Taco is the one dev that hangs out and shoot the breeze with players (which I don't even think you are anymore). If you are going to really take that as a win you must be really clawing for anything right now. Kind of sad.
Well, this is the sad state this game is in.
Although I find it amusing that Cryptic trotted out a player favorite Dev on Friday to try and end the campaign. That certainly can't be a coincidence. Nor can the fact that everything he said Friday has now disappeared.
As for my being a player...well I have an LTS (which I generally regret now days, considering the direction things have gone) and I guess I can't get past still fighting for this game, hoping it might be worthwhile someday.
It's a sickness really. Apparently I have issues letting 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
This is actually quite on point. My father, who stood 5' 2", developed a festering dislike of the singer/songwriter Randy Newman after Newman released his song "Short People". Yes, it was clearly intended as a parody aimed at mocking discrimination of almost any sort - but it echoed so many of the hurtful things he'd heard in his youth that he couldn't see any humor in it.
Enough mean-spirited posts about how "incompetent" these "lying" devs are, and I can see where they'd stop finding any humor in those sigs. They dasn't say anything for fear of saying the next thing that gets derisively repeated for weeks on end (as if derisive repetition were anything but abrasive - even my nine-year-old has stopped finding it funny, except when directed at his sister).
I agree with this for the most part although I will make two points...
Though likely a well-intentioned comment, the "best expansion ever" unfortunately did not match the reality on the ground and thus took on overtones of "mission accomplished." The thing is in BOTH of those cases I refuse to assign malice, but they were both poorly timed (as in very premature) celebration. I think both parties saw things in their initial take on the situation that really WERE promising but the situations very, very quickly spiraled out of control when it became clear that premise was built on shaky ground. Both statements thus turned into major lightning rods for their respective "opposition movements." The statement *itself* was fair game. Unfortunately...
IMO *some* signatures crossed the line. I know I saw some that I did find offensive, particularly when a few somebodies Godwinned the meme. I can see where Taco would get from that to making a comparison to hate speech. Some of the sigs that did NOT cross the line of decency were genuinely funny, but unfortunately it is a fact of human psychology that the most outrageous and mean things are what will stick in a person's mind, not so much the milder and more innocuous things.
So I cannot blame Taco for seeing what *he* saw, any more than I can blame the players for reacting badly to DR's equivalent of "Mission Accomplished."
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Someone has trouble editing a list, or the list is limited in size?
I am honestly not sure. And there is also the third option of vBulletin's software being so outmoded that even the slightest customization makes it go bat-guano crazy and it will continue to act up until PWE replaces it.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
What he did was compare the joke form of protest to something everyone agrees is dirty.
It's not dirty to the people making racist jokes, I can tell you that right now.
It was a way to devalue the protest. It is no different from someone pointing at a bunch of protesters and saying... there just a bunch of dirty hippies, or whatever other term you use that you feel will lessen there position.
That's not too far off from the truth. Instead of offering constructive feedback and engaging Cryptic with particular dialogue, they decided to protest with an overall feeling of unhappiness via their signatures.
That does not do anything to help. There is no point in picketing when Cryptic has a fairly open door when it comes to receiving customer feedback, and has a demonstratable history of making changes on that feedback.
Yes, it was there to devalue your 'protest' because it needs to be devalued. What he's saying isn't to pick a fight, it's to make people understand that it isn't helping anybody.
He attacked the protest rather then the message. In fact he even went so far as to claim he didn't understand what the message even was.
I don't even understand what the message was and I've been a forum participant for a good long while. I just saw it as a meme from uncreative people who don't know how to use the english language to communicate their feedback.
To be clear... I like Taco. I respect that he answers issues on the forums when he has specific Knowledge about the subject. I know he has even fixed issues here and there that where in his sphere of control. I respect that greatly. Perhaps that is partly why his post was so hurtful.
He not only dismissed the protest (by pretending to not "get it") he then tried to depreciate through comparison to something extremely distasteful.
I was honestly offended. Not "I'm offended" so as to continue a fight.
