Darn it Sheldon, you of all people should know the difference between weather and climate.
I've looked at that chart every which way but loose baby. But I just don't see it. The only things I see are stability and a less robust spike for DR than LOR. Those 2 spikes, along with anniversary and other lesser spikes drive the landscape. But the common figure I see for over 2 years is an avg of around 1700.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
How does the steam chart show this great decline??
December 2012 1,790.2
December 2013 1,879.7
December 2014 1,774.9
It is stunningly consistent.
Been thinking exactly the same. Been monitoring the charts for a while now and over the past month there's absolutely no downward trend visible. It's healthy.
However what the charts show that STO is likely to be played by a hardcore fanbase. Meaning getting new players is rather difficult so you need the increase the share of wallet from the existing ones. Exactly what's been happening.
That was not me saying "we need better feedback."
That was me saying "creating (or helping to create) a hostile environment through the use of a passive aggressive meme, RATHER THAN constructive feedback, is not helpful.
And please, everyone who's saying "nothing ever comes of feedback" just stop. Yes, it may not be as often as you like, but there are a thousand times that feedback from players, from the forums, has had a direct impact on something we did in the game.
This is patently false. My line about being able to develop the game without visiting the forums is not saying I don't care what you have to say. It's saying that my interaction with you here is entirely voluntary on my part. If I feel like I'm taking hits below the belt, or getting too much flak, I can just leave. Your feedback is important, and we DO care what you think.
Beta, you say there wouldn't be as many problems if we "just listened" to you. If you say Apple, and someone else says Broccoli, what's the right answer? We can't do both, we have to pick one. No matter which we pick, we will be told that we didn't listen* to the other side.
*Note: Listening does not equal action. We listened to both sides, and we picked a direction. Apple won. That doesn't mean Broccoli was ignored.
Also note that, as I've mentioned before (and started a fire over), STO is a product. We make a product. You are the consumers. You can choose to consume said product, or not consume said product. You can offer feedback about said product, and we may or may not choose to utilize your feedback. You are not the only thing that decides how/what our product is.*
*Note: This is NOT me saying "STFU or GTFO" as was the misinterpretation last time, so please don't take it as such this time. We've had that thread already.
Taco, please don't burn yourself out in this thread here. I believe you've said what's important, so have we. This threads life has sort of come to an end I believe.
I think it's the medium that is betraying your intent. By making a sig, which is simply omnipresent in all of your posts, and lacking a direction at any given individual, the message comes across as being directed at everyone.
The sigs are a shotgun, not a scalpel.
The point being, it doesn't matter if you intend for it to be directed at a single individual. If that individual is someone I work with, someone I see on a daily basis, it's hard to not feel the hits, even when they aren't aimed directly at me.
Admittedly, I don't know what the scalpel would be in this case. I just don't feel that the sigs are accomplishing what you might have intended.
Sure, I get that, and I don't disagree. However, the signatures are the equivalent of standing outside of the Cryptic office holding signs that say "This sucks!"
. . . uh. . . ok. . . WHAT sucks? Without expounding on the issue you are protesting, it comes across as protesting the everything.
Precisely.
I have, but your signature isn't simply stating what's wrong, it's implying that the devs are slave masters, and forcing you to do things. Your signature is imbued with emotion. It's dripping with hate, which makes it very easy to dismiss. Yes, it's clear you don't like the grind, nor the metrics, but that is hardly constructive.
Precisely.
I can develop the game just fine without visiting the forums.
Sure, but if that's the case, didn't you just admit that the sig pic was essentially just noise? The sig did nothing to raise the issues you talk about in your posts, and does nothing to attract positive attention to said posts. . . so. . . how is that sig helping get your point across again?
Funny, cuz that's essentially what BetaBorg just told me . . .
Your actually surprised that a gaming community can be poisoned via development by their dev team on a game they supposedly like, play, and pay for? You may be a little young, but the standard of this problem was Star Wars Galaxies NGE (New Game Enhancements) altho it started with patch 9 jedi nerfs, went then to CU (Combat Upgrade), and then the NGE was the icing on the cake, so-to-speak. STO is about the only game I know that has had more revamps than SWG, and it lasted almost 9 years, not 4.
In my honest opinion, Cryptic has done about the same. 1st off, your producer at the time launched a very incomplete game (beta vet here) and you had initial sales (due to the IP) that made any launch sit up and take notice but the incompleteness of the game shown thru, quite fast, so your playerbase went down faster than a rock. Then, the problems with Atari hit (and I'm well aware that both have good excuses, while your CEO bragged about launching more games than Koster.), but you guys countered with PWI and F2P, nerfed player everything at the time, made P2W the standard, monetized EVERYTHING in the game, made your own game so repetitious that the only thing a player can do to break up the monotony is to try and complete defari 1 second earlier than we did yesterday. Your team continues this mindset to this day with adding more dil sinks, nerfing the ability to get in-game currencies, all due to some kind of thinking that making it impossible to play the game will send us all to the Zen store.
