I know it's in federation space, but I'm sorry if it's the place people are going to hang out at (link with ESD) it NEEDS dabo unless they come up with something new like poker, or even tri-dimentional chess mainly because it needs some form of basic entertainment for the players themselves while they hang out.
You seem to be completely ignoring the fact that this project was implemented by the art dept, which probably (just guessing here!) doesn't really have much to do with fixing whatever multitude of bugs you're referring to.
. /facepalm
Devs still had to code it and implement it. This still took time and no, I do not believe Cryptic studios has an entire art department dedicated to the sole function of adding glitz to the game. I would be more inclined to believe that a number of devs are involved in the art, but this circles back to my original question of why a social zone that actually encourages no inter-social behaviour takes precedence over bugsquashing.
Your information is wrong. Tacofangs is an environment artist, that is his job and he did the work without any programmers or other developers. This has been said time and time again. Everyone who makes this stupid complaint is either trolling or just plain ignorant.
*IF* this is true, which I still suspect isnt 100% accurate, then Cryptic Studios is wasting money.
No offense meant. Ive been involved with a few developers in the past and I can say rarely if ever have any of them had an entire fleet of staff on the payroll specifically for environment art. Programmers still, they create the aesthetics and implement them. They may be a separate bunch from the bughunters but I can assure you TacoFangs sits in the same weekly/biweekly meetings as all Devs. If not, and the devs sit in separate meetings and are not privy to the works of each other than that would speak VOLUMES about the current state of the game.
Which AGAIN circles back to my original query: why is something like this more important than the resolution of issues affecting gameplay? Lets face it they leap with lighting speed on issues they see as detrimental (17x xp gain, etc.) but cant seem to get around to the issues negatively impacting players. But they can give us a new social zone that has absolutely no function other than to look pretty. There is little to no reason for any player to spend any time in these zones and no incentive whatsoever to be social at all.
I am neither ranting nor trolling. Like I said, TF should be proud of his work as it is great quality. I just question it was necessary given the other current issues.
AND I am not interested in getting into a he said/she said over how Cryptic handles their affairs in-house. My experience tells me what you are suggesting is not 100% accurate but that is neither here nor there. If you are right then the programming devs have little to no excuse in their delay on fixing the bugs. If I am right then the Devs have distracted themselves from fixing said bugs with aesthetics. Either way, its a loss for the players.
Dare I even get into the ADDITIONAL XP nerf despite the gameplay bug still not being fixed? Somethings going in the wrong direction and its heading towards a cliff.
You log in to play a game, right? To do stuff that you can't otherwise do out there in real life, right? So that's where your focus is on things, right?
Don't get me wrong, I'm like that too...
But take a look around the forums...
Don't look too long...you'll start the uninstall as you're running the shower.
You log in to play a game, right? To do stuff that you can't otherwise do out there in real life, right? So that's where your focus is on things, right?
Don't get me wrong, I'm like that too...
But take a look around the forums...
Don't look too long...you'll start the uninstall as you're running the shower.
Heh - true.
The problem is I loved this game once and I am trying to learn to like it again, so I get defensive when it seems to get screwed over like this....
*IF* this is true, which I still suspect isnt 100% accurate, then Cryptic Studios is wasting money.
No offense meant. Ive been involved with a few developers in the past and I can say rarely if ever have any of them had an entire fleet of staff on the payroll specifically for environment art. Programmers still, they create the aesthetics and implement them. They may be a separate bunch from the bughunters but I can assure you TacoFangs sits in the same weekly/biweekly meetings as all Devs. If not, and the devs sit in separate meetings and are not privy to the works of each other than that would speak VOLUMES about the current state of the game.
Which AGAIN circles back to my original query: why is something like this more important than the resolution of issues affecting gameplay? Lets face it they leap with lighting speed on issues they see as detrimental (17x xp gain, etc.) but cant seem to get around to the issues negatively impacting players. But they can give us a new social zone that has absolutely no function other than to look pretty. There is little to no reason for any player to spend any time in these zones and no incentive whatsoever to be social at all.
I am neither ranting nor trolling. Like I said, TF should be proud of his work as it is great quality. I just question it was necessary given the other current issues.