I found what he said to be perfectly reasonable. People don't even know what they're protesting. If they did, they would just drop the signatures and keep producing feedback. Because then they could demonstrate they know how communication works.
And that's all it is. People wanting to be socially accepted by their peers on the STO forums. Yes, it united the forums -- but only in the unifying way of "Delta Rising bad!"
As a 'message', in of itself... it says nothing important.
I sense a loooong time coming before we see a post by TacoFang again...
And your sig just adds to the irony. There's no such thing as a "forum dev". There are forum mods, and Taco is not one of them. (And if we did have a "forum dev" on here I'd read him the riot act, since this forum software sucks...)
Any time poor Taco is brave enough to post here he's doing so on his own time, as any other user. What he gets in return is vitriol and histrionics.
To top it off most of what's directed at him has nothing to do with artwork, which is Taco's role. Most of the geniuses on this board think "dev" can mean only one thing: coding game design. :rolleyes:
I am honestly not sure. And there is also the third option of vBulletin's software being so outmoded that even the slightest customization makes it go bat-guano crazy and it will continue to act up until PWE replaces it.
Replace it? Maybe with a forum software with Ignore and Report buttons? Spoiler Functions and what not? Return to my old forum name?
Hah. My bet is on an end to the Skill Point Grind then.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
as what I would classify heavy casual player (20+ hrs a week, but not super competitive or going to let the mechanics of game prevent me from having fun in the game), I really can't say there are many things that I find truly grating or bad in my gaming experience.
But the whole best expansion ever sig thing was rather trollish in it's presentation, I dunno, it was funny at first, but i dunno, just got old quickly.
But then I don't think I am a representative demographic of the player base.
I have 16 characters, 11 of which are KDF, and this newest expansion has forced me to focus all my resources on my main toon.
The Meta of the game changed, as a 35 year old gamer, with most of that time in various editions of D&D, Warhammer 40k, tabletop Mech Warrior, Table Top & Larping World of Darkness, as well as playing M:TG for a number of years, changing game Meta is nothing new.
This is truthfully my first MMO, and of course there are changes I would live to see, but it is a shame when the Internet really brings the Troll out in people.
I dunno, maybe my sig crosses the previous line, but is merely intended at Sarcasm regarding Argala, and the Tau Dewa Nerfing.
Thanks for the Advanced Light Cruiser, Allied Escort Bundles, Jem-Hadar Light Battlecruiser, and Mek'leth
New Content Wishlist
T6 updates for the Kamarag & Vor'Cha
Heavy Cruiser & a Movie Era Style AoY Utility Cruiser
Sabotage signatures is like sticky a pencil in your own eye.
Why the heck would you want to bash and discourage people from a game you can want to play.
The same reason why people bash the coach, rep, and/or players in sports. 9/10 they have next to no history doing what they do and yet feel something weird in their soul that they could do a better job.
If they had the money
or if they had the team
or if they had IP
or their knees was shot to heck and back
and so on and so on.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,174Community Moderator
Oh boy... if we had a report button, I can just see everyone who doesn't agree with someone on a particular subject getting reported out of spite.
So then you issue warnings to people who abuse the Report Feature like every other modern forum, and eventually restrict their forum priviledges or reporting priviledges.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a great story with modern, real life applications.
What I said, was that, IMHO, the "Best Expansion Ever" signatures were grating, and a deterrent for more Dev interaction. As a protest, they don't specify what the protest is about, and at the end of the day, I don't believe they are accomplishing anything (if, indeed, they are meant to accomplish anything in the first place).
Hmm, but they *did* accomplish something! Namely, that they were considered 'grating, and a deterrent for more Dev interaction.' Granted, not the reaction I had hoped for, but a message of sorts apparently certainly came across -- even though the nature/intend/purpose of the message is still up in the air.
This is something that comes up very often within the art department. Another environment artist coming to my desk, telling me, "That looks like TRIBBLE." doesn't help. Telling me, "That looks like TRIBBLE, it would be better if you did X." does help.
IMO, the "Best Expansion Ever" signatures fall into the former category.