As with Galaxies, these things will not make us head for content, stores, etc etc etc that development teams are funneling their communities into, they make us head for other games. The sooner you guys learn this, the better your game is going to be, you will quit seeing things on the forums you don't like, your team will get the respect and praise that's it's earned, and your bottom line will head in the up category as well.
Now, I'm also aware that your not in a position to make such changes, personally. But, you might pass along the complaints, suggestions, etc to those who can and should. After all, Freeman and Rubenfield were not the "Ok-ing" force with the NGE either, but that piece of development held on to both of them, and their carreers for many years after and in Rubinfield's case, still goes on.
That was me saying "creating (or helping to create) a hostile environment through the use of a passive aggressive meme, RATHER THAN constructive feedback, is not helpful.
Isn't this supposed to go both ways ... how do you think this "hostile enviroment" started ?
If you have lots of negative Feedback, and throw in such a Quote, what exactly do you expect ? It ain't rocket science !
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
You want us to interact like adults? Great! Let's do that. Using our words. In a polite, respectful manner (on BOTH sides).
Making a passive aggressive meme is not helping anything, IMHO.
Edit: The thing with the sigs, is it isn't any one sig that's so terrible I cry myself to sleep at night. It's that the abundance and persistence of them is just grating over time. Like I said, they feel like little jabs at the whole dev team for a single comment most of us had nothing to do with. That is wearing, and after a while, makes me not want to subject myself to it anymore.
So basically what you're saying is it's working.
The thing here is that we've tried. We've tried so [expletive] hard. We've tried for so long. We've been trying since the bloody game launched. And none of the other stuff works. Everything you've suggested, everything you've asked for as an alternative?
We've tried all of it. We've tried it for years. We've tried it in every which way, shape or form possible.
And none of it works. Not a single instance of 'adult interaction' as you term it works.
Making discussion threads? Doesn't work.
Bug reporting bugs or over or under performing items? Doesn't work.
Emailing or PMing devs directly? Doesn't work.
Filing bug reports every day for eight months? Doesn't work.
Making a giant directory of concerns? Doesn't work.
Speaking 'with our wallets' and ceasing to pay money to the game? Doesn't work.
Asking the devs questions in interviews, state of the game addresses, or when you specifically ask for us to ask you questions? It just. doesn't. work. The few times the questions the community has asked got spoken of, they were used as a springboard to another topic and never actually answered.
If you think you're tired of the sigs chipping away at your willpower day after day, week after week- we've been playing this game for far longer than that. Think about how we feel, when every single possible avenue of communication fails. When every single attempt to open a dialogue and have issues that matter to the community addressed is rebuffed, or discouraged, or that as players we are insulted or attacked for holding the views we do or offering the criticism and suggestions we've offered.
You say that the everpresent signature pictures/jokes/attacks whatever are wearing you down? I know how that feels. We all know how that feels.
But... kinda sorta... that's why we're doing it. Because it's the only thing we have left. It's the only avenue of communication, the only means of conveying our feelings that we have left.
You guys have burned all the other bridges.
And I'm sorry if that makes you feel really depressed- it makes me feel really depressed, it makes most of the people I know feel really depressed.
But the thing is... we don't have any other options. Nothing else works.
Your actually surprised that a gaming community can be poisoned via development by their dev team on a game they supposedly like, play, and pay for?
n.
You are poisoning yourself. No video game developer had the power to poison you. Unless they are Poison Ivy or Typhoid Mary, this is all the self imposed vitriols doing.
The thing here is that we've tried. We've tried so [expletive] hard. We've tried for so long. We've been trying since the bloody game launched. And none of the other stuff works. Everything you've suggested, everything you've asked for as an alternative?
We've tried all of it. We've tried it for years. We've tried it in every which way, shape or form possible.
And none of it works. Not a single instance of 'adult interaction' as you term it works.
Making discussion threads? Doesn't work.
Bug reporting bugs or over or under performing items? Doesn't work.
Emailing or PMing devs directly? Doesn't work.
Filing bug reports every day for eight months? Doesn't work.
Making a giant directory of concerns? Doesn't work.
Speaking 'with our wallets' and ceasing to pay money to the game? Doesn't work.
Asking the devs questions in interviews, state of the game addresses, or when you specifically ask for us to ask you questions? It just. doesn't. work. The few times the questions the community has asked got spoken of, they were used as a springboard to another topic and never actually answered.
