Priority One Ep199 | Upgrade System w/ Jesse Heinig

elijahmre

Greetings, Captains! You’re listening to EPISODE 199 OF PRIORITY ONE PODCAST, the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded on Thursday, November 20th 2014 and made available for download on Monday, November 24th 2014 at PriorityOnePodcast.com!

In Star Trek Online News, several new things have hit the game including the new T6 Intrepid Class Starship, a long list of patch notes, and, finally, Club 47 has re-opened! With so much community discussion regarding the Upgrade system and its cost to players, we talk with the man behind the system, Star Trek Online Game Designer - Jesse Heinig. Finally, before we wrap the show, we’ll open hailing frequencies for your incoming messages!

Topics Discussed

• Intrepid Class Starship
  Intrepid Ship and Bundles

[*]Release Notes: November 20th, 2014

Al Rivera's Forum Post on Skill Points
[*]Gorngonzolla's Forum Post on Crafting Materials
[*]Charles Gray's forum post regarding upcoming Reward updates
[*]Club 47 Is Ready For Business!

This week’s Community Question:

What are your thoughts about Club 47? Did you get your Club-Outfit? Share your screenshots and your thoughts!

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There are no plans to transcribe this episode at this time.

mhall85

Great interview with jheinig, although I wish you would have addressed the modifier issue more (and lack of choice of customizing your mods on your own). Next time! But good job on pushing for answers on gear for multiple characters.

Aside from the free upgrade packs from pre-DR, I have not engaged in the upgrade system. I am currently working on getting all R&D schools to level 15 (3 are there, 2 are level 11, and two are level 10). This is the route I want to take in upgrading.

I have been purposely waiting for things to "calm down," and the interview with Jesse certainly helps in waiting for solutions to cost problems. Thanks!

js26568

All of these community podcasts seem to be avoiding the issue of Skill/XP grinding and the leveling gaps.

Why is that?

jheinig

mhall85 wrote: »

Great interview with jheinig, although I wish you would have addressed the modifier issue more (and lack of choice of customizing your mods on your own). Next time! But good job on pushing for answers on gear for multiple characters.

Aside from the free upgrade packs from pre-DR, I have not engaged in the upgrade system. I am currently working on getting all R&D schools to level 15 (3 are there, 2 are level 11, and two are level 10). This is the route I want to take in upgrading.

I have been purposely waiting for things to "calm down," and the interview with Jesse certainly helps in waiting for solutions to cost problems. Thanks!

We've talked a lot internally about ways to deal with getting mods that you want, re-rolling mods, item deconstruction, and so on. Implementing it will take a lot of additional programming time, so we would like to do a new feature (when we settle on what exactly we are going to do), but it will have to be scheduled and will be a fairly major addition. Since our choice was to get R&D into play immediately and add that later, or not add R&D without it and potentially delay the R&D system by months or even a year, we wanted to get R&D live -- especially so that you can make Tech Upgrades! -- and work out the best solution for customizing or changing mods as an additional feature.

tarastheslayer

This interview lost me when I heard the 'maybe the ec is the problem and not the dilithium' because that is just absurd.

Ec isn't a problem, dilithium is. The attitude in the interview was like the only thing that requires dilithium is the upgrade system, yet that ignores fleet holdings, reps, fleet gear and other sinks. I'm not even that concerned about the mats, the whole issue has been around dilithium costs. I'm actually thankful jheinig actually took it upon himself to address this, but it should have been done by the interviewer and I can only see this as yet another misrepresentation of the community.

This issue was key throughout the testing period, and we all felt frankly rubbish when our feedback regarding everything around the upgrade system was ignored, and then released early with all the issues it had.

jheinig made this interview, he answered the the community when you guys didn't even attempt to represent us. Even though it is just words at this point, I'm hopeful action will follow because dilithium is becoming an issue. Jheinig, kudos for answering the community on your own initiative, it is much appreciated.

sheldonlcooper

I have proportionally way more diliithium than I have EC.

The only cost of upgrading that phased me was EC.

mhall85

jheinig wrote: »

We've talked a lot internally about ways to deal with getting mods that you want, re-rolling mods, item deconstruction, and so on. Implementing it will take a lot of additional programming time, so we would like to do a new feature (when we settle on what exactly we are going to do), but it will have to be scheduled and will be a fairly major addition. Since our choice was to get R&D into play immediately and add that later, or not add R&D without it and potentially delay the R&D system by months or even a year, we wanted to get R&D live -- especially so that you can make Tech Upgrades! -- and work out the best solution for customizing or changing mods as an additional feature.

