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Will we recover?
prierin
Member Posts: 7 Arc User
With all of the known bugs that are plaguing STO since the launch of DR, with the Katrina-sized debacle and backlash over the exploit issue in Tau Dewa, with the rollbacks, nerfs and whatnot
what chance does STO have of recovering to a pre-DR point? Even if they did, would it be enough?
It seems the real issues are stacking up while, for the most part, communication and dev support is down. Tacofangs was on earlier and shared what info he could. It wasnt much, but at least it was something. With Smirk on vacation, it seems that the bug-squashing duties have fallen to the waste side; most devs have their own projects to concentrate on and Cryptic as a whole is more interested, it seems, in pushing new content than fixing the existing errors. IN short, this business model is not working. Something has to change, and the sooner the better.
I can not speak for the entirety of the player base, nor do I attempt to do so, but I think many will agree with me when I say: dont worry about pushing new content. Let us digest this and even feed on the old content while you fix the bugs and issues currently in the game. If that means that new content isnt released until the next summer event of 2015, so be it. Who can enjoy a winter event with the crash bugs that are sending people randomly to their desktops or the massive lag spikes?
Youve known about many of these bugs since Tribble. Youve had time to focus on them prior to launch. If I hired a company to, as an example, create a website for my business and they rushed to put out a glitch, shoddy site, Id consider suing them to withhold payment if they were unwilling to communicate or resolve the issue quickly. Yes, we know that all bugs cant just be fixed in a day. We dont expect them to be. We DO expect a steady stream of communication and assurance these issues are being addressed. We expect that more than one individual is working on these bugs and the rest of the team isnt locked into side projects. If its broken, its broken. If things are going to be delayed, theyll be delayed but FFS tell us about it.
If you cant manage that then, without laying blame on individual names, consider giving STO to someone who can manage these tasks in a timely manner.
Will the players recover? Probably. After all, we, like PWE, have more than one game to involve ourselves in. Will STO recover? Thats an entirely different question, dont you think?
It seems the real issues are stacking up while, for the most part, communication and dev support is down. Tacofangs was on earlier and shared what info he could. It wasnt much, but at least it was something. With Smirk on vacation, it seems that the bug-squashing duties have fallen to the waste side; most devs have their own projects to concentrate on and Cryptic as a whole is more interested, it seems, in pushing new content than fixing the existing errors. IN short, this business model is not working. Something has to change, and the sooner the better.
I can not speak for the entirety of the player base, nor do I attempt to do so, but I think many will agree with me when I say: dont worry about pushing new content. Let us digest this and even feed on the old content while you fix the bugs and issues currently in the game. If that means that new content isnt released until the next summer event of 2015, so be it. Who can enjoy a winter event with the crash bugs that are sending people randomly to their desktops or the massive lag spikes?
Youve known about many of these bugs since Tribble. Youve had time to focus on them prior to launch. If I hired a company to, as an example, create a website for my business and they rushed to put out a glitch, shoddy site, Id consider suing them to withhold payment if they were unwilling to communicate or resolve the issue quickly. Yes, we know that all bugs cant just be fixed in a day. We dont expect them to be. We DO expect a steady stream of communication and assurance these issues are being addressed. We expect that more than one individual is working on these bugs and the rest of the team isnt locked into side projects. If its broken, its broken. If things are going to be delayed, theyll be delayed but FFS tell us about it.
If you cant manage that then, without laying blame on individual names, consider giving STO to someone who can manage these tasks in a timely manner.
Will the players recover? Probably. After all, we, like PWE, have more than one game to involve ourselves in. Will STO recover? Thats an entirely different question, dont you think?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
You will forever be missed and never forgotten.
Post edited by prierin on
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Anyway, the problem with the playerbase agreeing that we don't want new content, just fixes for older content - that doesn't give the business an increase in money, whether they do it or not. I imagine the business's executives wouldn't look kindly on that (ie, that they might not look at it at all, and just flat out say no)
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Honestly-gotten player achievements that weren't the result of seriously nasty actions like a literal hack or "We're fixing X, please don't do this", must be sacrosanct if the whole player base can seriously trust that anything they get will remain 'theirs'. Even players like me who were not affected by this stupid retro-nerf tantrum can no longer seriously say, "Gee, that mission seemed to give me some great drops/loot/dil!" and not say in the next breath, "I wonder if they'll take it from me in a day/week/month if they decide later on it's too much?" Trust has been shaken by this, and players who haven't been affected directly now have a nasty new precedent to contend with, the one that says, "Cryptic might, at any point, decide anything you gained, at any time, is free for them to take back, on the basis of whatever statistical averaging they care to dream up, because they deem it okay to do so". That's not good, for anyone.