If you think you're tired of the sigs chipping away at your willpower day after day, week after week- we've been playing this game for far longer than that. Think about how we feel, when every single possible avenue of communication fails. When every single attempt to open a dialogue and have issues that matter to the community addressed is rebuffed, or discouraged, or that as players we are insulted or attacked for holding the views we do or offering the criticism and suggestions we've offered.
You say that the everpresent signature pictures/jokes/attacks whatever are wearing you down? I know how that feels. We all know how that feels.
But... kinda sorta... that's why we're doing it. Because it's the only thing we have left. It's the only avenue of communication, the only means of conveying our feelings that we have left.
You guys have burned all the other bridges.
And I'm sorry if that makes you feel really depressed- it makes me feel really depressed, it makes most of the people I know feel really depressed.
But the thing is... we don't have any other options. Nothing else works.
Amen, checkmate and YAHTZEE my friend!
"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
I don't see neckbeards covered in cheetoh dust murdering one another in real life over unopened Jem'Hadar Attack Ship boxes.
soon...soon I will have my Jem'Hadar Attack ship...muahahaha
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
No, because what he is saying is still not working.
Instead of vitriol (that doesn't work, either) why doesn't he also wave his hands in the air? Pray to some long dead God? It has as much an effect that posting vitriol. In fact, I bet the praying will help more since the dev's wouldn't have stopped posting on the forums avoiding the anger.
soon...soon I will have my Jem'Hadar Attack ship...muahahaha
When it comes to virtual merchandise in a video game, I would much rather just give somebody a JHAS if it meant preventing them from commiting a felony.
And to be perfectly honest, I think Cryptic would too.
But the real point is that anyone who feels the need to compare Cryptic to fascism or any other real life scenario where real pain and suffering was endured really needs to get a better grip on reality.
I may disagree with some of Cryptic's design decisions, but I'm pretty sure they aren't Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Pol Pot.
That was not me saying "we need better feedback."
That was me saying "creating (or helping to create) a hostile environment through the use of a passive aggressive meme, RATHER THAN constructive feedback, is not helpful.
We can go this road the hole day, and I guess you dont have the hole day for that (I dont) but I am going to said it again: We went that road, we try constructive feedback and yet, the XP problem is still there, the PVP problem is even worst, balance is worst, etc..
And please, everyone who's saying "nothing ever comes of feedback" just stop. Yes, it may not be as often as you like, but there are a thousand times that feedback from players, from the forums, has had a direct impact on something we did in the game.
Sure.. a few month ago feedback was "STFs are too easy".. what cryptic did? Increase the HP on NPC and make the STFs a DPS race instead of improbing the AI or the mechanics. And that is just one example.
Beta, you say there wouldn't be as many problems if we "just listened" to you. If you say Apple, and someone else says Broccoli, what's the right answer? We can't do both, we have to pick one. No matter which we pick, we will be told that we didn't listen* to the other side.
*Note: Listening does not equal action. We listened to both sides, and we picked a direction. Apple won. That doesn't mean Broccoli was ignored.
The problem is, that no one asked for Apple. Yes, some players demanded for a cap increase, but not for the XP nerf. Some players asked for a crafting improbment, but not this current dil sink, etc..
When it comes to virtual merchandise in a video game, I would much rather just give somebody a JHAS if it meant preventing them from commiting a felony.
And to be perfectly honest, I think Cryptic would too.
But the real point is that anyone who feels the need to compare Cryptic to fascism or any other real life scenario where real pain and suffering was endured really needs to get a better grip on reality.
I may disagree with some of Cryptic's design decisions, but I'm pretty sure they aren't Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Pol Pot.
i agree...i was just being funny...or was I
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
While two neckbeards would have the motive to kill each other over a boxed JHAS, there wouldn't be the means as his mother's basement stairs have been an insurmountable obstacle for years and there'd be no opportunity as it'd be highly unlikely for the other neckbeard to leave his mother's basement stronghold.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
We can go this road the hole day, and I guess you dont have the hole day for that (I dont) but I am going to said it again: We went that road, we try constructive feedback and yet, the XP problem is still there, the PVP problem is even worst, balance is worst, etc..
I offer constructive feedback. Sometimes it gets acted on. Sometimes it doesn't. Even if only 1 out of my 10 suggestions get acted on, that's still a better ratio than 0 out of 10 suggestions because I chose to spew venom instead of maintaining constructive feedback.
People think because some of their constructive feedback isn't acted upon that it means no constructive feedback gets acted upon at all. Some players are just ignorant to what game development consists of. Some players are unreasonable with their requests.