AND I am not interested in getting into a he said/she said over how Cryptic handles their affairs in-house. My experience tells me what you are suggesting is not 100% accurate but that is neither here nor there. If you are right then the programming devs have little to no excuse in their delay on fixing the bugs. If I am right then the Devs have distracted themselves from fixing said bugs with aesthetics. Either way, its a loss for the players.
Dare I even get into the ADDITIONAL XP nerf despite the gameplay bug still not being fixed? Somethings going in the wrong direction and its heading towards a cliff.
From what I understand, Cryptic doesn't have an entire 'fleet' of environmental artists, they have a small team who works together on art. That is all they do. For 40 hours a week or so, their environmental art team are the wizards who start from a whitebox and work their way to completion over a period of months.
I would wager the reason Club 47 was delayed was due to work put into Delta Rising.
Tacofangs has done us the favor of providing a timelapsed gif of his proofs (which is normal for any artist to do in order to show all of their work is their own), along with timestamps. You can plainly see from those timestamps that is, in fact, all they do for months at a time.
Tacofangs also fixes bugs, but only bugs directly related to environmental art. Whether it be clipping issues, areas in the geometry players get stuck in, or... as we have seen, players being able to get into certain areas of a map that was not designed for them to get into at all.
Bigger studios have bigger environmental art teams. You may have one person whose job entirely revolves around lighting and shading, but from what I've seen Cryptic's art team does a little a bit of everything (and I'm sure just like any art team some individuals have strengths in particular areas).
While Tacofangs and the environmental art team work on one thing, other departments work on others. While Club 47 was underway, we were seeing changes elsewhere in the game (for better or for worse). Now it is time for his time to shine and show off his completed work.
And when that is done and over with, it is likely he and the rest of the team will go back to creating more environmental art.
*IF* this is true, which I still suspect isnt 100% accurate, then Cryptic Studios is wasting money.
Social zones should obviously just be big empty boxes with exchange, bank, and mail consoles, obviously. After all, they're 100% pointless to gameplay.
From what I understand, Cryptic doesn't have an entire 'fleet' of environmental artists, they have a small team who works together on art. That is all they do. For 40 hours a week or so, their environmental art team are the wizards who start from a whitebox and work their way to completion over a period of months.
I'm pretty annoying with Cryptic right now, because of the major XP nerf. But tacofangs did good. Just wanted to say that.
I'm pretty annoying with Cryptic right now, because of the major XP nerf. But tacofangs did good. Just wanted to say that.
Oh, by all means. I'm annoyed with Cryptic in other particular areas of the game. But I wouldn't blame Borticus or Charles Gray for my avatar getting stuck in a tree on Earth Spacedock anymore than I would blame Tacofangs for TRIBBLE up dilithium and skillpoint payout rewards.
It's important that we look at work being done on STO department-by-department, and criticise it accordingly.
I don't blame a cattle rancher for my steak being burnt, and development studios should be given the same degree of accountability and latitude.
Just had a great little dance with my Vulcan alt with some other players. Great little party going on. Ah, if only I didn't have to sleep.
And loving the new costumes as well. I didn't really go the old Club 47 much, but I can see me coming to this one while sorting out doffs/inventory/etc. Or just have kill some time. So glad these outfits are wearable on other maps as well.
*******************************************
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
Just wanted to say that I'm loving the new Club 47. Much more spacious and animated, also loving the El-Aurian bartender. The music is also nice, great work all around.
I love the changing lighting in the dance floor area. Such a well-designed sequence. And the whole blacklight effect caught me off-guard - a neat little surprise!
The bar area is so well designed. And the sitting area to the right is absolutely incredible. I want to go to a place like that in real life.
Ya, sorry about that. To be fair, that had nothing to do with the club. In my haste to swap out/move around the ships in the docking bay, I accidentally nudged the docking bay walls out of place. It's been fixed already, and should go out in the next build. Apologies to all.
You are way out of your element. Pretty much every game studio has a whole department devoted to Art. Those artists (myself being one of them) do 0 coding, and very little 'design' work. We are working artists, and we make art. That's it.
On STO, we have 5-6 Environment Artists at any given time. We are focused and dedicated to making maps.