Signatures don't really lend themselves very well for very specific complaints. They're, by nature, a generic thing -- at least when people want to make some sort of combined statement with them.
Instead of itemizing specific problems, I feel the general intendment of the "Best Expansion Ever" signatures was, indeed, to be as generic as possible. Spelled out in a less benign way, a sig like that could say "What do you mean we love it?! Everyone I've ever spoken to hates the insane Upgreed cost associated with DR, and the overall steep monetization direction you guys at Cryptic have taken this game!" See!? That sounds a lot less friendly! Which is why I maintain that sigs are a highly appropriate medium to convey a form of protest, in a light-hearted manner, without getting nasty.
And it's not exactly like people haven't been specific about problems with the game. It's just that signatures are not a good place for those.
For those saying I should grow up/get thicker skin:
Again, these are just MY personal feelings. I cannot help what I feel. Are you really telling me that I should feel something different than I do?
You should feel however you want to feel, always. Nonetheless, I would feel remiss not pointing out that, in all honesty, this particular meme likely started, in part, because people felt baited by the blatant "Best Expansion Ever" statement (even though it may have been technically true, on that day, from a financial point of view). Or you guys saying the empty queues are just a reporting bug. All that stuff is meme-worthy, right there! Much like how Baghdad Bob continually stating the most outlandish things, contrary to perceived reality, soon made him subject to global ridicule.
Like it or not, we are a team. A team I've been on and working with for 3 years. As such, when you complain about Delta Rising, an expansion I worked very hard on, I can't help but feel some of that heat. That doesn't mean I don't understand that your complaints are mostly leveled at other departments, but the Expansion is still a product that was touched by many hands, including my own.
For what it's worth, stuff from your hands is usually great! Pure gold! DR is no exception. And I'm not saying that to suck up. In fact, ironically, I personally think DR actually really *is* a very good expansion, in and by itself, if not for the egregious monetizing.
I hope to see this go in a direction where peeps here (myself included) will be more considerate of the Devs' feelings; and, vice versa, that the Cryptic PR department will run less of its "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!" mantra in response to people's often legitimate grievances.
One thing to consider:
1) Cryptic has done harder enemies befoer, but apparently people complained about the Elachi and the Voth.
2) Contrary to what many people think - without extra hit points, you can't actually make more compelling foes in STO. A Borg Cube is destroyed in less than 10 seconds by a half-way decent Escort. Probably much less. Unless you want every NPC to gain a temporary immunity power, you won't escape that problem without raising hit points.
3) The Vaadwuar actually do have an interesting AI in my opinion. But they didn't really do much about the old NPCs...
The Vaadwaur really do have neat AI, and fun attacks to deal with. Only problem is, they're also massive bags of HP, which become really boring to fight once you have found some way to deal with the bombardment of cool blue particle effects. If they buffed the Vaadwaur base weapon damage a tiny bit and nerfed their hull HP somewhat, I'd be happy with them.
...As for the Elachi and Voth, I find both incredibly easy to deal with unless I'm asleep or busy assembling a LEGO model of the Tower Bridge while fighting them... And keep in mind that this is coming from a Science player in an unupgraded D'kyr that apparently does 1.7k DPS according to someone's parser in an Argala run. That said, however, I'd much rather fight Elachi, Voth, and Vaadwaur all day than sit there blowing up Kazon - massive brown hull-bags with no real challenge to fighting them. At least, with the Elachi or Voth, I have to actually think about what direction I have to fly.
However, that's besides the point. I understand that HP buffs make for more challenging enemies, but not when that's the only change. When it is, it's just boring. And, as you said, older mobs (And even some newer ones - try the Kazon, or maybe Hierarchy if you happen to have Sci Team and decent maneuverability) really didn't get much of an improvement other than hull and shields.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,174Community Moderator
It's not dirty to the people making racist jokes, I can tell you that right now.
Touche.