But just because not everything is acted upon doesn't mean they don't listen. And people who decide to spew rabid froth and rhetoric as some kind of justification for not 100% of their suggestions being acted on really just dig themselves deeper into a hole.
It does absolutely nothing positive.
Sure.. a few month ago feedback was "STFs are too easy".. what cryptic did? Increase the HP on NPC and make the STFs a DPS race instead of improbing the AI or the mechanics. And that is just one example.
While I don't necessarily agree with this design decision (I also consider raw hitpoint increases to be the lazy way out), it is a design decision that does deal with "STFs are too easy" at the very fundamental level.
Just because it isn't a design decision you or I agree with doesn't mean that it wasn't implemented in response to player feedback regarding more challenging content.
The problem is, that no one asked for Apple. Yes, some players demanded for a cap increase, but not for the XP nerf. Some players asked for a crafting improbment, but not this current dil sink, etc..
The problem is there are players that do ask for Apple, but the players who are so dead set on Broccoli pretend the players who asked for Apple didn't exist at all.
I asked for a crafting improvement, and while it remains to be seen how much dilithium is going to be hooked up to it, I think this is a positive and beneficial quality of life improvement that is much better than what we've had for the last 4 years.
Also, dilithium hooked into the system is the only thing that makes bridge officer abilities valuable. Without them, the price of bridge officer training manuals would barely be worth the EC used to craft them since there is nothing stopping people from oversaturating the exchange with manuals.
Thus making them worthless since supply would greatly outweigh demand without a dilithium element to it.
Just because players don't understand the decisions doesn't mean they were bad decisions, per se.
No, because what he is saying is still not working.
Instead of vitriol (that doesn't work, either) why doesn't he also wave his hands in the air? Pray to some long dead God? It has as much an effect that posting vitriol. In fact, I bet the praying will help more since the dev's wouldn't have stopped posting on the forums avoiding the anger.
I've actually tried those other things.
The point here is that bad attention is still attention. The devs are mad? They don't want to go on the forums because of these signatures pointing at pitfalls made by a member of the dev team?
That means that they've actually noticed. They are actually, for perhaps the first time in years, aware of the community mood and it's not something they can easily dismiss as being a fad or just a couple fourteen year old minmaxers living in their parents' basement getting butthurt.
It means that, for the first time, they are feeling how we the players feel.
Praying doesn't help because neither God nor the devs listen to prayer. Waving hands in the air doesn't help because there's nobody to watch me do it. Dead gods are dead.
But the devs aren't dead.
You might notice that I'm not flying a signature. I can't change that others are. But I know why they are- and now, so do you.
But if you want it to stop, then you're going to have to actually... do something. That doesn't mean you have to interact on the forums, it doesn't mean we expect you to turn the game upside down, but a little consideration would go a long way.
Maybe that means that if you have, for example, plans to expand the Q&A department to better catch and fix bugs, that announcing that on the forums might be a good thing to do.
Maybe if you decide you're going to take a half-season break and focus on bug fixing, power balancing, and mopping up the damage that unresistable intel powers did to space PVP, that could certainly help.
Maybe if for once rather than just pretending that the past was perfect and you can do no wrong... you try and actually solve the wrongs that were done rather than just piling more fuel onto the fire of the burning ship.
It's not like the signatures are alone. Those discussion threads I talked about? They exist. They're in general discussion. They're in the PVP forum. They're in the bug reporting forum and a thousand bug reports made by worried players who really do love this game.
We wouldn't BE HERE if we didn't love this game.
And that's why it tears us apart to see the game treated like this. To see the community treated like this when everything could be so much better!
I'm a twenty eight year old trek fan whom is so overwrought with emotion over this stuff that I'm getting misty eyed. It's not fun. But if I didn't care, I wouldn't be here.
Obviously you don't 'have' to make any considerations towards the people on the forums, obviously you've made it clear that even if every forum posting member quit tomorrow, it wouldn't damage your player count at all- you've repeatedly been clear through your actions as a team that what we believe and who we are doesn't matter and you don't care.
But we do care. So I'm sorry you don't like the signatures.
People think because some of their constructive feedback isn't acted upon that it means no constructive feedback gets acted upon at all. Some players are just ignorant to what game development consists of. Some players are unreasonable with their requests.
Wasn't really the point, was it ? It was mostly about people with certain "Forum Sigs" supposedly, not providing such Feedback !
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
Wasn't really the point, was it ? It was mostly about people with certain "Forum Sigs" not providing such Feedback !
The point I see people making are justifying their unhelpful non-feedbacky signature as a legitimate reason that it's okay to use them because Cryptic didn't do something they wanted them to do.