In the case of the Club, the work was pretty much entirely done by 4 people. A concept Artist who drew up some concept ideas before I started building. Myself, who built the structure of the room, the props, etc. (including models, textures and lighting), an FX artist, who put in his own time to make up the Balloon drop FX, the ground fog FX, and help me with the holographic projection stuff, and a Designer (Commander Ander) who populated the space with NPCS, hooked up special FX, etc. That's it. 4 people. None of whom were powers designers or programmers.
We do have a weekly allhands meeting, but we also have separate departmental meetings.
Ya, sorry about that. To be fair, that had nothing to do with the club. In my haste to swap out/move around the ships in the docking bay, I accidentally nudged the docking bay walls out of place. It's been fixed already, and should go out in the next build. Apologies to all.
I'm willing to overlook it since you placed the Galaxy back in dock.
Ya, sorry about that. To be fair, that had nothing to do with the club. In my haste to swap out/move around the ships in the docking bay, I accidentally nudged the docking bay walls out of place. It's been fixed already, and should go out in the next build. Apologies to all.
You are way out of your element. Pretty much every game studio has a whole department devoted to Art. Those artists (myself being one of them) do 0 coding, and very little 'design' work. We are working artists, and we make art. That's it.
On STO, we have 5-6 Environment Artists at any given time. We are focused and dedicated to making maps.
In the case of the Club, the work was pretty much entirely done by 4 people. A concept Artist who drew up some concept ideas before I started building. Myself, who built the structure of the room, the props, etc. (including models, textures and lighting), an FX artist, who put in his own time to make up the Balloon drop FX, the ground fog FX, and help me with the holographic projection stuff, and a Designer (Commander Ander) who populated the space with NPCS, hooked up special FX, etc. That's it. 4 people. None of whom were powers designers or programmers.
We do have a weekly allhands meeting, but we also have separate departmental meetings.
This is all well and good, and i appreciate the massive amount of work involved, but someone over there needs to tell us why the servers are down and when they are coming back up.
Yeah... Environment team, you did amazing work. Great job, all of you. Now if only programming and QA could do things this solid... Then we'd have ourselves a hell of a game. Even if there's the occasional metaphorical sheet of wall polygons on top of our spacedock promenade, I won't complain if all the other stuff is fantastic.
I really like the design. It's got the 'airy future' look that fits with the rest of the revamped ESD aesthetic, but has its own flavor that distinguishes it from the more 'professional' areas.
My only complaint is that I can't wear the club outfit on my ship. Aegis is close, but those tronlines . The new upgrade material is pretty great though.
it certainly does look spiffy, its just a pity theres nothing much you can actually do there, maybe a daily dance compo or something for dil or choice of marks would make it more worthwhile.
Having spent 2700 hours in game someplace to ponder your navel is always a good thing.
This is all well and good, and i appreciate the massive amount of work involved, but someone over there needs to tell us why the servers are down and when they are coming back up.
Do you ask your doctor why your car is not repaired yet ? Give Taco a break. Maybe he works for Cryptic, but I'm pretty sure he have no idea why the server are down, most of the time anyway.
I blame cryptic for a lot this days, but I don't blame Taco for a thing. He does a lot of work for this game, and a lot for us, the players, even outside his work (foundry mostly).
And on top of that, he comes on the forum/ingame and share with us, even when things are quite toxic, like nowadays.
Anyway, thanks for your work Taco, personally, I found the water column/fountain/stuff very cool
While I bemoaned the club work not coming with newer ESD, it was clearly worth the wait in this instance. It has all the elements missing from the previous incarnations. Plus, it resolves the criticisms from player's who shared its negative effect on their ESD visit. They won't hear the music at all unless they enter the club. Not even in the Infirmary as close as those maps are.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
Do you ask your doctor why your car is not repaired yet ? Give Taco a break. Maybe he works for Cryptic, but I'm pretty sure he have no idea why the server are down, most of the time anyway.
I blame cryptic for a lot this days, but I don't blame Taco for a thing. He does a lot of work for this game, and a lot for us, the players, even outside his work (foundry mostly).
And on top of that, he comes on the forum/ingame and share with us, even when things are quite toxic, like nowadays.
Anyway, thanks for your work Taco, personally, I found the water column/fountain/stuff very cool
I want to say: agreed.