Still if you want to compare an idea with something universally hated, there is that, perhaps the westboro folk, or Justin Bieber, there are plenty of things that speak to the base. I would say you SHOULD at least be hard pressed to find a trek fan who could be called a racist. (at least you would hope)
That's not too far off from the truth. Instead of offering constructive feedback and engaging Cryptic with particular dialogue, they decided to protest with an overall feeling of unhappiness via their signatures.
That does not do anything to help. There is no point in picketing when Cryptic has a fairly open door when it comes to receiving customer feedback, and has a demonstratable history of making changes on that feedback.
You know what I'm sorry. I didn't realize you have also been joking this entire time. Protests happen when people feel they are not being listened to. I guess protests against things like police brutality, or Gov policies or anything of the like should end because there are proper channels to file complaints.
I don't even understand what the message was and I've been a forum participant for a good long while. I just saw it as a meme from uncreative people who don't know how to use the english language to communicate their feedback.
I found what he said to be perfectly reasonable. People don't even know what they're protesting. If they did, they would just drop the signatures and keep producing feedback. Because then they could demonstrate they know how communication works.
And that's all it is. People wanting to be socially accepted by their peers on the STO forums. Yes, it united the forums -- but only in the unifying way of "Delta Rising bad!"
As a 'message', in of itself... it says nothing important.
I really don't understand how you could not understand what 90% of the sigs say. Its not exactly veiled. Many protests are in fact GENERAL. The more examples there are of something the more the protests become "generalized". Look at recent history with protests in the US in regards to policing. Yes there where specific protests about specific cases. However after a point many of those protests became a "genera" form of protest against a system. Of course there are different views on something like that... that doesn't mean the people doing the protesting are not trying to make a point.
Take for example my own SIG. Is it unclear what I am saying. I used a quote from the Geko. I mixed it with a reference to The outer Limits... known as a Twilight Zone contemporary. I think its pretty clear what I am saying about Gekos words. If you don't get it though I am saying... they have done the opposite of what they have claimed. They will monitor and do the opposite of what you would expect. Very must like many of the Outer Limits/Twilight Zone style stories. I think the majority of the Meme protest sigs where just as easy to understand as mine should be. I found the majority of them funny.
In any street protest there is always one Jerk that writes something stupid on his Hunk of cardboard. That doesn't mean everyone else standing on the street has no point to make.
What taco has done with his words is try and be that reporter that sides with thing being protested... that takes there camera and follows the moron with the sign. Cause you know this protest is simply "mean spirited" and unsavory.
Well hopefully everyone is satisfied, the only dev that was communicating with us regularly no longer shows up in the dev tracker. Hopefully this is just a loading glitch on my end. But, I no longer see his name up at the top nor his post list.
Well hopefully everyone is satisfied, the only dev that was communicating with us regularly no longer shows up in the dev tracker. Hopefully this is just a loading glitch on my end. But, I no longer see his name up at the top nor his post list.
Touche.
Still if you want to compare an idea with something universally hated, there is that, perhaps the westboro folk, or Justin Bieber.
The Westboro Troglodytes and the Beliebers would similarly take offense to jokes on their behalf.
Even the Bronies of STO dislike jokes made against them. There really is no "Universally Hated" group.
You know what I'm sorry. I didn't realize you have also been joking this entire time. Protests happen when people feel they are not being listened to. I guess protests against things like police brutality, or Gov policies or anything of the like should end because there are proper channels to file complaints.
They do listen, they do make changes based on what they say. Sometimes we think they made the wrong decision, sure! I thought redoing ESD was a bad idea since it was functional. Tacofangs and I debated about that but we both came to an understanding. The new ESD does look fantastic, but I still hold my opinions that they should have done something different with that time.
Does that mean he or Cryptic did not listen to me? Of course they did. They just didn't think my feedback necessitated action.
That's how it's supposed to work. It's not like police brutality. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It doesn't mean they're inherently against player feedback in their design decisions, nor does it mean they aren't listening.
