yes because the quote taken out of context is utterly totally accurate and no one exaggerates and lies on the internet lol
If I were an employee for this company I would refuse to post on the forums unless they like made it a part of my job description and gave me a free jelly doughnut and coffee and dedicated posting time.. and possibly stocked a liquor cabinet and gave me a key to it
Its actually amazing how people can completely twist something until its no longer recognizable and then call it "truth".
Its also equally amazing at how any helpful information gets equally screwed up and rumours start inside the game that are opposite to what actually the truth is.
Some of it makes me litterally laugh out loud but other stuff leave me shaking my head because no one with a normal level of intelligence should be behaving this way. And there is not one dev who has not been polite when posting not one. I have even read the original post about so called "not listening to the forums" lol....WoW that one was twisted beyond belief.
To be fair, it was pretty obvious that "we the players" were being held solely accountable for the "Tau Dewa" fiasco.
It would not have hurt for the gentleman in question to have put a bit of an apology in the retraction statement.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
taco...dammit, it isn't YOU. if you ran pwe or cryptic...different story, you don't though do you? you're not the secret controller of that empire are you? i realize you get flak for being so talkative that makes you an easy target, some people just see 'oh hey, he works for cryptic...get'em boys!'
none of what i say is aimed at you, and i can only speak for myself in that regard. you do a fantastic jobs with the tools at your disposal. are pretty forthcoming with information related to what you do. and all in all a lot more open than any other cryptics i see on these forums.
and from what i've seen of your posts...you actually respond to the players as if they're human with intelligence.
but unless you are the man behind the scenes pulling the strings you aren't responsible...not even by association for policy.
Agree. Beacose he knows how to talk to players with out disrespect them like Geko or Deangelo.
i am not a DEV and i find hard to come to any game forum and read the trash people post in them.
been roving games for years and in every forum i go in a read is always the same trash. when i enter A game forum they are talking how much B game is better than A game, and when i go into B game they are saying how much A game is better.
people complain that the devs are not listening to them, but the true is that what they want is to Dev to say yes to whatever they want. if the Devs didnt implemented what ever you wanted, is not that they didnt listen, it means they said No.
the produc is what it is, you have never see people protest outside of a macdonalds cos they want to buy woppers. if they want wopper they go to a burged king.
now someone suggested a new subforum for people whit manners, i would like to see that, but instead of anyone been able to enter and then be baned if they dont behave, the devs should be the ones granting access to it if they find a polite player in the regular one. ( as a way to filter out the trash topics)
in conclusion, all those banners and signature with 1 line quotes are disgusting, and says lot about your characters.
Yeah let's bury the super grinding developers put into the game for no reason with DR.
Oh yeah that's right, it's still in the game.
Of course you don't want to talk about it, I wouldn't want to either
I will be wearing my DR signature until DR is un-nerfed or rerolled, deleted or I get banned.
Dead queues, nerfed dil, nerfed marks, nerfed EC, nerfed exp - 800 patrol missions for specialization, can't play story missions with other people and all that.
Then we can start talking about the missing mods for crafting or the fairness of buying copy-pasted text upgraded weapons for millions of dil.
If I were an employee for this company I would refuse to post on the forums unless they like made it a part of my job description and gave me a free jelly doughnut and coffee and dedicated posting time.. and possibly stocked a liquor cabinet and gave me a key to it
I guess I assumed that there were employees at Cryptic that DID have it in their job description to communicate to the customer base.
Everyone likes to talk about "Devs". If these guys are just cogs in the machine, I might not want to be the window to the customer, either.
But, there are folks who have been identified as their PR liaison's. Why don't THEY communicate EVERY day - even if its just to say "we're still here"?
For the record, the "Delta Rising is the best expansion ever..." comment isn't months old. It's only been a few weeks since Geko said it numerous times in a Priority One podcast.
The sarcastic signatures are aimed at Geko, even though we all know full well that he never comes on here.
Imagine suddenly the counter situation -Cryptic actually has some data you have no access to that suggests that Delta Rising was well received by players, based on continued sales, play time and what not - should they now treat you as a liar and stop listening to you because you were wrong? Should all the Cryptic employees add a signature of a revenue report where you clearly see the sales going up and "But the game is dying - eltatus".
For a moment, just try to be a bit sympathetic?
Wut? Since when play time or increase of sales is a signal of love? Ask anyone if he loves going to Argala! The quote was not "DR is the best monetary expancion ever and we are making a lot of money". The quote asumed that players loved the expancion! I can spend a lot of time with a woman and give her a lot of money, but that does not meant that I love it.
But that is not the issue, beacose like I said, I know what is been flamed when Deangelo called ME and MANY of their player bases chaters and exploiters beacose we just played the game.
Just for the record... I've never personally felt that any of the Dev's had attacked me personally, nor have any of my posts ever been a serious attack on any of them.
I've actually had a dev make a post that was an attack on me directly, but that developer is no longer with the company so I hardly hold it against the team.
I do agree with what was said earlier- that the three year old comments or whatever are probably going to happen regardless, but if the devs spent more time communicating on the forums and less time thinking up new names to call players, ways to insult them, or otherwise express their complete and utter disrespect for their customers like Geko has on a number of occasions, that things might be a little better.