"I asked for no pickles on my burger, but they gave me pickles on it anyway. Now I'm going to go set the restaurant on fire because obviously they didn't listen to me or anyone ever. I already tried going the route of asking for no pickles. The only recourse the restaurant has left me is arson."
It's a horrible strawman analogy (before somebody points it out to me), but it seems that rhetoric is the only communication some people understand.
The point I see people making are justifying their unhelpful non-feedbacky signature as a justification that it's okay to use them because Cryptic didn't do something they wanted them to do.
"I asked for no pickles on my burger, but they gave me pickles on it anyway. Now I'm going to go set the restaurant on fire because obviously they didn't listen to me or anyone ever. I already tried going the route of asking for no pickles. The only recourse the restaurant has left me is arson."
It's a horrible strawman analogy (before somebody points it out to me), but it seems that rhetoric is the only communication some people understand.
I wonder how the players would feel if all the Devs had signatures poking fun at them
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
The thing here is that we've tried. We've tried so [expletive] hard. We've tried for so long. We've been trying since the bloody game launched. And none of the other stuff works. Everything you've suggested, everything you've asked for as an alternative?
We've tried all of it. We've tried it for years. We've tried it in every which way, shape or form possible.
And none of it works. Not a single instance of 'adult interaction' as you term it works.
Making discussion threads? Doesn't work.
Bug reporting bugs or over or under performing items? Doesn't work.
Emailing or PMing devs directly? Doesn't work.
Filing bug reports every day for eight months? Doesn't work.
Making a giant directory of concerns? Doesn't work.
Speaking 'with our wallets' and ceasing to pay money to the game? Doesn't work.
Asking the devs questions in interviews, state of the game addresses, or when you specifically ask for us to ask you questions? It just. doesn't. work. The few times the questions the community has asked got spoken of, they were used as a springboard to another topic and never actually answered.
If you think you're tired of the sigs chipping away at your willpower day after day, week after week- we've been playing this game for far longer than that. Think about how we feel, when every single possible avenue of communication fails. When every single attempt to open a dialogue and have issues that matter to the community addressed is rebuffed, or discouraged, or that as players we are insulted or attacked for holding the views we do or offering the criticism and suggestions we've offered.
You say that the everpresent signature pictures/jokes/attacks whatever are wearing you down? I know how that feels. We all know how that feels.
But... kinda sorta... that's why we're doing it. Because it's the only thing we have left. It's the only avenue of communication, the only means of conveying our feelings that we have left.
You guys have burned all the other bridges.
And I'm sorry if that makes you feel really depressed- it makes me feel really depressed, it makes most of the people I know feel really depressed.
But the thing is... we don't have any other options. Nothing else works.
This is very true, and honestly it would be nice that the feedback that did supposedly change a decision was acknowledged in some way. A post once in a while that's saying "We heard you on X so we're doing/have done Y to fix it" would go a very long way to make people feel that posting feedback isn't an exercise in futility.
That said when we're asked for feedback and no major issues are ever addressed even after the question is posed, that is cause for concern. When we question the premise of the thought in the first palce and somehow get blamed for flaming in doing so, that is definitely not on. Yet it happens.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
I wonder how the players would feel if all the Devs had signatures poking fun at them
I learned long ago that when it comes to the Internet, do whatever you feel like. You can't break me. If someone seriously is 'hurt' with simple sig posts on a forum, that to me is childish.
The point I see people making are justifying their unhelpful non-feedbacky signature as a legitimate reason that it's okay to use them because Cryptic didn't do something they wanted them to do.
"I asked for no pickles on my burger, but they gave me pickles on it anyway. Now I'm going to go set the restaurant on fire because obviously they didn't listen to me or anyone ever. I already tried going the route of asking for no pickles. The only recourse the restaurant has left me is arson."
It's a horrible strawman analogy (before somebody points it out to me), but it seems that rhetoric is the only communication some people understand.
It's a horrible strawman analogy that doesn't address the real issue.
It's rather more like "We asked for no pickles. We've been asking for no pickles for two years. You've done context polls asking what we want? Top of the list every time: no pickles. Some pickles found their way onto a burger last year, and you stopped the entire assembly line, shut down everything, to remove the pickles. You posted on your blog about why pickles were bad and had to be removed and why you felt their presence was ruining the flavour of the burger.
Then this year you released Burger Rising 2: Burger Harder, and your only menu item was a burger made out of pickles. The bun? Pickles. The burger itself? Pickles. The toppings? Pickles. Pickles pickles pickles. And your customers were shocked, especially because of the stance you'd taken on pickles before. Surely it must have been an error. They sent in suggestions and shopper reports and everything, they tried to find out why the burger was 100% pickles when you'd gone on record stating that these kinds of pickles were bad.