Thanks for the clarification, and thanks for the great interview!!!

And, I agree... fixing the cost issues, and smoothing out the basics of the system makes sense... so, please, continue that! And thanks for the efforts!

dontdrunkimshoot

i am revealed to hear about the things on your radar, i think they are bleeding this game of players daily. there's the super expensive upgrade grind, but even worse then that is the specialization and leveling grind.

pain point 1: hour's and hour's of hard core xp grinding for 1 level, 50 additional levels needed after getting to 60, per character. i cannot adequately stress just how unacceptable this is, it is so far from acceptable right now, it cant be seen by the hubble telescope.

pain point 2: XP/time ratio on advanced and elite is a total joke, 20 to 50 times worse then just playing on normal. if killing an npc on elite needs to give 15k xp to match the speed of playing on normal, then thats how much XP it needs to pay out.

these need addressing before the game is playable again.

futurepastnow

tarastheslayer wrote: »

This interview lost me when I heard the 'maybe the ec is the problem and not the dilithium' because that is just absurd.

Ec isn't a problem, dilithium is.

EC is absolutely the problem, unless you're trying to make rarity upgrades. In terms of dil cost, assuming Superior upgrades are being used, upgrading only the mark level of an item amounts approximately to buying it again. In dil. And that's fair, if the rep and fleet stores had Mk XIV gear, I would buy it again.

But the Superior upgrade kits cost between 600k-1m EC in materials to make, if you're a level 15 crafter like me who wants to make their own kits. It costs marginally less to simply buy the kits outright from the exchange.

And I *do* have to buy the materials if I want to make my own kits, because even with very heavy doffing and a ton of R&D packs opened, I can't obtain enough of the rare and very rare materials. Those requirements will go down soon, which I hope will help. I'm not very optimistic.

Now, once you start trying to force rarity upgrades, especially of rep gear, you're entering a whole new universe of dilithium expenditure. Also if you're not using Superior upgrades, then you're trading EC costs for more dil costs, a trade I'm sure Cryptic would like you to make but not a good one.

leviathan99

Interesting stuff and I'm glad to hear that I'm not "shouting into a vacuum" on most of this. Particularly appreciated is your economics background, Jesse.

I'm trying to think of how best to accomplish some of this with a minimum of UI and other supporting features, which is harder.

Ideas that spring to mind:

1) Make Starship Mastery more like specialization in that it continues to supply rewards past the conventional cap and make this reward come in the form of upgrades proportional to the average quality level and average tech point level of equipped gear.

Basically, as I do X damage with a mastery-capped ship, I generate upgrade boosters through my ship and these upgrade boosters generated are based upon the total tech points of the gear on my ship. These upgrades might be somewhat different in that, if applied, they bind the new gear to my character or account, so as not to disrupt the larger game economy. This would potentially help players who have geared up one ship gear up alternative ships at a faster rate.

If I'm running higher quality gear, the resulting upgrade would have an increased chance of a quality boost. The higher my tech point levels, the greater the percentage boost of the generated booster.

I might be tempted to call this Starship Mastery Diagnostic Tech Boosters.

Basically, simply by playing on a ship with upgraded gear, I would decrease the expense associated with upgrading alternate gear sets or gear for alternate ships.

One possibility is that these would only count tech points in excess of Mk XII and only count quality levels in excess of blue for calculation purposes.

2) Allow substantial gear swapping of attributes. What this means is that I could have a crafting recipe which creates a different weapon or console from an existing one.

This would work along two dimensions:

Energy-type conversion. For example, a recipe to create a Mk XIV antiproton beam which accepts any Mk XIV beam of any other type as an input. The input requires the Mk level so that is covered. The quality level of the output could be dictated by the quality level of the input. Inputting an epic beam guarantees an epic result. This would be an interesting place to introduce new energy types or new ways to get existing energy types. For example: Chroniton energy weapons (like the temporal set) which take antiproton energy weapons of the same type as an input. Making Mk XIV required limits this whole system to reducing change costs for people who have substantially invested in upgrading.

Weapon-type conversion within an energy-type. Ie. Plasma beams that can be made with plasma cannons as an input. This can help someone swap to a science ship from playing escorts.

My take on this would be to actually make the mats:

Weapon of the incoming weapon type (whose value sets the value of the results) at Mk XIV. (It may work for this type of project to actually treat the outgoing weapon as a tech booster.)
Weapon of the final result weapon type at Mk XII.
Dilithium.