Whether we can trust Cryptic on this at all will depend on their actions from this point in. We'll see... but if they ever, EVER, pull a stunt like that again, then it is, literally, "game over".
Moving on...
I don't think that just stopping further adventures/development and focusing on patches or problem fixes will work, but there are enough zones, adventure zones, empty (Andoria anyone?) planets lying around for Cryptic to do some housekeeping, and focus on perhaps spending a bit of time releasing more regular but small, stand-alone adventures that build on careers, options, etc to take advantage of the asset base as it stands... then when they release the next big patch, it would make sense and not be a "long time between drinks".
It's been five years after all? I think people, especially longer-term players, would be prepared to wear something like that if promoted as a future-proofing STO plan.
1) The fact that Stephen D'Angelo (current STO EP) made what was only his second post to the forums (the first being his announcement to the playerbase that he was again taking the STO EP position) is probably the ONLY public acknowledgement Cryptic will make on the subject.
2) As for "never doing it again" -- hahahahahaha! The next time they have a major programming screwup (and I will not say IF, as with their history, it's just a matter of time before they do something similar again); they'll do whatever they feel is required, and hope it doesn't cause a mass exodus of players to the point PWE decides to sunset the game.
Personally, I think this is probably the worst overall screwup Cryptic has made (in terms of forward facing PR) with STO - and again, given the development history of STO, that's saying a lot for just how bad this all was handled. That said, overall, the player response on the forums is nowhere near the level it was when the Season 7 Dill reward reductions happened (a reaction so large and widespread amongst STO players that they reversed said changes in about 24 hours.)
So, they've made their public statement, taken the actions they have; and are moving on. they fully realize it will cost them paying players, but I'm sure they feel in the long run, they'll be able to replace those players, and the replacements won't know/care how the game was before DR, as they will have started with DR already in place; and won't have a negative reaction until the next Cryptic screwup.
Players like to think companies will cater to them to keep them playing/paying for the life of an MMO, but MMO companies know that those types of players for ANY MMO are rare; and overall a lot of these types of players spend less real cash then your average casual player that comes and goes. The powers that be at Cryptic signed off on the actions taken knowing that it will cause some high turnover for a couple months (at worst); but in the end, they feel it will all 'blow over'; and afterwards, their overall cash flow situation will rebound and be unaffected.
Welcome to the current state of the Western MMO industry.
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..."
Yes I fear you're right, which is why I've been saying "if", about a number of things, an awful lot these past few days.
As to the OP, the biggest threat to this game is ED and SC, both are going to soak up a lot of space-shooter players who presently get funneled into STO and EVE. Why would a space junkie pick STO over the other 3 major options? STO is attractive if you're a huge ST fan and wont play anything else or you're bad at shooters and need a game that doesnt make you aim and time the shots, but if you dont care about ST and are decent at shooters then its not very attractive.
While ED and SC have far better potential as Science Fiction games compared to STO, they don't seem to have much in the way of adventures with alien civilizations like STO does. They both seem to be sandbox games where you are free to do whatever you want, but without complex adventures like the best of STO's missions.
SC will have a single-player campaign. Dunno if ED will.
Maybe they wont be as good as STO's best but I guarantee without looking they will be better than the ones that are fight 5 beam down beam up fight 5 roll credits
"The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."
- Kosh
You are really looking forward to Christmas already right?
Lol, I feel you bud and more importantly hope for the game health that you are right.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Players either leave, or stay, whatever the choice they think they have is ultimately upto them, but only bringing out accurate data after 3 months will tell on the playerbase numbers.. since that detail is never released for whatever reason, that point cant be fully answered.
as for the latter, it depends what the devs plan to do next, if they plan on going back on their xp nerfed to hell campaign and add more stuff, bring back the queue missions that were removed and bring up the rewards, the chances are it would survive without issue and all the negativity would cease. but if their plan is to push on and call the previous attempt a success whatever the case, then they come up with another convoluted idea that would alienate their community a bit more, it may not recover. will have to see what happens, but im not a mindreader or a seer or whatever who sees into the future, i cant state for certain.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I am sorry you lost family in that storm. I meant no disrespect. I was merely making a statement over the fact that a disaster happened and the people-in-charge's response was severely lacking. if not wholly detrimental. Much like the government's (both local and federal) failure in the wake of a disaster that by all accounts should not have caused nearly the carnage it did.