And throughout it, all you could say was that this burger was the best burger ever and the customers loved it- and that any customer who claimed not to love it was lying and that the press were misinterpreting their protestations about how much they love this burger.
When one of your co-workers finally manged to bring up with you that a sizable portion of the customer base didn't like pickels, you just replied that everybody loves pickles, the pickle burger was intentional, and people who thought otherwise were a reporting error."
Comments
I've looked at that chart every which way but loose baby. But I just don't see it. The only things I see are stability and a less robust spike for DR than LOR. Those 2 spikes, along with anniversary and other lesser spikes drive the landscape. But the common figure I see for over 2 years is an avg of around 1700.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Been thinking exactly the same. Been monitoring the charts for a while now and over the past month there's absolutely no downward trend visible. It's healthy.
However what the charts show that STO is likely to be played by a hardcore fanbase. Meaning getting new players is rather difficult so you need the increase the share of wallet from the existing ones. Exactly what's been happening.
Taco, please don't burn yourself out in this thread here. I believe you've said what's important, so have we. This threads life has sort of come to an end I believe.
Your actually surprised that a gaming community can be poisoned via development by their dev team on a game they supposedly like, play, and pay for? You may be a little young, but the standard of this problem was Star Wars Galaxies NGE (New Game Enhancements) altho it started with patch 9 jedi nerfs, went then to CU (Combat Upgrade), and then the NGE was the icing on the cake, so-to-speak. STO is about the only game I know that has had more revamps than SWG, and it lasted almost 9 years, not 4.
In my honest opinion, Cryptic has done about the same. 1st off, your producer at the time launched a very incomplete game (beta vet here) and you had initial sales (due to the IP) that made any launch sit up and take notice but the incompleteness of the game shown thru, quite fast, so your playerbase went down faster than a rock. Then, the problems with Atari hit (and I'm well aware that both have good excuses, while your CEO bragged about launching more games than Koster.), but you guys countered with PWI and F2P, nerfed player everything at the time, made P2W the standard, monetized EVERYTHING in the game, made your own game so repetitious that the only thing a player can do to break up the monotony is to try and complete defari 1 second earlier than we did yesterday. Your team continues this mindset to this day with adding more dil sinks, nerfing the ability to get in-game currencies, all due to some kind of thinking that making it impossible to play the game will send us all to the Zen store.
As with Galaxies, these things will not make us head for content, stores, etc etc etc that development teams are funneling their communities into, they make us head for other games. The sooner you guys learn this, the better your game is going to be, you will quit seeing things on the forums you don't like, your team will get the respect and praise that's it's earned, and your bottom line will head in the up category as well.
Now, I'm also aware that your not in a position to make such changes, personally. But, you might pass along the complaints, suggestions, etc to those who can and should. After all, Freeman and Rubenfield were not the "Ok-ing" force with the NGE either, but that piece of development held on to both of them, and their carreers for many years after and in Rubinfield's case, still goes on.
One Question : Who said Apple ? Who are those mythical people ?
Isn't this supposed to go both ways ... how do you think this "hostile enviroment" started ?
If you have lots of negative Feedback, and throw in such a Quote, what exactly do you expect ? It ain't rocket science !
So basically what you're saying is it's working.
The thing here is that we've tried. We've tried so [expletive] hard. We've tried for so long. We've been trying since the bloody game launched. And none of the other stuff works. Everything you've suggested, everything you've asked for as an alternative?
We've tried all of it. We've tried it for years. We've tried it in every which way, shape or form possible.
And none of it works. Not a single instance of 'adult interaction' as you term it works.
Making discussion threads? Doesn't work.
Bug reporting bugs or over or under performing items? Doesn't work.
Emailing or PMing devs directly? Doesn't work.
Filing bug reports every day for eight months? Doesn't work.
Making a giant directory of concerns? Doesn't work.
Speaking 'with our wallets' and ceasing to pay money to the game? Doesn't work.
Asking the devs questions in interviews, state of the game addresses, or when you specifically ask for us to ask you questions? It just. doesn't. work. The few times the questions the community has asked got spoken of, they were used as a springboard to another topic and never actually answered.
If you think you're tired of the sigs chipping away at your willpower day after day, week after week- we've been playing this game for far longer than that. Think about how we feel, when every single possible avenue of communication fails. When every single attempt to open a dialogue and have issues that matter to the community addressed is rebuffed, or discouraged, or that as players we are insulted or attacked for holding the views we do or offering the criticism and suggestions we've offered.
You say that the everpresent signature pictures/jokes/attacks whatever are wearing you down? I know how that feels. We all know how that feels.
But... kinda sorta... that's why we're doing it. Because it's the only thing we have left. It's the only avenue of communication, the only means of conveying our feelings that we have left.