Taco's work is outstanding. If I left STO and he went elsewhere, I'd be enticed to pick up a game just because his name was on it, all else being equal.
There are fantastic touches in Club 47. It's inobtrusive to the rest of ESD and very thematic to Trek. The dancefloor remains the jarring part but it's certainly mesmerizing. I can see the bar, entrance, and observation area being locations a director would drool over if they had the budget to make these things in live action Trek.
I can't see using it a lot aside as an idling area but what a spectacular idling area it is.
Personally, I wish Klingons could come and hang out there even if they were restricted from the rest of the station.
Comments
. /facepalm
Devs still had to code it and implement it. This still took time and no, I do not believe Cryptic studios has an entire art department dedicated to the sole function of adding glitz to the game. I would be more inclined to believe that a number of devs are involved in the art, but this circles back to my original question of why a social zone that actually encourages no inter-social behaviour takes precedence over bugsquashing.
That's why I like, particularly in the lounge area. It really does feel nice and cut off from the rest of things, out the way.
*IF* this is true, which I still suspect isnt 100% accurate, then Cryptic Studios is wasting money.
No offense meant. Ive been involved with a few developers in the past and I can say rarely if ever have any of them had an entire fleet of staff on the payroll specifically for environment art. Programmers still, they create the aesthetics and implement them. They may be a separate bunch from the bughunters but I can assure you TacoFangs sits in the same weekly/biweekly meetings as all Devs. If not, and the devs sit in separate meetings and are not privy to the works of each other than that would speak VOLUMES about the current state of the game.
Which AGAIN circles back to my original query: why is something like this more important than the resolution of issues affecting gameplay? Lets face it they leap with lighting speed on issues they see as detrimental (17x xp gain, etc.) but cant seem to get around to the issues negatively impacting players. But they can give us a new social zone that has absolutely no function other than to look pretty. There is little to no reason for any player to spend any time in these zones and no incentive whatsoever to be social at all.
I am neither ranting nor trolling. Like I said, TF should be proud of his work as it is great quality. I just question it was necessary given the other current issues.
AND I am not interested in getting into a he said/she said over how Cryptic handles their affairs in-house. My experience tells me what you are suggesting is not 100% accurate but that is neither here nor there. If you are right then the programming devs have little to no excuse in their delay on fixing the bugs. If I am right then the Devs have distracted themselves from fixing said bugs with aesthetics. Either way, its a loss for the players.
Dare I even get into the ADDITIONAL XP nerf despite the gameplay bug still not being fixed? Somethings going in the wrong direction and its heading towards a cliff.
You log in to play a game, right? To do stuff that you can't otherwise do out there in real life, right? So that's where your focus is on things, right?
Don't get me wrong, I'm like that too...
But take a look around the forums...
Don't look too long...you'll start the uninstall as you're running the shower.
Heh - true.
The problem is I loved this game once and I am trying to learn to like it again, so I get defensive when it seems to get screwed over like this....
From what I understand, Cryptic doesn't have an entire 'fleet' of environmental artists, they have a small team who works together on art. That is all they do. For 40 hours a week or so, their environmental art team are the wizards who start from a whitebox and work their way to completion over a period of months.
I would wager the reason Club 47 was delayed was due to work put into Delta Rising.
Tacofangs has done us the favor of providing a timelapsed gif of his proofs (which is normal for any artist to do in order to show all of their work is their own), along with timestamps. You can plainly see from those timestamps that is, in fact, all they do for months at a time.
Tacofangs also fixes bugs, but only bugs directly related to environmental art. Whether it be clipping issues, areas in the geometry players get stuck in, or... as we have seen, players being able to get into certain areas of a map that was not designed for them to get into at all.
Bigger studios have bigger environmental art teams. You may have one person whose job entirely revolves around lighting and shading, but from what I've seen Cryptic's art team does a little a bit of everything (and I'm sure just like any art team some individuals have strengths in particular areas).
While Tacofangs and the environmental art team work on one thing, other departments work on others. While Club 47 was underway, we were seeing changes elsewhere in the game (for better or for worse). Now it is time for his time to shine and show off his completed work.
And when that is done and over with, it is likely he and the rest of the team will go back to creating more environmental art.