3) Create a basis for item duplication. I'm sure this is scary on some level but we have some groundwork laid for it with the reclaim tab of the dilithium store, which allows this in a form for certain unique-equip items. The duplicate needs to be account bound and have zero vendor value. This is a must for ground combat, IMHO, where the reward of outfitting a whole away team is often outstripped by the cost.

Additionally, this has rich potential when combined with point 2, as I could duplicate my existing ship's gear and then trade the duped gear for gear that I intend to use on an alt.

Thinking this over some, maybe the most eloquent solution would be:

1) Melting gear down for MAJOR tech boosters. Maybe as much as 500%. However, applying this booster binds the resulting gear to account. Gear rarity sets chance of quality improvement. Gear tech points sets tech value of booster.
2) Ability to duplicate gear at present Mk/Quality. The duplication has a dilithium cost. Resulting gear at the very least is account bound.
3) Energy type swapping of gear and Tac consoles.

Combine these last three points (assuming they're technically feasible) and you have a recipe for alt friendliness.

meimeitoo

Just quickly popped in to say I'm glad they're saying they're at least hearing us.

leviathan99

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that a LOT of what Jesse is saying (and is getting right) applies to leveling and spec points as well.

I KNOW that every DOff assignment or mission would still theoretically contribute to more spec points but the progress is absolutely daunting now because I can no longer see my bar move.

Whether you call it nerf or adjustment or oversight, a LOT of people came to these forums upset not strictly because their progress was slowed but because they saw their XP bar stop moving measurably. I stopped doing everything that generates skillpoints because the bar stopped moving. I need for the bar to move to feel the value of it.

And, in fact, knowing that the bar SHOULD BE MOVING and IS NOT *VISIBLY* moving is more demoralizing to me than pre-DR when the skillpoint bar simply did not move at the level cap. In short, I now have a visible indicator of how little progress I'm making.

I'd bring that up when you guys have a post-mortem on last Thursday's patch.

wanderintx

As a player with a few characters, it is good to hear that they are looking at the costs all around. The sponsorship was one of the best things to happen to the rep system, and it sounded like they are considering how to apply something similar to upgrading. Maybe leveling in the crafting system should benefit this more than it does.

Also, great to hear him talk about the difficulty still facing STFs and getting the rewards needed to help ease the EC cost of things. While recent changes made advanced more passable, the application of required objectives seems uneven if you PUG.

sanokskyrat

So glad to finally have some dev feed back. Thats all we really wanted. I understand what we want and what they (the devs) want rarely meet But the fact that well the devs were silent just made things worse.

I know alot of players who stopped playing because of this. The game feels like punishment and not rewarding so all my mates (apart from 1) left.

I just hope the fix comes sooner rather then later....

I would like the thank Jesse for having an account and running pugs like a normal player.

futurepastnow

After listening to the interview, all I can say is at least he seems to recognize that the game isn't fun anymore and it's all their fault. Means they're past the denial stage.

gulberat

jheinig wrote: »

We've talked a lot internally about ways to deal with getting mods that you want, re-rolling mods, item deconstruction, and so on. Implementing it will take a lot of additional programming time, so we would like to do a new feature (when we settle on what exactly we are going to do), but it will have to be scheduled and will be a fairly major addition. Since our choice was to get R&D into play immediately and add that later, or not add R&D without it and potentially delay the R&D system by months or even a year, we wanted to get R&D live -- especially so that you can make Tech Upgrades! -- and work out the best solution for customizing or changing mods as an additional feature.

With all due respect--and I am not trying to be sarcastic by saying that--I think that may be one of the issues that has plagued Delta Rising, and that is releasing things half-done.

I actually think I, and others, would have willingly settled for a delay over what we got, even if it meant the new system and the full level cap increase got pushed out to months or even a year just as you describe. I have even suggested a potential delaying tactic in my review series that I think could have successfully bought at least three months of time for you guys for additional content, systems development, and testing.

And that is that I believe "Mindscape" not only had what it takes, story-wise, but would have served you and the players best as a stand-alone episode along the vein of the excellent "Surface Tension." I think that would have bought you a minimum of three months of the time you would have needed. A Delta Rising releasing later, IF that time were used efficiently for further content development, might not have experienced story-progression gaps as severe as what we got. Or maybe it would have actually still been possible to level through with the story. And by that point the true SDLC might have had time to get to a healthy position before releasing the new crafting system and other systems changes. And to incorporate customer feedback about the costs and methods of the system...because Principle #1 of Quality is that the customer is the one that defines what quality is.