You guys have burned all the other bridges.
And I'm sorry if that makes you feel really depressed- it makes me feel really depressed, it makes most of the people I know feel really depressed.
But the thing is... we don't have any other options. Nothing else works.
You are poisoning yourself. No video game developer had the power to poison you. Unless they are Poison Ivy or Typhoid Mary, this is all the self imposed vitriols doing.
What haven't people been killed over?
That's what I'm doing, what little good it may be doing.
I'll gladly buy ships but renting them is out of the question.
Amen, checkmate and YAHTZEE my friend!
"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
I don't see neckbeards covered in cheetoh dust murdering one another in real life over unopened Jem'Hadar Attack Ship boxes.
soon...soon I will have my Jem'Hadar Attack ship...muahahaha
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
A somewhat large welsh man ask me to ask you this Tacofangs.
"I would ask Tacofangs this question, about getting hired for STO.
Edit: Last time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZe777oON8w
Drag two out into an internet cafe and I'd give it five minutes for one to have dusted his last shirt.
No, because what he is saying is still not working.
Instead of vitriol (that doesn't work, either) why doesn't he also wave his hands in the air? Pray to some long dead God? It has as much an effect that posting vitriol. In fact, I bet the praying will help more since the dev's wouldn't have stopped posting on the forums avoiding the anger.
When it comes to virtual merchandise in a video game, I would much rather just give somebody a JHAS if it meant preventing them from commiting a felony.
And to be perfectly honest, I think Cryptic would too.
But the real point is that anyone who feels the need to compare Cryptic to fascism or any other real life scenario where real pain and suffering was endured really needs to get a better grip on reality.
I may disagree with some of Cryptic's design decisions, but I'm pretty sure they aren't Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Pol Pot.
We can go this road the hole day, and I guess you dont have the hole day for that (I dont) but I am going to said it again: We went that road, we try constructive feedback and yet, the XP problem is still there, the PVP problem is even worst, balance is worst, etc..
Sure.. a few month ago feedback was "STFs are too easy".. what cryptic did? Increase the HP on NPC and make the STFs a DPS race instead of improbing the AI or the mechanics. And that is just one example.
The problem is, that no one asked for Apple. Yes, some players demanded for a cap increase, but not for the XP nerf. Some players asked for a crafting improbment, but not this current dil sink, etc..
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
i agree...i was just being funny...or was I
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
While two neckbeards would have the motive to kill each other over a boxed JHAS, there wouldn't be the means as his mother's basement stairs have been an insurmountable obstacle for years and there'd be no opportunity as it'd be highly unlikely for the other neckbeard to leave his mother's basement stronghold.
I offer constructive feedback. Sometimes it gets acted on. Sometimes it doesn't. Even if only 1 out of my 10 suggestions get acted on, that's still a better ratio than 0 out of 10 suggestions because I chose to spew venom instead of maintaining constructive feedback.
People think because some of their constructive feedback isn't acted upon that it means no constructive feedback gets acted upon at all. Some players are just ignorant to what game development consists of. Some players are unreasonable with their requests.
But just because not everything is acted upon doesn't mean they don't listen. And people who decide to spew rabid froth and rhetoric as some kind of justification for not 100% of their suggestions being acted on really just dig themselves deeper into a hole.
It does absolutely nothing positive.
While I don't necessarily agree with this design decision (I also consider raw hitpoint increases to be the lazy way out), it is a design decision that does deal with "STFs are too easy" at the very fundamental level.
Just because it isn't a design decision you or I agree with doesn't mean that it wasn't implemented in response to player feedback regarding more challenging content.
The problem is there are players that do ask for Apple, but the players who are so dead set on Broccoli pretend the players who asked for Apple didn't exist at all.
I asked for a crafting improvement, and while it remains to be seen how much dilithium is going to be hooked up to it, I think this is a positive and beneficial quality of life improvement that is much better than what we've had for the last 4 years.
Also, dilithium hooked into the system is the only thing that makes bridge officer abilities valuable. Without them, the price of bridge officer training manuals would barely be worth the EC used to craft them since there is nothing stopping people from oversaturating the exchange with manuals.
Thus making them worthless since supply would greatly outweigh demand without a dilithium element to it.
Just because players don't understand the decisions doesn't mean they were bad decisions, per se.
I've actually tried those other things.
The point here is that bad attention is still attention. The devs are mad? They don't want to go on the forums because of these signatures pointing at pitfalls made by a member of the dev team?
That means that they've actually noticed. They are actually, for perhaps the first time in years, aware of the community mood and it's not something they can easily dismiss as being a fad or just a couple fourteen year old minmaxers living in their parents' basement getting butthurt.