I really don't understand how you could not understand what 90% of the sigs say. Its not exactly veiled. Many protests are in fact GENERAL. The more examples there are of something the more the protests become "generalized". Look at recent history with protests in the US in regards to policing. Yes there where specific protests about specific cases. However after a point many of those protests became a "genera" form of protest against a system. Of course there are different views on something like that... that doesn't mean the people doing the protesting are not trying to make a point.
Since we're both a fan of analogies. "Occupy Wallstreet" is not helpful. "End Corporate Welfare and raise Taxes on the 1%" is helpful. The Delta Rising signatures are like Occupy Wallstreet. There is no specific message. No channel they're going through to get what they want. They just feel resigned because they get the idea in their heads that Cryptic doesn't listen to them, doesn't care, doesn't take action based on what they say.
When the opposite is true. They just don't want to accept it, nor do they want to put the effort into continuing the feedback cycle in a productive (not necessarily positive) way.
Take for example my own SIG. Is it unclear what I am saying. I used a quote from the Geko. I mixed it with a reference to The outer Limits... known as a Twilight Zone contemporary. I think its pretty clear what I am saying about Gekos words. I think the majority of the Meme protest sigs where just as easy to understand as mine should be. I found the majority of them funny.
I do find your signature funny. And I also understand the message of your signature. I interpret it as, "Cryptic needs to communicate better, because we're not metrics, we're people. They need to interpret their metrics differently than they are currently doing."
Your signature is far more specific about the issue you care about than what is currently being discussed.
In any street protest there is always one Jerk that writes something stupid on his Hunk of cardboard. That doesn't mean everyone else standing on the street has no point to make.
It does mean that maybe they should have it pointed out to them by fellow protestors that they're not helping. The fact they aren't, and even cheer it on? It's support by omission. Do people think I pick debates with other forumites because I just want to win? That I just hate everybody else? No, because I want to see us police each other so the mods don't have to.
I want to make changes in the playerbase as much as I want to make changes with STO. The biggest thing for me is making sure the channels are clear. That people know how to communicate.
And I want people to do the same to me. Even if it means calling me a white knight or a fanboy, I take that feedback into consideration that maybe I should be more objective with what I post.
What taco has done with his words is try and be that reporter that sides with thing being protested... that takes there camera and follows the moron with the sign. Cause you know this protest is simply "mean spirited" and unsavory.
I still don't see it that way. When the message is uniform and just parroting other signatures? That makes everybody the moron with the sign.
So your saying every political joke that makes fun of Republicans or Democrats. or Liberals or Conservatives here in Canada... are on the level of racism.
The developers of STO are NOT a racial group. They are a business. Jokes about a business or the people that lead them are not out of bounds. If Cryptic doesn't understand that its simply sad, and honestly funny in itself. Some of the best humour I can think of is funny because the butt of the joke is so completely unaware. lol
If your jokes offend people they have ceased to funny to someone. If you think you are funny and are not they may never have been funny. Most people temper their attempts at humor depending on how well they know their mark. It rarely matters what the intent of the "comedian" is. Humor is entirely subjective and what you or I find amusing is likely to be different. If someone doesn't understand your humor it is most likely because you are not funny.
When someone who is really not funny says something inappropriate or crosses the line they might to try excuse their behavior by deflecting. An ignorant joke is an ignorant joke whether it is an ignorant racist joke or ignorant joke about politicians. A failed comedian can defend their poor sense of humor by comparing their own patter with racist material because everybody hates racists and people compared to them are inherently better for it. Jokes about politicians are low hanging fruit because the majority of people have little empathy for them.
Earlier someone mentioned regretting his LTS purchase. I never regretted getting mine only weeks before they announced F2P. I certainly got what I payed for and more.
What makes me sad is that I couldn't feel as excited about DR as I was about LoR. LoR had tons of cool new missions for Romulans, and the new KDF stuff and Nimbus was great too. DR has a fraction of that story content, including "filler" patrols (though I don't mind them really).
What really killed my excitement when DR came out were the level gaps that prevented me from playing the new stuff and "forced" me to play content I didn't want to play so I could continue.
I'm not sure what went wrong, but I suspect it has something to do with the huge "buttons and sliders" updates realeasing near or with DR. Usually an expansion is all about (playable) content and system updates are left for Seasons. That is how Cryptic explained it once at least.