I'm sure all the devs do the best work they can, but at the same time as tiring as it is for them to wade through the toxicity of the forums, us players are getting really tired of being told how we're supposed to feel and being told that if we don't feel that way then we're idiots or whatever.
Delta rising was the highest grossing expansion on the day of its launch, yes, lots of players were playing it, yes, but being told that all our grievances were just 'reporting errors' or that they didn't exist because 'the players love the expansion, so you're wrong'- that really hurts, and you bet it'll be something the players turn around and use for months on end.
But the whole point of that is so that you guys can't just forget about having done something stupid, or brush it under the rug, pretend it didn't happen, and then CONTINUE TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
Learn from these experiences and maybe take some time to actually change how you interact with people, so that even if you do feel we're all a bunch of fourteen year old minmaxers living in our parents' basements, that you don't actually SAY that, and you don' let your personal distaste for members of the community INFLUENCE POLICY DECISIONS FOR THE GAME.
funny enough I followed yout link and took the personality test to find out to be an INTJ myself. Strong emphasis in the I part though...
on topic though I don't mind when constructive criticism is given even if it's harsh as long as you can remain polite(no swearing,no name-calling,no demanding people to get fired, etc.).
looking at crypics track record though they do read the forums and they do listen. not to everyone at once though. In some cases players request things that contradict other request and cryptic has to choose. if the chose the other idea that didn't mean they didn't listen to you just that the other person made a better case.
why do I say this. well I track the things I've requested over the last five years and compare it to what has been put into the game....
Warpcores - Added
computercores -
Playable Romulans - exp1 new romulus
better ground game - WiP (i don't know what keeps going wrong but they do keep trying to improve it)
more interesting skill system/level rewards - Added (the specializations for captains)
going to the delta quadrant - exp2 delta rising
pilot Boffs - got intelligence but more are promised to be on the way and pilot is a captian specialization that has the barrel roll one of the powers i liked pilot boffs to have.
change the new crafting system- :mad:
Hybrid races -
change Boff skills to be like the kits - this goes above and beyond that request in a better way than my own take on it.
that's 6 out of my ten requests granted. though not always precisely as i asked.
about the 4 that didn't quite make it.
the hybrid races would allow for nicer role play but it wasn't the greatest idea.
coputercores cold still come so hoping for the bests here. the last time i pitched that idea it was as a more widely usable version of secondary defector that would do different things in escorts cruiser by running other "programs" (the UI bit developed for kits would do great there). ever since the work on the secondary deflector seem to have come to a halt. though that may mean nothing.
ground game has always been a problem though i do see continued work by the devs to make it better. to me it feels to fast passed so much so that i rather shoot one more time than use my kit abilities to not miss out on DPS. I prefer it to be more tactical so I identified the problem but can't give real constructive criticism.
the crafing system is just a glorified slots machine but along whit the upgrade system the whole turned out better than i had expected. I does still need improving and the upgrade system seems to punish you for not using acceleratos. the system is decent though the changes I proposed would have taken it to a whole other level.
in the end all the good ideas I posted on the forums found their way into the game eventually. the things that din't make it were not so good ideas, lacked constructive criticism or might still come/get improved.
that not a bad track record for criptic. yes i was personally quite harsh about the crafing system but that was because i felt that they were 95% there for an epic system but 5% they where short messed it all 100% up. if cryptic would in the future fix that then they truly have listed to what I and probably many other players have been saying....
THE NEW CRAFTING SYSTEM IS TERRA-BAD First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
As an example, it is difficult to convince other devs that coming here to talk with players is a good idea when every thread is filled with people with signatures throwing a single 3 month old comment back into our collective faces.
Maybe those comments that have taken up residence within people's signatures, wouldn't get thrown back in your collective faces, if the lie weren't be perpetuated. Maybe instead of being the consumate salesman, perhaps Geko should instead recognize that the playerbase here is unique (IE what keeps the game running) and rather than try to sell us a boatload of...honey...be honest with us. Admit mistakes. Outline a vision for getting things back on track.
But no...just this week the lie continues.
And you expect the people that have devoted 2, or 3, or 4 or 5 years to this game, to just let it go?
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Let's assume for a moment that Cryptic has actually no evidence on their side that would have lead someone on their team to make that statement....
How about you just agree to disagree. "No, I don't like Delta Rising, and I feel not included in that statement. These are the reasons why."
Imagine suddenly the counter situation -Cryptic actually has some data you have no access to that suggests that Delta Rising was well received by players, based on continued sales, play time and what not - should they now treat you as a liar and stop listening to you because you were wrong? Should all the Cryptic employees add a signature of a revenue report where you clearly see the sales going up and "But the game is dying - eltatus".
For a moment, just try to be a bit sympathetic?
That's not what happened though. Well not exactly. They had data initially that proved it was selling well and lots of players were on.
Then a dev who shall not be named came on the forums and basically told the detractors that none of the bugs existed because the expansion was so popular.
One does not follow the other.
The 'the players love it' was, from the dev side, repeatedly put forward as 'every single player in the game loves the expansion, anyone who has grievances is making them up/there's a reporting glitch/they're just mad we're so successful'.
The J is there. It's just not focused on what you're focused on. I THINK it's INTJ focused on optimizing cashflow and making payroll/financial targets or bonus conditions or tying in with game systems on a whiteboard that may or may not make it live.