It means that, for the first time, they are feeling how we the players feel.
Praying doesn't help because neither God nor the devs listen to prayer. Waving hands in the air doesn't help because there's nobody to watch me do it. Dead gods are dead.
But the devs aren't dead.
You might notice that I'm not flying a signature. I can't change that others are. But I know why they are- and now, so do you.
But if you want it to stop, then you're going to have to actually... do something. That doesn't mean you have to interact on the forums, it doesn't mean we expect you to turn the game upside down, but a little consideration would go a long way.
Maybe that means that if you have, for example, plans to expand the Q&A department to better catch and fix bugs, that announcing that on the forums might be a good thing to do.
Maybe if you decide you're going to take a half-season break and focus on bug fixing, power balancing, and mopping up the damage that unresistable intel powers did to space PVP, that could certainly help.
Maybe if for once rather than just pretending that the past was perfect and you can do no wrong... you try and actually solve the wrongs that were done rather than just piling more fuel onto the fire of the burning ship.
It's not like the signatures are alone. Those discussion threads I talked about? They exist. They're in general discussion. They're in the PVP forum. They're in the bug reporting forum and a thousand bug reports made by worried players who really do love this game.
We wouldn't BE HERE if we didn't love this game.
And that's why it tears us apart to see the game treated like this. To see the community treated like this when everything could be so much better!
I'm a twenty eight year old trek fan whom is so overwrought with emotion over this stuff that I'm getting misty eyed. It's not fun. But if I didn't care, I wouldn't be here.
Obviously you don't 'have' to make any considerations towards the people on the forums, obviously you've made it clear that even if every forum posting member quit tomorrow, it wouldn't damage your player count at all- you've repeatedly been clear through your actions as a team that what we believe and who we are doesn't matter and you don't care.
But we do care. So I'm sorry you don't like the signatures.
Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.
And have a nice day.
Wasn't really the point, was it ? It was mostly about people with certain "Forum Sigs" supposedly, not providing such Feedback !
Sorry, a lot of words and is late here. I am going to guess you made a good point and you can (or not) guess I was going to make a good point too.
Have all a good nigth.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The point I see people making are justifying their unhelpful non-feedbacky signature as a legitimate reason that it's okay to use them because Cryptic didn't do something they wanted them to do.
"I asked for no pickles on my burger, but they gave me pickles on it anyway. Now I'm going to go set the restaurant on fire because obviously they didn't listen to me or anyone ever. I already tried going the route of asking for no pickles. The only recourse the restaurant has left me is arson."
It's a horrible strawman analogy (before somebody points it out to me), but it seems that rhetoric is the only communication some people understand.
I wonder how the players would feel if all the Devs had signatures poking fun at them
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
That would require the devs to post to the forums more often. :cool:
This is very true, and honestly it would be nice that the feedback that did supposedly change a decision was acknowledged in some way. A post once in a while that's saying "We heard you on X so we're doing/have done Y to fix it" would go a very long way to make people feel that posting feedback isn't an exercise in futility.
That said when we're asked for feedback and no major issues are ever addressed even after the question is posed, that is cause for concern. When we question the premise of the thought in the first palce and somehow get blamed for flaming in doing so, that is definitely not on. Yet it happens.
Well I for one would be thrilled. It would mean they bother to come here in the first place.
I learned long ago that when it comes to the Internet, do whatever you feel like. You can't break me. If someone seriously is 'hurt' with simple sig posts on a forum, that to me is childish.
It's a horrible strawman analogy that doesn't address the real issue.
It's rather more like "We asked for no pickles. We've been asking for no pickles for two years. You've done context polls asking what we want? Top of the list every time: no pickles. Some pickles found their way onto a burger last year, and you stopped the entire assembly line, shut down everything, to remove the pickles. You posted on your blog about why pickles were bad and had to be removed and why you felt their presence was ruining the flavour of the burger.
Then this year you released Burger Rising 2: Burger Harder, and your only menu item was a burger made out of pickles. The bun? Pickles. The burger itself? Pickles. The toppings? Pickles. Pickles pickles pickles. And your customers were shocked, especially because of the stance you'd taken on pickles before. Surely it must have been an error. They sent in suggestions and shopper reports and everything, they tried to find out why the burger was 100% pickles when you'd gone on record stating that these kinds of pickles were bad.
And throughout it, all you could say was that this burger was the best burger ever and the customers loved it- and that any customer who claimed not to love it was lying and that the press were misinterpreting their protestations about how much they love this burger.
When one of your co-workers finally manged to bring up with you that a sizable portion of the customer base didn't like pickels, you just replied that everybody loves pickles, the pickle burger was intentional, and people who thought otherwise were a reporting error."