, why on earth do we need the dread or escort plus the attack ship to obtain the pet version of it. I would and could understand it if you would obtain an ultra rare pet if you have the both, but even for the rare jem'hadar attack ship pet, you need both. The fregging thing cost only +-4500 EC's. The advanced version is 30K dil. Wouldn't it better that they simply made those 2 versions free for all that have the dread or escort (as they can already check that you have both requirements), and double the price of them if needed. No, they insist that you have both ships for that pet, and you can't get that ship if you ain't got the lobi (sorry, I don't gamble), enough ec's or can buy those attack ships in the C-Store. My god, if we were able to obtain that jem'hadar attack ship from the c-store, I would be the first to get it.
OK, if I have to stay here for a while, your cieling ... looks idious.:D
the changes coming with the patch tomorrow are promising as far as fleet marks go. I hope they don't add something else like making colony invasion a 1 hour cool down now. That would make things really annoying.
I really hope they can fix all these annoying bugs.
No, I am not who you think I am. I am someone different. I am instead a banana.
Also, after looking at the patch notes for tomorrow, I am cautiously optimistic. Hopefully things will be better with this patch, but what are they not telling you, and what will they break when this patch goes live?
Bottom line: Cryptic/ PWE slaps bad patch on Tribble... the players point out serious flaws... Cryptic/ PWE completely ignores both the players and the existence of flaws and slaps same bad patch on Holodeck. Broken game.
Fleet marks and long-standing bugs and all else aside... the fact is that this was a clear MISTAKE on the part of Cryptic/ PWE. An easily avoidable one at that.
In the face of this fail, the ONLY thing that should come out of ANYONE representing Cryptic/ PWE's mouth should be, "We really screwed up, we are sorry, we are fixing it."
Also, after looking at the patch notes for tomorrow, I am cautiously optimistic. Hopefully things will be better with this patch, but what are they not telling you, and what will they break when this patch goes live?
In the face of this fail, the ONLY thing that should come out of ANYONE representing Cryptic/ PWE's mouth should be, "We really screwed up, we are sorry, we are fixing it."
True. If someone did something to me, saying they were sorry and admitting their mistakes really does make me feel a little better about it all. Just feels as if there is an arrogance about Cryptic. Sometimes in life you meet people like that. No matter how many times they are proven wrong, they simply cannot ever admit they might have been. I know in the last few days there have been concessions and words of apology, but it still feels sometimes like it's too little, too late.
I hope they can improve their rapport with us.
No, I am not who you think I am. I am someone different. I am instead a banana.
Comments
Having people that test the client doesn't hang immediately on opening or that go through some perfunctory checks to make sure it's not DOA isn't exactly what I'd call QA though. The recent, examples of the Borg Doffs missing from the store and the frankly ridiculous Engineering Team bug would seem to indicate that Cryptic's QA is severely lacking.
Heck, they can't even fix bugs reported on Tribble before the build is pushed live.
Just because they list no currenbt openings, doesn't mean they don't have a QA department.
Also, there's this: https://twitter.com/CrypticEQAH
And the STO QA Lead - Farktoid5000 who's posting history you can see via gthe link below:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/search.php?searchid=49331181
Again, over the top hyperbole doesn't serve your argument.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Oh I'm making zero claims to the competency or effectiveness of said QA department, but there most definitely is one. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to be factually accurate when I make a principled stand against something. Running amok with wild accusations and general hysterics doesn't serve to get anything substantive accomplished.
Not to mention even basic spelling errors.
For me what counts is how many an hours of QA go into testing a patch?
From the looks of it not many.
I have been personally attacked for being to harsh about the company and it's practices and I may not always have the correct information but what I say really is irrelevant because anyone can see for themselves if they actually bother to look that game feels beta, has a truck load of bugs and with every patch has problems that really would not be there if any real level of QA was actually done or if the Tribble Testers were actually listened to.
Also I don't need to use hyperbole and indeed was speaking honestly when I was told they didn't have a dedicated QA department for STO I believed the person who told me.
The reason why I don't need to use hyperbole is because the state of the game speaks for itself as a testament for how seemingly non-existent QA is for this particular game. Do you dispute that?
#2311#2700#2316#2500
no one mission gives you a max of 1440. but you can repeat said mission as many times as you want or play another mission and get the rewards from that one.
before there was play three missions get 1440
then there was play one with a 30 minute cool down to get 1440 repeatable
now it's just play mission after mission and just keep getting dilithium even the short ones that can be done in 15 minutes (ie the grind missions) give about 300 and just redo those
I've broken up your post to highlight some of the more important posts. The part about bugs speaks for itself.
In regards to the upcoming whatever it is in May, I bet Cryptic is planing something major that will require real money to obtain. By using methods that many movie companies make (that is releasing tidbits of info to drive up hype) the more susceptible people will feel they must have it and will pay whatever Cryptic wants for it.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Moving forward, I still want to see less grind. These fleet mark changes have only made the fleet mark queues somewhat reasonable options for grinding marks for T3 and T4 projects, they haven't been a real paradigm shift and they haven't helped with any of the other grinds. For a next step, I'd really like to see the formula for Foundry dilithium rewards, since the devs say it's based on more than just average play time. Yes, releasing that formula likely will allow authors to deliberately write missions to max out rewards, but that was going to happen anyway within a month or two, and by releasing it now the community and the devs can have an open, honest, fully informed discussion about where the game is going to go and how we're going to get there. And if they choose to start that privately, just with a few of the leaders here, that's ok too, and it makes sense that they would want to avoid a flame war, at least at first. It can't stay private for long, of course, but that could be a way to get some ideas moving.