In any case, I think a misconception with Myers-Briggs is that it by necessity tells what people are good at. I think it's better at telling what strategies they employ.
Yes, people with INTJ have higher IQs but is that because INTJ thinking is smarter... Or because people with higher IQs tend to employ INTJ thinking strategies as a result of their IQs? I am not convinced that the causality of aptitude is established with any of the types. I'm also not saying Cryptic guys are dumb. But I think INTJs tend to think they are more likely to be right not because they are right more often. But because people who are more likely to be technically right are INTJs.
In this case, we don't know the victory conditions for the tasks they're given. The things you see as broken may be insignificant to their objectives.
And, again, I think INTJ doesn't mean that someone is always right or ever right. It just means that they think they are and maybe that they technically are based on their own criteria for themselves, which may or may not have anything to do with your criteria for them.
The more I dug, the more I found strong evidence of a huge INTJ over-representation in game design AND MMO design. And I am not going to put words in anyone's mouth specifically. But I know a handful of Cryptic employees current and former who have all cited INTJ as their type. And the only one I've ever seen identify as another type was Daniel Stahl, who I *THINK* mentioned it here. (ENFP, I think?)
it's the thinking everything completely through the provides the higher IQ...except we do it fast...we like that brain wiring that provides that flexibility and from an early age continually reinforce those pathways and alternate ones.
devs may be intj, the people in control are not. and developers, at least coders have to become somewhat intj just because of how code works, logical flow and conditionals, etc. you can't just pound out some code and expect it to work because you believe in it...you have to think it through.
but then you hit large scale game mechanics...and these are very different. (code being small scale...so to speak) these level designers, game designers will try and push through on belief alone or bad/non existent information. guesswork. not all of course (referring to all games) but enough to see the pattern.
monetization does not automatically = critical thinking...that's more wishful thinking and hoping/guessing as well. some companies get it right...some just keep repeating what worked for them before...which camp does cryptic fall in do you think?
you cannot generalize, some devs, some designers, some coders, etc. cryptics track record as well as statements from the higher ups partition who is and who isn't in that intj mindset.
geko most assuredly IS NOT. nor trendy, and can rule out d'angelo and stahl. all have made bad statements that were totally out of touch with any reality except there own. intj never creates their own special world with special rules and then forces that out as if it's REAL. as if it's a TRUTH.
truth only occurs if it meshes with everything else known. else you are lying to yourself, and others. you can easily separate who does that just by going through the posts to determine intj...and entp. what they perceive is their reality..not subject to anything that refutes that reality. delta rising is the best...etc. whether that was a company line or personal opinion it was still in error. not something an intj would tolerate.
Dr. Patricia Tanis ~ "Bacon is for sycophants and products of incest."
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Of course you are accountable for everything you say on the forums. Everyone here is accountable for what they say...
Just stop dodging the issue of DR, the lack of content, adding dil sinks, artificial grinding, un-finished crafting system, the insane price of "upgrading" and all that.
Maybe those comments that have taken up residence within people's signatures, wouldn't get thrown back in your collective faces, if the lie weren't be perpetuated. Maybe instead of being the consumate salesman, perhaps Geko should instead recognize that the playerbase here is unique (IE what keeps the game running) and rather than try to sell us a boatload of...honey...be honest with us. Admit mistakes. Outline a vision for getting things back on track.
But no...just this week the lie continues.
And you expect the people that have devoted 2, or 3, or 4 or 5 years to this game, to just let it go?
Yep, well said. They not even apologize to us when they call us exploiters and cheaters.
Like I said, they open the pandora box and they are not intresting on close in it.
The Dev's are pizzed off because not everybody appreciates Their efforts and many of the vocal players are pizzed off because Cryptic as a whole seems uncaring and intractable to what the players are expressing as bad game-play design.
There's got to be a happy medium, but it's never going to happen if BOTH sides aren't willing to come together to discuss the matter in a non-confrontational manner.
Of course as a Business, Cryptic doesn't really have to discuss anything with us.
But everybody knows that is not the best approach to keeping ones clientele happy.
Cryptic needs to find somebody to represent them here in the forums, that can look past all the BS and vitriol to keep some kind of dialog going.
Even if it's just to stop by once a day and say nothing but Hello We're here and aware of your input.
<shrug>
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
That's not what happened though. Well not exactly. They had data initially that proved it was selling well and lots of players were on.
Then a dev who shall not be named came on the forums and basically told the detractors that none of the bugs existed because the expansion was so popular.
And that's not what I remember happening, in since I follow the dev tracker pretty closely, I would be surprised if I missed this.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Oh, Hai! Here I am, communicating with you.
:::monkey dance:::
Oh right, I don't count . . .
It is not always as blatant as someone yelling and ranting and cursing at us. It can be much more subtle, and much more subversive than that.
As an example, it is difficult to convince other devs that coming here to talk with players is a good idea when every thread is filled with people with signatures throwing a single 3 month old comment back into our collective faces.
Taco..... I'm lifting my hat to you with respect! It seriously takes some guts replying into this thread and it's appreciated! And it's good to read a bit about your side of the story. So yeah, I can understand that Devs are a bit scarce here. What I lack understanding for is the community team doing the same. Even on simple things like news. (Or have they just been given tons of new work in order to cut cost?).