This is not to say that there aren't ideas that were good, that were a part of Delta Rising, or that everything about it was a total disaster. If you drop by and have a look at my review series in progress, you'll have a chance to see where I've called out some of the good that has been buried in all the craziness and unfortunate, before-prime-time releases and customer relations troubles. It is my hope that by understanding how we all got into this mess, we can figure a way out of it, and understand how, if we can make sure this game will have a future, to avoid having something like this release happen again.

frtoaster

jheinig wrote: »

We've talked a lot internally about ways to deal with getting mods that you want, re-rolling mods, item deconstruction, and so on. Implementing it will take a lot of additional programming time, so we would like to do a new feature (when we settle on what exactly we are going to do), but it will have to be scheduled and will be a fairly major addition. Since our choice was to get R&D into play immediately and add that later, or not add R&D without it and potentially delay the R&D system by months or even a year, we wanted to get R&D live -- especially so that you can make Tech Upgrades! -- and work out the best solution for customizing or changing mods as an additional feature.

1. Re-rolling for modifiers is almost as bad as what we have now. People are crafting hundreds of items in order to get one item with the modifiers they want. Re-rolling hundreds of times is not a solution.

2. There has been speculation that the method used to randomly generate modifiers results in a non-uniform distribution of outcomes. Explanations can be found in the posts below:

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=20665231&postcount=11
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=20753341&postcount=22

3. Currently, we can neither craft nor upgrade kits or kit modules. Will these features be added in a future update?

4. I haven't checked recently, but I suspect that Mk XIV kit modules do not drop. Is this intended behavior?

decronia

jheinig wrote: »

We've talked a lot internally about ways to deal with getting mods that you want, re-rolling mods, item deconstruction, and so on. Implementing it will take a lot of additional programming time, so we would like to do a new feature (when we settle on what exactly we are going to do), but it will have to be scheduled and will be a fairly major addition. Since our choice was to get R&D into play immediately and add that later, or not add R&D without it and potentially delay the R&D system by months or even a year, we wanted to get R&D live -- especially so that you can make Tech Upgrades! -- and work out the best solution for customizing or changing mods as an additional feature.

Then you should have delayed it. Ever heard the saying "If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well"? As it is we have a bugged embarrasment of a crafting system, that makes the old one look good. This is comeing from an avid crafter in every gameI have played with a crafting system.

Don't even get me started on vr mats. Making them queue content only is basically saying to those who don't like that sort of thing, tough luck and bite the pillow.

With all the dil sinks in the game you ad the chance to remove it from actual crafting but didn't do that, you made it worse. Upgrades I can understand the dil charge as we are getting gear that could have been in the dil store and at a cheaper rate, but it has no place in crafting now.

futurepastnow wrote: »

After listening to the interview, all I can say is at least he seems to recognize that the game isn't fun anymore and it's all their fault. Means they're past the denial stage.

Just because they are past the denial stage doesn't mean it will change. Todays patch notes are an example of that. They have nerfed the bonus mark event with this change:

Daily Mark boxes no longer have the bonus applied to them during Bonus Marks Weekend events.

They mess up and we get punished, this seems to be Cryptics SoP now and doesn't look like it will change.

vestereng

That's the thing though, you don't have anything to say calling the crafting system un-finsihed AFTER you spent millions of dil.

It was people's own choice to accept that system and make it successful.

mosul33

futurepastnow wrote: »

EC is absolutely the problem, unless you're trying to make rarity upgrades. In terms of dil cost, assuming Superior upgrades are being used, upgrading only the mark level of an item amounts approximately to buying it again. In dil. And that's fair, if the rep and fleet stores had Mk XIV gear, I would buy it again.

But the Superior upgrade kits cost between 600k-1m EC in materials to make, if you're a level 15 crafter like me who wants to make their own kits. It costs marginally less to simply buy the kits outright from the exchange.

And I *do* have to buy the materials if I want to make my own kits, because even with very heavy doffing and a ton of R&D packs opened, I can't obtain enough of the rare and very rare materials. Those requirements will go down soon, which I hope will help. I'm not very optimistic.

Now, once you start trying to force rarity upgrades, especially of rep gear, you're entering a whole new universe of dilithium expenditure. Also if you're not using Superior upgrades, then you're trading EC costs for more dil costs, a trade I'm sure Cryptic would like you to make but not a good one.