Social zones should obviously just be big empty boxes with exchange, bank, and mail consoles, obviously. After all, they're 100% pointless to gameplay.
I'm pretty annoying with Cryptic right now, because of the major XP nerf. But tacofangs did good. Just wanted to say that.
Oh, by all means. I'm annoyed with Cryptic in other particular areas of the game. But I wouldn't blame Borticus or Charles Gray for my avatar getting stuck in a tree on Earth Spacedock anymore than I would blame Tacofangs for TRIBBLE up dilithium and skillpoint payout rewards.
It's important that we look at work being done on STO department-by-department, and criticise it accordingly.
I don't blame a cattle rancher for my steak being burnt, and development studios should be given the same degree of accountability and latitude.
And loving the new costumes as well. I didn't really go the old Club 47 much, but I can see me coming to this one while sorting out doffs/inventory/etc. Or just have kill some time. So glad these outfits are wearable on other maps as well.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
It was long coming, but the new club blows away the old one.
I'm hoping that it does get a little use - if only for when Q shows up for the anniversary.
:cool:
Congrats on the in-game Promotion (you know who you are sir
N.C.C. 171867
Sovereign Class
Saint John Fleet Yard
"A Mari Usque Ad Mare"
I love the changing lighting in the dance floor area. Such a well-designed sequence. And the whole blacklight effect caught me off-guard - a neat little surprise!
The bar area is so well designed. And the sitting area to the right is absolutely incredible. I want to go to a place like that in real life.
Fantastic work, Taco!
Ya, sorry about that. To be fair, that had nothing to do with the club. In my haste to swap out/move around the ships in the docking bay, I accidentally nudged the docking bay walls out of place. It's been fixed already, and should go out in the next build. Apologies to all.
You are way out of your element. Pretty much every game studio has a whole department devoted to Art. Those artists (myself being one of them) do 0 coding, and very little 'design' work. We are working artists, and we make art. That's it.
On STO, we have 5-6 Environment Artists at any given time. We are focused and dedicated to making maps.
In the case of the Club, the work was pretty much entirely done by 4 people. A concept Artist who drew up some concept ideas before I started building. Myself, who built the structure of the room, the props, etc. (including models, textures and lighting), an FX artist, who put in his own time to make up the Balloon drop FX, the ground fog FX, and help me with the holographic projection stuff, and a Designer (Commander Ander) who populated the space with NPCS, hooked up special FX, etc. That's it. 4 people. None of whom were powers designers or programmers.
We do have a weekly allhands meeting, but we also have separate departmental meetings.
I'm willing to overlook it since you placed the Galaxy back in dock.
This is all well and good, and i appreciate the massive amount of work involved, but someone over there needs to tell us why the servers are down and when they are coming back up.
Great work, Mr. Tacofangs.
My only complaint is that I can't wear the club outfit on my ship. Aegis is close, but those tronlines
Having spent 2700 hours in game someplace to ponder your navel is always a good thing.
I blame cryptic for a lot this days, but I don't blame Taco for a thing. He does a lot of work for this game, and a lot for us, the players, even outside his work (foundry mostly).
And on top of that, he comes on the forum/ingame and share with us, even when things are quite toxic, like nowadays.
Anyway, thanks for your work Taco, personally, I found the water column/fountain/stuff very cool
While I bemoaned the club work not coming with newer ESD, it was clearly worth the wait in this instance. It has all the elements missing from the previous incarnations. Plus, it resolves the criticisms from player's who shared its negative effect on their ESD visit. They won't hear the music at all unless they enter the club. Not even in the Infirmary as close as those maps are.
I want to say: agreed.
Taco's work is outstanding. If I left STO and he went elsewhere, I'd be enticed to pick up a game just because his name was on it, all else being equal.
There are fantastic touches in Club 47. It's inobtrusive to the rest of ESD and very thematic to Trek. The dancefloor remains the jarring part but it's certainly mesmerizing. I can see the bar, entrance, and observation area being locations a director would drool over if they had the budget to make these things in live action Trek.
I can't see using it a lot aside as an idling area but what a spectacular idling area it is.
Personally, I wish Klingons could come and hang out there even if they were restricted from the rest of the station.