As for the sig.... well it's getting old and as a token of respect to you and all the developers that put hard work into the game I will remove it now.
However that doesn't change that I'm extremely unhappy with some business decisions that have been taken. I don't like quoting the BCG matrix like every business halfwit likes to do but yeah there's probably no better model to express the cash-cow way STO is headed for. If you can't get new players, increase the earnings from the die hard fans. From my point of view that's pretty much what happened and I'm not happy with the extremes it went to. I wish you devs were given more time to work on things. Because besides all the business stuff, you are developing a beautiful game. Thank you very much for it!
it is the gutter.
Imagine talking to anyone the way people here talk to cryptic.
And I mean anyone.
Can you REALLY be this naive about the way things work? This isn't about the way you "feel", it's about cash. Cryptic could likely get back some of their dwindling base if they'd get in here a talk about some of the issues plaguing this sad, cash-cow of a game. Hell, they could even have it easy just by ignoring the posts that have no value, like yours.
Face it, lots of people are genuinely angry for being ignored AND exploited at the same time. I look forward to the day when we see a truly great space opera-style game where the devs are actually interested in the game, customer service AND getting rich. I'll gladly leave this money grubbing corruption of the Star Trek universe behind forever.
geko most assuredly IS NOT. nor trendy, and can rule out d'angelo and stahl. all have made bad statements that were totally out of touch with any reality except there own. intj never creates their own special world with special rules and then forces that out as if it's REAL. as if it's a TRUTH.
I will reiterate that I think aptitude shapes personality type but that no personality type necessarily equals an aptitude. Heck, I think you may be engaged in the INTJ "INTJs are smart" feedback loop you guys tend to get into. And it may be supported by a high IQ in your case. But I think your high IQ makes you INTJ (and doesn't necessarily apply to all INTJs) more than your INTJ type makes you smart. There is also such a thing as an "unhealthy INTJ" and you absolutely can be an INTJ with the flaws of the type and few of the perks.
I doubt Trendy is INTJ but she's a community mod, which isn't typically classed as a developer. I'd peg her as ISFP. I doubt Smirk is. I'm thinking ENFJ. Many of the visual artists may or may not be and I'd lean towards Thomas being a completely different type. Maybe INTP. I have never seen any of the people I just mentioned class themselves.
I will bet you dollars to donuts Geko identifies himself as INTJ and it shows in terms of his interpersonal style and management technique. He's a classic INTJ manager under stress and if any of his traits are being obscured, I'd wager it's stress based. I'd urge anyone to get on Twitter and ask him. I have never been so sure of anyone being a type in my life.
D'Angelo I don't have as firm a read on but he collects Legos, I think, and likes Sci-Fi but has a very vocal disdain for Ray Bradbury. He rarely posts. I'm seeing the I. I'm seeing the NT. (Being a sci-fi reader dramatically reduces your odds of being an S over an N. Being a sci-fi fan who dislikes Bradbury means you almost can't be an F. It's not that NTs can't like Bradbury -- I DO -- but it's that someone who likes sci-fi and dislikes Bradbury has to be an NT.) That gives us INTx. I'll give you D'Angelo might be an INTP. I don't have a clear read there. But as CTO of Cryptic and a lifelong designer of systems and programmer, I lean towards him being an INTJ.
INTJ is a silo builder when it comes to communication. You guys are right in your view. You know you're right and are hard to budge. You've made up your minds and the one proviso is that your correctness is subject to the criteria you have chosen as relevant for being correct. And I think you and Geko would find one another success/correctness criteria skewed in a no holds barred discussion. I think he would dispute your definition of success and if you knew what his was, you would dispute his. And it would go nowhere.
I'm curious if anyone can guess mine. I think my MBTI is painfully obvious because I think I'm a pretty loud version of it.
But if anyone wants to ask @CaptainGeko on Twitter what his type is, I'll be here waiting for you to confirm he identifies as an INTJ.
STO-forum is the sphincter of the game community. I come here to check the dev tracker, read the release notes, and then mostly browse general discussion to see what people who are bad at the game are being bad at this week.
Honestly anyone that needs to be so crass to make a point ... about the poor attitude of a community, ya well ... LOL
The average gamer is in their Mid 30's, Affluent, and College Educated. Maybe they expect people to act like it.
The whole I don't like something so I should have an license to be the biggest A-hole I can possibly be BS that forum a-hole keep spouting is terrible.
But I do blame the game companies, they should moderate Forums to be a business space. There is no job I've ever had that would allow customers to act like this in person.
If you can't say you don't like something without being a complete douche about it then you shouldn't be allowed to interact with the rest of society.
And yes, the Forums are the gutter of STO, and STO's forums has more gutter trash then any gaming forum I've ever had the privilege of interacting with.
The average gamer is in their Mid 30's, Affluent, and College Educated. Maybe they expect people to act like it.
High IQ does not equate to high EQ, emotional intelligence. I know lots of extremely immature rich, educated guys. Anyone you have ever met in your life that is domineering, prone to tantrums and outbursts of anger - are sure signs of folks with low EQ.
Oh, Hai! Here I am, communicating with you.
:::monkey dance:::
Oh right, I don't count . . .
It is not always as blatant as someone yelling and ranting and cursing at us. It can be much more subtle, and much more subversive than that.