Actually no. Ec is the problem becouse dil costs. First, I dont know how you think that buying the item again costs are fair when you get only 10-30% incresed in efectiveness per item, but w/e, to each of its own I guess:rolleyes:.
About the Ec problem. It wouldnt be a problem if the dil cost werent a problem. And you could actually use the green and blue techs without goinng bankrupt on dil. If the dil costs would be scaled down, when using any tech, including greens/blue, there wouldve been too much presure on getting ONLY the best techs (aka very rare and ultra rare), thus no presure on EC either. The point is, becouse of high dil price, you are "forced" to use best tech ONLY to not feel like trowing your dil out of the window.
On a general base, and this includes both the R&D and upgarde system too, it seems like Cryptic lost the term "micro" from the micro-transaction model. Ppl will be willing to spend more but on smaller amounts, and to buy more zen/dil when little amount is needed. Like for example, on those "Finish now" buttons from R&D, no1 sane on the head would spend 18k dil:eek:. But if it was like, lets say 10k-12k, wanna bet lots of ppl wouldve bought zen/dil to cover the extra 2k-4k that was needed over the 8k dil from their daily dil cap...
This applys to upgrades too, since if costs were smaller, ppl would upgrade more items, not like now, just tac consoles and/or weps only or even none whatsoever...

js26568

As I already said, there was no mention in the Podcast of the skill/xp grind or the leveling gap. It's a game-breaking problem. The fact that it wasn't even mentioned undermines the "community" aspect of the community podcast.

Are you guys ever going to cover it, or are you just there so the devs can issue self-congratulatory prepared statements while you nod along?

tarastheslayer

futurepastnow wrote: »

EC is absolutely the problem, unless you're trying to make rarity upgrades. In terms of dil cost, assuming Superior upgrades are being used, upgrading only the mark level of an item amounts approximately to buying it again. In dil. And that's fair, if the rep and fleet stores had Mk XIV gear, I would buy it again.

But the Superior upgrade kits cost between 600k-1m EC in materials to make, if you're a level 15 crafter like me who wants to make their own kits. It costs marginally less to simply buy the kits outright from the exchange.

And I *do* have to buy the materials if I want to make my own kits, because even with very heavy doffing and a ton of R&D packs opened, I can't obtain enough of the rare and very rare materials. Those requirements will go down soon, which I hope will help. I'm not very optimistic.

Now, once you start trying to force rarity upgrades, especially of rep gear, you're entering a whole new universe of dilithium expenditure. Also if you're not using Superior upgrades, then you're trading EC costs for more dil costs, a trade I'm sure Cryptic would like you to make but not a good one.

Mosul has already given a good response but I have a few things to add. Firstly, find a team of people you like and run the queues. Most of them are incredibly easy if you do ground and even a few of the spaces. Gel as a team and as you get better at the missions you'll find you will finish them quicker and the R&D packs will flood in.

The bonus is that if you get any mats you don't need/want you can sell them and buy any you're missing, it's a win-win. So yeah, I can't see how ec cost is the problem, it's just about being efficient at getting it.

Just to add, there is no cap on how much ec you can make in a given session, there is with dilithium. So while you can grind ec to your hearts content dilithium you're limited by the daily cap, so again I really can't see this as an issue.

varthelm

tarastheslayer wrote: »

This interview lost me when I heard the 'maybe the ec is the problem and not the dilithium' because that is just absurd.

Ec isn't a problem, dilithium is. The attitude in the interview was like the only thing that requires dilithium is the upgrade system, yet that ignores fleet holdings, reps, fleet gear and other sinks. I'm not even that concerned about the mats, the whole issue has been around dilithium costs. I'm actually thankful jheinig actually took it upon himself to address this, but it should have been done by the interviewer and I can only see this as yet another misrepresentation of the community.

This issue was key throughout the testing period, and we all felt frankly rubbish when our feedback regarding everything around the upgrade system was ignored, and then released early with all the issues it had.

jheinig made this interview, he answered the the community when you guys didn't even attempt to represent us. Even though it is just words at this point, I'm hopeful action will follow because dilithium is becoming an issue. Jheinig, kudos for answering the community on your own initiative, it is much appreciated.

This. ^^

Love the podcast and listen regularly but have to admit I turned it off when dil costs were deemed reasonable and speculation about ec costs being the issue began. Ec doesn't have a refine cap. Also, we really can't compare the dil cost of new gear since I am upgrading gear I already bought. A small cost per item would have been cool but not only make me repurchase and make me wait for it?