Let's keep up the good fight, and see if we can get some real changes started.
Wouldn't they drive even further hype, even further community support of an update, no matter the cost, if it was openly discussed with the community at large? Considering this community WANTS to be involved and help Cryptic because of the IP I don't understand how hiding makes us anything less but skeptical about how Cryptic advances any sort of "update"
It really really makes the community feel like the investigating Admirals in "The First Duty"
Except in this case we DO have proof of Cryptic trying to perform the Culbord(sp) Starburst Manuver... and failing, miserably.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
Not really. You've had some people asking for Romulans. Cryptic releases a picture of a Romulan symbol and a date so people go bizzarko. This gets the rumor mill going and the players hype themselves up without Cryptic having to expend any further effort.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
YAY, they brought back the fun in the game for you!!! Cuz your special
:rolleyes:
Apparently some forum posters have diplomatic immunity nowadays, where can I get mine? [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I can only go by past experiences. For whatever reason Cryptic does not like to involve the community in content updates. It's not like people haven't post constructive ideas as to how to finish the KDF, make non-grinding content, balance prices and resources output etc.
Cryptic just likes to go for the "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you" approach, like national security is at stake.
I think 10 to 12 months out would have been the time to anounce the May update, with updates and community input every month, and advance playtesting by random players starting maybe 2-5 months out (kind of like how most companies run their MMO betas).
Players like to have input.
Most companies like community input. I don't understand why this company doesn't.
I feel that if something is borked to hell that the CDF will try to push blame on us for forcing Cryptic to put out a rushed patch.
The "Elitist Foundry Author" situation in reverse.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Speshul!!!!
I wish it didn't have to come to that though. Disclosure and all.
Because their plans aren't in your best interests.
Season 7 as launched, irrespective of Dan's PR speeches was a thinly-disguised attempt to turn off the Dilithium taps.
The content they delivered was predominantly art assets with very little actual game design - in fact, I'm not even sure they have a game designer working on STO - the 'Lead Content Designer' Goatshark seems to be predominantly responsible for Starbase fluff and there's been nothing on the scale of the old STFs put in place since Gozer left.
This scan the rocks, chase the Epohhs nonsense they put into Nomulus was genuinely the best they could do gameplay-wise. I won't even start on the Hive stuff because they're completely lacking in any of the ambition and design that went into the earlier STFs.
And the Nomulus ground missions and space patrols are largely, run-of-the-mill Foundry quality content. The only thing they've produced of note since Season 6 was the Anniversary Episode which was nice - not the best content they've produced but certainly better than anything else Season 7 had to offer.
Season 7 was such a departure from the style of gameplay that brought many of us to STO in the first place that even now, it seems ridiculously out-of-place.
I can only hope that some valuable lessons were learnt and that 'The Season Formerly Known As Eight' has some, well - gameplay.
My hopes certainly aren't high though - any developer that can drop something like S7 on it's players clearly has no clue how to entertain or challenge them.
I just have to say..... I LOVE THAT SIG! XD
Ackbar's *sooo* cuddly
The jem'hadar attack ship pet, why on earth do we need the dread or escort plus the attack ship to obtain the pet version of it. I would and could understand it if you would obtain an ultra rare pet if you have the both, but even for the rare jem'hadar attack ship pet, you need both. The fregging thing cost only +-4500 EC's. The advanced version is 30K dil. Wouldn't it better that they simply made those 2 versions free for all that have the dread or escort (as they can already check that you have both requirements), and double the price of them if needed. No, they insist that you have both ships for that pet, and you can't get that ship if you ain't got the lobi (sorry, I don't gamble), enough ec's or can buy those attack ships in the C-Store. My god, if we were able to obtain that jem'hadar attack ship from the c-store, I would be the first to get it.
Cubeageddon - You are the last hope. Find it in the Foundry!
The Space Race - An alternate to PVP - In Foundry Now!
I like you
I really hope they can fix all these annoying bugs.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~BranFlakes
Fleet marks and long-standing bugs and all else aside... the fact is that this was a clear MISTAKE on the part of Cryptic/ PWE. An easily avoidable one at that.
In the face of this fail, the ONLY thing that should come out of ANYONE representing Cryptic/ PWE's mouth should be, "We really screwed up, we are sorry, we are fixing it."
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24394025.jpg
that is all ... lol
Follow me on Twitter: @ZEFilms_STO
Apparently some forum posters have diplomatic immunity nowadays, where can I get mine? [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
True. If someone did something to me, saying they were sorry and admitting their mistakes really does make me feel a little better about it all. Just feels as if there is an arrogance about Cryptic. Sometimes in life you meet people like that. No matter how many times they are proven wrong, they simply cannot ever admit they might have been. I know in the last few days there have been concessions and words of apology, but it still feels sometimes like it's too little, too late.
I hope they can improve their rapport with us.