As an example, it is difficult to convince other devs that coming here to talk with players is a good idea when every thread is filled with people with signatures throwing a single 3 month old comment back into our collective faces.
Honestly, the devs have to realize they are dealing with passionate, and at times, angry people, who may not be professional or courteous. They may speak from the heart and not the head, but its not personal.
So when something like DR gets released, which isn't all that great, and becomes proclaimed to be the best thing ever, of course people are going to freak out. Was that statement really ever recalled? No, has any dev come on and said hey, we kind of messed up, and we are going to try and fix it? No. Instead there has been bans and comm blackouts. Expecting people to be carebearish in those conditions is not realistic. The forums weren't always like this, and it doesn't have to be like this now, but one side clearly chose to pull away and the other kept doing what they do.
As someone who is running a business, I can tell you customers get upset sometimes, sometimes with reason, sometimes unreasonably. How we handle that situation really depends if we keep them or not, and in this situation, dealing with consumer type customers, is only worse than another business. Professionally, if our business dealt with Cryptic and received the type of support that the players received, we'd have no choice but to write up a CAR, then remove you from our supplier listing. That should say something.
I believe that due to the relentless monetization that has occured in STO between expansions, its going to be more difficult to keep communications more civil, but that is a price that Cryptic has to pay as a company. If you are going to increase margins, there is going to be an increase in costs somewhere else in the system. You can live with it, you can get through it, and you can be successful, but choosing to not address your customers does not work in any business I know of.
To be fair, it was pretty obvious that "we the players" were being held solely accountable for the "Tau Dewa" fiasco.
It would not have hurt for the gentleman in question to have put a bit of an apology in the retraction statement.
I didnt feel that way. I read what was posted.
I didnt see he had to do anything including roll people back. He certainly didnt have to apologize for closing down the sector and others like it that were being abused. He certainly didnt insult me. I was not offended in the least.
People who exploit are very good at crying foul when they get caught and in my opinion cryptic went above and beyond even commenting about it. They didnt have to say a word not initially or during any part of it. We all know people were exploiting and the noise made was those who got caught trying to get their points back and cryptic owed no one any explanation and certainly didnt have to bend over backwards after the fact because of a loud bunch of posters rebelling on this very forum.
I have had people in games I knew that did the exact same things and have seen this pattern a million times (i bet cryptic did has as well). I had a friend who's much younger brother got caught in an exploit once. He knew what he did was wrong and pretended that he didnt and eventually after enough crying and ranting the company just to shut the guy up gave him his stuff back lol. So this is not the first time I have seen this. Sometimes its easier to just ignore the fact your pretending to believe those who you know did some funny stuff give them their whatever it was you took away back and move on. And that is exactly what happened with that incident lol.
cryptic said something (even though they didnt have to) initially
got raked over the coals for it
so gave everyone their TRIBBLE back because they screamed blue murder (even though they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar so to speak) apologized anyhow and fixed the exploit and simply moved forward
so they actually behaved quite admirably because they didnt have to do anything they said they would, but they did anyhow. I am not so naive as to think that these people truly were innocent. Remember I play this game too :P
Comments
To be fair, it was pretty obvious that "we the players" were being held solely accountable for the "Tau Dewa" fiasco.
It would not have hurt for the gentleman in question to have put a bit of an apology in the retraction statement.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Agree. Beacose he knows how to talk to players with out disrespect them like Geko or Deangelo.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
been roving games for years and in every forum i go in a read is always the same trash. when i enter A game forum they are talking how much B game is better than A game, and when i go into B game they are saying how much A game is better.
people complain that the devs are not listening to them, but the true is that what they want is to Dev to say yes to whatever they want. if the Devs didnt implemented what ever you wanted, is not that they didnt listen, it means they said No.
the produc is what it is, you have never see people protest outside of a macdonalds cos they want to buy woppers. if they want wopper they go to a burged king.
now someone suggested a new subforum for people whit manners, i would like to see that, but instead of anyone been able to enter and then be baned if they dont behave, the devs should be the ones granting access to it if they find a polite player in the regular one. ( as a way to filter out the trash topics)
in conclusion, all those banners and signature with 1 line quotes are disgusting, and says lot about your characters.
Oh yeah that's right, it's still in the game.
Of course you don't want to talk about it, I wouldn't want to either
I will be wearing my DR signature until DR is un-nerfed or rerolled, deleted or I get banned.
Dead queues, nerfed dil, nerfed marks, nerfed EC, nerfed exp - 800 patrol missions for specialization, can't play story missions with other people and all that.
Then we can start talking about the missing mods for crafting or the fairness of buying copy-pasted text upgraded weapons for millions of dil.
Until then
I guess I assumed that there were employees at Cryptic that DID have it in their job description to communicate to the customer base.
Everyone likes to talk about "Devs". If these guys are just cogs in the machine, I might not want to be the window to the customer, either.
But, there are folks who have been identified as their PR liaison's. Why don't THEY communicate EVERY day - even if its just to say "we're still here"?
The sarcastic signatures are aimed at Geko, even though we all know full well that he never comes on here.
Free Tibet!
Many ppl didnt like LOR (ask any PVPer) but they didnt bash cryptic beaocse of that. It was not the quote, it is the actitude.