In answer to the community question, I used to drop money on this game whenever I needed a new console etc, but ever since this upgrade system came out, I spend whatever I can get out of the refine cap if that.

I did appreciate the interview and the time the dev took to speak with us. I did not like all his answers but he sounded sincere.

Lastly, I do hate it when we are told the upgrade system is cool because we don't need it to get through the content. To a large extent it is true that people with a solid mk xii build can competently run things like isa, kasa and a few other advanced queues. However, that is just not the point. Prior to dr a competent player could run most elite queues in blues and greens if necessary. But who ever did that by choice? The fun of endgame is not the content itself after running it for the 1000th time...it is pushing your performance to be a little better than the time before with new ideas on ship fits and equipment. We worked hard to get all that stuff. To either work with a disadvantage or competely repurchase your old gear just casts doubt on the value of any cash purchase to Cryptic.

My two cents anyway

Respectfully,

Varthelm

dkratasco

jheinig wrote: »

We've talked a lot internally about ways to deal with getting mods that you want, re-rolling mods, item deconstruction, and so on. Implementing it will take a lot of additional programming time, so we would like to do a new feature (when we settle on what exactly we are going to do), but it will have to be scheduled and will be a fairly major addition. Since our choice was to get R&D into play immediately and add that later, or not add R&D without it and potentially delay the R&D system by months or even a year, we wanted to get R&D live -- especially so that you can make Tech Upgrades! -- and work out the best solution for customizing or changing mods as an additional feature.

You know what? I would rather wait other year to get finished working product, than some alpha test going live. "Dear Sir, we have new car for you, bur for doors and wheels you have to wait other 6-12 months. It works so pay full cost of have it, but to make it as functional as it should be you must wait."
Upgrade is just like crafting lottery "We give you unfinished product, maybe one day we will finished it but still don't know how or when. In meantime fell free to pay real money to use it." It will and just end like other unfinished elements in game: 1) People pay enough real money in it to make profit, so it works just fine no need to finish it. 2) Insufficient profit from purchases, so it's not worth finishing.

Can we get another executive producer for STO, even one from Neverwinter or Chempions.

vestereng

The upgrading system is completely pointless for several reasons

- My gameplay is changing my entire loadout weekly; I don't want to be bound to anything

- It costs dil at all:

- It has no new animations, copy-pasted "emperor's new clothes blank stats

- The missing mods


Any one of those on their own makes me laugh and just shake my head over how absurd it is.


HOWEVER, since people bought into it and paid them for it, this is what we or rather you are now stuck with.

And as terrible as it is, the upgrading has been a royal success and I 110% blame the players, the ones that can't help themselves for ruining it all

dkratasco

Ow I forget about one more thing, you want to make Superiors more easily obtainable so you just lower drop rate just to make it even less chance to get one.

binebane

js26568 wrote: »

All of these community podcasts seem to be avoiding the issue of Skill/XP grinding and the leveling gaps.

Why is that?

becouse if you ask those questions you wont get next interview

js26568

binebane wrote: »

becouse if you ask those questions you wont get next interview

If the interviewer doesn't ask these questions, that says a lot about their integrity.

If they DO ask these questions and don't get the next interview, it'd be Cryptic's integrity that'd take the hit.

Either way, the player community would know where they stand.

decronia

js26568 wrote: »

If they DO ask these questions and don't get the next interview, it'd be Cryptic's integrity that'd take the hit.

It already has and they don't care. Atleast this way those that like these things can still have them.

mustrumridcully0

dkratasco wrote: »

You know what? I would rather wait other year to get finished working product, than some alpha test going live. "Dear Sir, we have new car for you, bur for doors and wheels you have to wait other 6-12 months. It works so pay full cost of have it, but to make it as functional as it should be you must wait."
Upgrade is just like crafting lottery "We give you unfinished product, maybe one day we will finished it but still don't know how or when. In meantime fell free to pay real money to use it." It will and just end like other unfinished elements in game: 1) People pay enough real money in it to make profit, so it works just fine no need to finish it. 2) Insufficient profit from purchases, so it's not worth finishing.

Can we get another executive producer for STO, even one from Neverwinter or Chempions.

I actually prefer to get new stuff regularly. It would be boring otherwise. Do you really want to do nothing but the same thing for a year? You're probably not someone that complains about the "grind", right?

varekraith

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

I actually prefer to get new stuff regularly. It would be boring otherwise. Do you really want to do nothing but the same thing for a year? You're probably not someone that complains about the "grind", right?

We got new content with DR. It's an utter grindfest.
What're you smoking?