I think the Upgrade system is alright, until you start raising rarity levels, the gamble there is just insane.
Your signature is far more specific about the issue you care about than what is currently being discussed.
I did make some Players love it joke meme sigs as well. I switched to this one after I heard geko say it cause I swear the second I heard him say it, I flashed to the Outer Limits Intro and couldn't stop laughing. lol
I found the players love it memes to be pretty on point. I understand the majority of those jokes. They poked fun at many of the games problems directly and yes many of them where a more general this is enough type protest. That doesn't mean there not valid protest.
As far as the "parroting" going on. Sure there is some of that. Like there is in any protest. In most protests there is that one good idea that gets repeated. Yes I know in this case repeating one devs words has become the thing. That doesn't mean that everyone doing it doesn't have the same understanding of there meaning. I mean would you say anyone saying "Je suis Charlie" is simply a parrot.
I think you're taking this way too personally. It's a signature on a forum.
I understand if you are thinking that, even if it's not directed at you, it's still your team. Fine. Although, if one were to read the pages and pages of criticism, feedback, and detail, one would know exactly what is disliked, what is liked, and what is despised.
Maybe someone does look at it, and immediately dismisses it. Who knows, all I see is a ton of one-sided conversations. Of course, there are the "we heart Cryptic and everything in the game is AWESOME!" people, but pretty much everyone knows them by now. Sycophants don't add anything to any discussion anyway.
Now, since all of these well thought out, carefully worded, constructive posts are only seeing replies from other players, a normal person would assume that they aren't being seen. Especially since seemingly none of the information is taken into account by the developers. Why would people assume that their signatures are going to insult anyone, since it's apparent that nothing they post is seen anyway?
If there were 25 threads, today, that had useful feedback in them, would they even be acknowledged? Going by (at least recent) history, all signs point to "No."
I keep thinking of Japori when I think of the forums. So much feedback explaining it was going on, then DR goes live, everything players talked about happened, and suddenly it's a surprise. Then you get the sycophants calling other players liars (when it turned out they weren't lying!) because "metrics."
I'm sorry, but after all of that, the "Best expansion ever" thing was just ridiculous. Did things change after that? No. The pattern of "We post feedback that has no indication of even being seen by the developers" continues. All we see is how great all of this is, when so many are saying it isn't. So many threads, so much feedback, and then we get the "growing" thing.
It's one of three things:
1. No one puts any stock into any feedback that is offered.
2. No one looks at the feedback.
3. All of the feedback is carefully and purposefully ignored.
Comments
Well, this is the sad state this game is in.
Although I find it amusing that Cryptic trotted out a player favorite Dev on Friday to try and end the campaign. That certainly can't be a coincidence. Nor can the fact that everything he said Friday has now disappeared.
As for my being a player...well I have an LTS (which I generally regret now days, considering the direction things have gone) and I guess I can't get past still fighting for this game, hoping it might be worthwhile someday.
It's a sickness really. Apparently I have issues letting 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
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
wait....
I agree with this for the most part although I will make two points...
Though likely a well-intentioned comment, the "best expansion ever" unfortunately did not match the reality on the ground and thus took on overtones of "mission accomplished." The thing is in BOTH of those cases I refuse to assign malice, but they were both poorly timed (as in very premature) celebration. I think both parties saw things in their initial take on the situation that really WERE promising but the situations very, very quickly spiraled out of control when it became clear that premise was built on shaky ground. Both statements thus turned into major lightning rods for their respective "opposition movements." The statement *itself* was fair game. Unfortunately...
IMO *some* signatures crossed the line. I know I saw some that I did find offensive, particularly when a few somebodies Godwinned the meme. I can see where Taco would get from that to making a comparison to hate speech. Some of the sigs that did NOT cross the line of decency were genuinely funny, but unfortunately it is a fact of human psychology that the most outrageous and mean things are what will stick in a person's mind, not so much the milder and more innocuous things.