Wut? Since when play time or increase of sales is a signal of love? Ask anyone if he loves going to Argala! The quote was not "DR is the best monetary expancion ever and we are making a lot of money". The quote asumed that players loved the expancion! I can spend a lot of time with a woman and give her a lot of money, but that does not meant that I love it.
But that is not the issue, beacose like I said, I know what is been flamed when Deangelo called ME and MANY of their player bases chaters and exploiters beacose we just played the game.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I've actually had a dev make a post that was an attack on me directly, but that developer is no longer with the company so I hardly hold it against the team.
I do agree with what was said earlier- that the three year old comments or whatever are probably going to happen regardless, but if the devs spent more time communicating on the forums and less time thinking up new names to call players, ways to insult them, or otherwise express their complete and utter disrespect for their customers like Geko has on a number of occasions, that things might be a little better.
I'm sure all the devs do the best work they can, but at the same time as tiring as it is for them to wade through the toxicity of the forums, us players are getting really tired of being told how we're supposed to feel and being told that if we don't feel that way then we're idiots or whatever.
Delta rising was the highest grossing expansion on the day of its launch, yes, lots of players were playing it, yes, but being told that all our grievances were just 'reporting errors' or that they didn't exist because 'the players love the expansion, so you're wrong'- that really hurts, and you bet it'll be something the players turn around and use for months on end.
But the whole point of that is so that you guys can't just forget about having done something stupid, or brush it under the rug, pretend it didn't happen, and then CONTINUE TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
Learn from these experiences and maybe take some time to actually change how you interact with people, so that even if you do feel we're all a bunch of fourteen year old minmaxers living in our parents' basements, that you don't actually SAY that, and you don' let your personal distaste for members of the community INFLUENCE POLICY DECISIONS FOR THE GAME.
Is that really too much to ask?
funny enough I followed yout link and took the personality test to find out to be an INTJ myself. Strong emphasis in the I part though...
on topic though I don't mind when constructive criticism is given even if it's harsh as long as you can remain polite(no swearing,no name-calling,no demanding people to get fired, etc.).
looking at crypics track record though they do read the forums and they do listen. not to everyone at once though. In some cases players request things that contradict other request and cryptic has to choose. if the chose the other idea that didn't mean they didn't listen to you just that the other person made a better case.
why do I say this. well I track the things I've requested over the last five years and compare it to what has been put into the game....
Warpcores - Added
computercores -
Playable Romulans - exp1 new romulus
better ground game - WiP (i don't know what keeps going wrong but they do keep trying to improve it)
more interesting skill system/level rewards - Added (the specializations for captains)
going to the delta quadrant - exp2 delta rising
pilot Boffs - got intelligence but more are promised to be on the way and pilot is a captian specialization that has the barrel roll one of the powers i liked pilot boffs to have.
change the new crafting system- :mad:
Hybrid races -
change Boff skills to be like the kits - this goes above and beyond that request in a better way than my own take on it.
that's 6 out of my ten requests granted. though not always precisely as i asked.
about the 4 that didn't quite make it.
the hybrid races would allow for nicer role play but it wasn't the greatest idea.
coputercores cold still come so hoping for the bests here. the last time i pitched that idea it was as a more widely usable version of secondary defector that would do different things in escorts cruiser by running other "programs" (the UI bit developed for kits would do great there). ever since the work on the secondary deflector seem to have come to a halt. though that may mean nothing.
ground game has always been a problem though i do see continued work by the devs to make it better. to me it feels to fast passed so much so that i rather shoot one more time than use my kit abilities to not miss out on DPS. I prefer it to be more tactical so I identified the problem but can't give real constructive criticism.
the crafing system is just a glorified slots machine but along whit the upgrade system the whole turned out better than i had expected. I does still need improving and the upgrade system seems to punish you for not using acceleratos. the system is decent though the changes I proposed would have taken it to a whole other level.
in the end all the good ideas I posted on the forums found their way into the game eventually. the things that din't make it were not so good ideas, lacked constructive criticism or might still come/get improved.
that not a bad track record for criptic. yes i was personally quite harsh about the crafing system but that was because i felt that they were 95% there for an epic system but 5% they where short messed it all 100% up. if cryptic would in the future fix that then they truly have listed to what I and probably many other players have been saying....
First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
Maybe those comments that have taken up residence within people's signatures, wouldn't get thrown back in your collective faces, if the lie weren't be perpetuated. Maybe instead of being the consumate salesman, perhaps Geko should instead recognize that the playerbase here is unique (IE what keeps the game running) and rather than try to sell us a boatload of...honey...be honest with us. Admit mistakes. Outline a vision for getting things back on track.
But no...just this week the lie continues.
And you expect the people that have devoted 2, or 3, or 4 or 5 years to this game, to just let it go?
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
That's not what happened though. Well not exactly. They had data initially that proved it was selling well and lots of players were on.
Then a dev who shall not be named came on the forums and basically told the detractors that none of the bugs existed because the expansion was so popular.
One does not follow the other.
The 'the players love it' was, from the dev side, repeatedly put forward as 'every single player in the game loves the expansion, anyone who has grievances is making them up/there's a reporting glitch/they're just mad we're so successful'.