I had friends and family affected by that storm as well, within Louisiana and Mississippi.
And your a little edgy for a game forum.
Frankly I have zero sympathy. If you build your house on the coast, expect a tsunami someday, if you build your house below a active volcano expect ash and "like wise" the destruction of everything you own someday... etc
And for all you know this game could be his/her life (Atleast you had a life at some point and got some memories to relive) and drastic changes like this really do impact said persons life to the core. Hell I've known people to off themselves over guilds/fleets and their inner dramas. so it is "infuriatingly disrespectful" for you to assume the impact of any event isn't as/ if not more important then your issues; thereby, inflating your "my disaster is bigger and better then yours-ego", and dehumanizing and devaluing others for your own emotional profit.
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Anyway back to the post. I believe the game will survive... I believe the bugs will get more numerous.
As seen by various posts...such as customer supports "work around" policies they give out. example being this for instance:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.
As a potential workaround, you can try the following steps:
1. While in Sector Space, setup your desired powerbar/skillbar setup; BOFF stations; and DOFF active stations.
2. Save it to your existing/main Loadout.
3. Open your character window (press "U") and select your current ship
4. On the lower-left corner of the character window, click the button ""Switch Starship""
5. Go back to your character window (press "U" to re-open it) then select your current ship
6. Wait for the "Switch Starship" cooldown to finish, then click it again to switch back to your main ship
7. Go back to your character window and select your current ship again
8. Select the ""Loadouts"" tab, and then save your current configuration
If its not game breaking, they're probably not going to fix it... and if it is game breaking, they'll give people tips to work arounds and leave it "as is". If none can be found they'll put it on a schedule to be fixed, which may or may not be pushed back even further to make way for projects that actually make money ( lobi and Zen ships)
I bought a token, upgraded my ship and lost my weapons. customer support told me "I" must have lost them by selling them or they're in my bank or overflow bag. Told them They're no where to be found. They replied with " well your not getting anything back from us, go submit a bug report and maybe it won't effect future players, sorry for your loss" ...
If anything... its not this games patches that are gonna kill it... its the bugs and customer support.
But then again... lets look inwards... I'm still on this forum, still paying this game, and still playing despite all this. So maybe thier policies are unethical, lazy, and completely hap hazard...but they're profitable...and thats the bottom line.
It's a bloody game, not a war. Like it then play it, don't like it then find something that you do like.
Which is the point I'm at... revisiting some old games, looking at what to do next. Cryptic wants me to treat STO like a little el cheapo casual freebie? Fine I will. But don't think I'm going to do so quietly... and my review of it on Steam will pretty much depend on what they do over the next few days.
I'm sure your highnesses' voices will have quite a lot of sway with Steam.
Steam has a whole section on player reviews, so yes, it will be another player review. Sorry that it doesn't meet with your "expectations" for silence Your Majesty.
This forum is an echo chamber, Steam allows for a bit more of a rational discussion.
Whatever you reckon I'm sure must be correct
Darn, you aren't even going to argue a point? How boring.
Guess you are done.
The big difference between then and now is, that the relationship between Cryptic (especially a certain EP) and their playerbase has never been this poisoned before.
There was the occasional bad blood in the past, when they removed the clickies for example, but wasn't this bad.
I would rather watch this game burn and fail so that eventually a GOOD Star Trek game can emerge not handled by a team that cant even make a title succeed unless it has a famous IP attached to it.
History of terrible programming and failure, lack of communication and condescending attitude towards their cash farm.
So yeah, I HOPE STO fails, so another company can come fill the gap and make something BETTER with all the new technology out there.
Also, not alll F2P games go this route of extreme whale milking. There are publishers that will not green light such obvious pay 2 win strategies. I cant name any on this forum without getting banned because they are so insecure in their shoddy product the mention that other games exist is threatening, but there are options out there that do not force the gamer into purchasing to compete.
And yes, they still make money.
ARC, PWE, and most anything associated with them is pure korean grindfest cash farm.
I just posted in the hopes people see that Star Trek as a franchise is being done a horrible disservice here, and room should be made for someone else to come in and do it right.