That's the reason for the sig war thing.
it's the thinking everything completely through the provides the higher IQ...except we do it fast...we like that brain wiring that provides that flexibility and from an early age continually reinforce those pathways and alternate ones.
devs may be intj, the people in control are not. and developers, at least coders have to become somewhat intj just because of how code works, logical flow and conditionals, etc. you can't just pound out some code and expect it to work because you believe in it...you have to think it through.
but then you hit large scale game mechanics...and these are very different. (code being small scale...so to speak) these level designers, game designers will try and push through on belief alone or bad/non existent information. guesswork. not all of course (referring to all games) but enough to see the pattern.
monetization does not automatically = critical thinking...that's more wishful thinking and hoping/guessing as well. some companies get it right...some just keep repeating what worked for them before...which camp does cryptic fall in do you think?
you cannot generalize, some devs, some designers, some coders, etc. cryptics track record as well as statements from the higher ups partition who is and who isn't in that intj mindset.
geko most assuredly IS NOT. nor trendy, and can rule out d'angelo and stahl. all have made bad statements that were totally out of touch with any reality except there own. intj never creates their own special world with special rules and then forces that out as if it's REAL. as if it's a TRUTH.
truth only occurs if it meshes with everything else known. else you are lying to yourself, and others. you can easily separate who does that just by going through the posts to determine intj...and entp. what they perceive is their reality..not subject to anything that refutes that reality. delta rising is the best...etc. whether that was a company line or personal opinion it was still in error. not something an intj would tolerate.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Of course you are accountable for everything you say on the forums. Everyone here is accountable for what they say...
Just stop dodging the issue of DR, the lack of content, adding dil sinks, artificial grinding, un-finished crafting system, the insane price of "upgrading" and all that.
Yep, well said. They not even apologize to us when they call us exploiters and cheaters.
Like I said, they open the pandora box and they are not intresting on close in it.
Yep, also true and a very good point.. in other words: Dont lie or insult your players, beacose bad thing happend when you do.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The Dev's are pizzed off because not everybody appreciates Their efforts and many of the vocal players are pizzed off because Cryptic as a whole seems uncaring and intractable to what the players are expressing as bad game-play design.
There's got to be a happy medium, but it's never going to happen if BOTH sides aren't willing to come together to discuss the matter in a non-confrontational manner.
Of course as a Business, Cryptic doesn't really have to discuss anything with us.
But everybody knows that is not the best approach to keeping ones clientele happy.
Cryptic needs to find somebody to represent them here in the forums, that can look past all the BS and vitriol to keep some kind of dialog going.
Even if it's just to stop by once a day and say nothing but Hello We're here and aware of your input.
<shrug>
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Yeah, that part right there really set me off. The string of events in regards to that resulted in:
1. The girlfriend leaving STO for good. (This was her second try of STO)
2. My wallet shutting.
3. My playtime reducing to virtually zero.
And yet, we're expected to act like emotionless mimes when we're told things that we can FEEL and SENSE and SEE and TOUCH which are not true?
Not buying it.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
That day, they declear the war on a big part of the community. And now, they are the victims? yea, sure..
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Taco..... I'm lifting my hat to you with respect! It seriously takes some guts replying into this thread and it's appreciated! And it's good to read a bit about your side of the story. So yeah, I can understand that Devs are a bit scarce here. What I lack understanding for is the community team doing the same. Even on simple things like news. (Or have they just been given tons of new work in order to cut cost?).
As for the sig.... well it's getting old and as a token of respect to you and all the developers that put hard work into the game I will remove it now.
However that doesn't change that I'm extremely unhappy with some business decisions that have been taken. I don't like quoting the BCG matrix like every business halfwit likes to do but yeah there's probably no better model to express the cash-cow way STO is headed for. If you can't get new players, increase the earnings from the die hard fans. From my point of view that's pretty much what happened and I'm not happy with the extremes it went to. I wish you devs were given more time to work on things. Because besides all the business stuff, you are developing a beautiful game. Thank you very much for it!
Can you REALLY be this naive about the way things work? This isn't about the way you "feel", it's about cash. Cryptic could likely get back some of their dwindling base if they'd get in here a talk about some of the issues plaguing this sad, cash-cow of a game. Hell, they could even have it easy just by ignoring the posts that have no value, like yours.
Face it, lots of people are genuinely angry for being ignored AND exploited at the same time. I look forward to the day when we see a truly great space opera-style game where the devs are actually interested in the game, customer service AND getting rich. I'll gladly leave this money grubbing corruption of the Star Trek universe behind forever.
I will reiterate that I think aptitude shapes personality type but that no personality type necessarily equals an aptitude. Heck, I think you may be engaged in the INTJ "INTJs are smart" feedback loop you guys tend to get into. And it may be supported by a high IQ in your case. But I think your high IQ makes you INTJ (and doesn't necessarily apply to all INTJs) more than your INTJ type makes you smart. There is also such a thing as an "unhealthy INTJ" and you absolutely can be an INTJ with the flaws of the type and few of the perks.
I doubt Trendy is INTJ but she's a community mod, which isn't typically classed as a developer. I'd peg her as ISFP. I doubt Smirk is. I'm thinking ENFJ. Many of the visual artists may or may not be and I'd lean towards Thomas being a completely different type. Maybe INTP. I have never seen any of the people I just mentioned class themselves.
I will bet you dollars to donuts Geko identifies himself as INTJ and it shows in terms of his interpersonal style and management technique. He's a classic INTJ manager under stress and if any of his traits are being obscured, I'd wager it's stress based. I'd urge anyone to get on Twitter and ask him. I have never been so sure of anyone being a type in my life.
D'Angelo I don't have as firm a read on but he collects Legos, I think, and likes Sci-Fi but has a very vocal disdain for Ray Bradbury. He rarely posts. I'm seeing the I. I'm seeing the NT. (Being a sci-fi reader dramatically reduces your odds of being an S over an N. Being a sci-fi fan who dislikes Bradbury means you almost can't be an F. It's not that NTs can't like Bradbury -- I DO -- but it's that someone who likes sci-fi and dislikes Bradbury has to be an NT.) That gives us INTx. I'll give you D'Angelo might be an INTP. I don't have a clear read there. But as CTO of Cryptic and a lifelong designer of systems and programmer, I lean towards him being an INTJ.
INTJ is a silo builder when it comes to communication. You guys are right in your view. You know you're right and are hard to budge. You've made up your minds and the one proviso is that your correctness is subject to the criteria you have chosen as relevant for being correct. And I think you and Geko would find one another success/correctness criteria skewed in a no holds barred discussion. I think he would dispute your definition of success and if you knew what his was, you would dispute his. And it would go nowhere.
I'm curious if anyone can guess mine. I think my MBTI is painfully obvious because I think I'm a pretty loud version of it.
But if anyone wants to ask @CaptainGeko on Twitter what his type is, I'll be here waiting for you to confirm he identifies as an INTJ.
Honestly anyone that needs to be so crass to make a point ... about the poor attitude of a community, ya well ... LOL
The average gamer is in their Mid 30's, Affluent, and College Educated. Maybe they expect people to act like it.
The whole I don't like something so I should have an license to be the biggest A-hole I can possibly be BS that forum a-hole keep spouting is terrible.
But I do blame the game companies, they should moderate Forums to be a business space. There is no job I've ever had that would allow customers to act like this in person.
If you can't say you don't like something without being a complete douche about it then you shouldn't be allowed to interact with the rest of society.
And yes, the Forums are the gutter of STO, and STO's forums has more gutter trash then any gaming forum I've ever had the privilege of interacting with.
High IQ does not equate to high EQ, emotional intelligence. I know lots of extremely immature rich, educated guys. Anyone you have ever met in your life that is domineering, prone to tantrums and outbursts of anger - are sure signs of folks with low EQ.
Honestly, the devs have to realize they are dealing with passionate, and at times, angry people, who may not be professional or courteous. They may speak from the heart and not the head, but its not personal.
So when something like DR gets released, which isn't all that great, and becomes proclaimed to be the best thing ever, of course people are going to freak out. Was that statement really ever recalled? No, has any dev come on and said hey, we kind of messed up, and we are going to try and fix it? No. Instead there has been bans and comm blackouts. Expecting people to be carebearish in those conditions is not realistic. The forums weren't always like this, and it doesn't have to be like this now, but one side clearly chose to pull away and the other kept doing what they do.
As someone who is running a business, I can tell you customers get upset sometimes, sometimes with reason, sometimes unreasonably. How we handle that situation really depends if we keep them or not, and in this situation, dealing with consumer type customers, is only worse than another business. Professionally, if our business dealt with Cryptic and received the type of support that the players received, we'd have no choice but to write up a CAR, then remove you from our supplier listing. That should say something.
I believe that due to the relentless monetization that has occured in STO between expansions, its going to be more difficult to keep communications more civil, but that is a price that Cryptic has to pay as a company. If you are going to increase margins, there is going to be an increase in costs somewhere else in the system. You can live with it, you can get through it, and you can be successful, but choosing to not address your customers does not work in any business I know of.
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I didnt feel that way. I read what was posted.
I didnt see he had to do anything including roll people back. He certainly didnt have to apologize for closing down the sector and others like it that were being abused. He certainly didnt insult me. I was not offended in the least.
People who exploit are very good at crying foul when they get caught and in my opinion cryptic went above and beyond even commenting about it. They didnt have to say a word not initially or during any part of it. We all know people were exploiting and the noise made was those who got caught trying to get their points back and cryptic owed no one any explanation and certainly didnt have to bend over backwards after the fact because of a loud bunch of posters rebelling on this very forum.
I have had people in games I knew that did the exact same things and have seen this pattern a million times (i bet cryptic did has as well). I had a friend who's much younger brother got caught in an exploit once. He knew what he did was wrong and pretended that he didnt and eventually after enough crying and ranting the company just to shut the guy up gave him his stuff back lol. So this is not the first time I have seen this. Sometimes its easier to just ignore the fact your pretending to believe those who you know did some funny stuff give them their whatever it was you took away back and move on. And that is exactly what happened with that incident lol.
cryptic said something (even though they didnt have to) initially
got raked over the coals for it
so gave everyone their TRIBBLE back because they screamed blue murder (even though they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar so to speak) apologized anyhow and fixed the exploit and simply moved forward
so they actually behaved quite admirably because they didnt have to do anything they said they would, but they did anyhow. I am not so naive as to think that these people truly were innocent. Remember I play this game too :P