So I cannot blame Taco for seeing what *he* saw, any more than I can blame the players for reacting badly to DR's equivalent of "Mission Accomplished."
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I am honestly not sure. And there is also the third option of vBulletin's software being so outmoded that even the slightest customization makes it go bat-guano crazy and it will continue to act up until PWE replaces it.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
It's not dirty to the people making racist jokes, I can tell you that right now.
That's not too far off from the truth. Instead of offering constructive feedback and engaging Cryptic with particular dialogue, they decided to protest with an overall feeling of unhappiness via their signatures.
That does not do anything to help. There is no point in picketing when Cryptic has a fairly open door when it comes to receiving customer feedback, and has a demonstratable history of making changes on that feedback.
Yes, it was there to devalue your 'protest' because it needs to be devalued. What he's saying isn't to pick a fight, it's to make people understand that it isn't helping anybody.
I don't even understand what the message was and I've been a forum participant for a good long while. I just saw it as a meme from uncreative people who don't know how to use the english language to communicate their feedback.
I found what he said to be perfectly reasonable. People don't even know what they're protesting. If they did, they would just drop the signatures and keep producing feedback. Because then they could demonstrate they know how communication works.
And that's all it is. People wanting to be socially accepted by their peers on the STO forums. Yes, it united the forums -- but only in the unifying way of "Delta Rising bad!"
As a 'message', in of itself... it says nothing important.
Any time poor Taco is brave enough to post here he's doing so on his own time, as any other user. What he gets in return is vitriol and histrionics.
To top it off most of what's directed at him has nothing to do with artwork, which is Taco's role. Most of the geniuses on this board think "dev" can mean only one thing: coding game design. :rolleyes:
He has more patience than I, that's for sure!
Why the heck would you want to bash and discourage people from a game you can want to play.
Replace it? Maybe with a forum software with Ignore and Report buttons? Spoiler Functions and what not? Return to my old forum name?
Hah. My bet is on an end to the Skill Point Grind then.
But the whole best expansion ever sig thing was rather trollish in it's presentation, I dunno, it was funny at first, but i dunno, just got old quickly.
But then I don't think I am a representative demographic of the player base.
I have 16 characters, 11 of which are KDF, and this newest expansion has forced me to focus all my resources on my main toon.
The Meta of the game changed, as a 35 year old gamer, with most of that time in various editions of D&D, Warhammer 40k, tabletop Mech Warrior, Table Top & Larping World of Darkness, as well as playing M:TG for a number of years, changing game Meta is nothing new.
This is truthfully my first MMO, and of course there are changes I would live to see, but it is a shame when the Internet really brings the Troll out in people.
I dunno, maybe my sig crosses the previous line, but is merely intended at Sarcasm regarding Argala, and the Tau Dewa Nerfing.
The same reason why people bash the coach, rep, and/or players in sports. 9/10 they have next to no history doing what they do and yet feel something weird in their soul that they could do a better job.
If they had the money
or if they had the team
or if they had IP
or their knees was shot to heck and back
and so on and so on.
Oh boy... if we had a report button, I can just see everyone who doesn't agree with someone on a particular subject getting reported out of spite.
Is this sarcasm? I can't tell... it /feels/ sarcastic...
/reported/
So then you issue warnings to people who abuse the Report Feature like every other modern forum, and eventually restrict their forum priviledges or reporting priviledges.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a great story with modern, real life applications.
Sure, but abuse of report buttons is usually also a forum rules violation, so it would not be that common (for long).
More important is the Ignore button. (And even a "do not show signatures" option.
Hmm, but they *did* accomplish something! Namely, that they were considered 'grating, and a deterrent for more Dev interaction.' Granted, not the reaction I had hoped for, but a message of sorts apparently certainly came across -- even though the nature/intend/purpose of the message is still up in the air.
Signatures don't really lend themselves very well for very specific complaints. They're, by nature, a generic thing -- at least when people want to make some sort of combined statement with them.
Instead of itemizing specific problems, I feel the general intendment of the "Best Expansion Ever" signatures was, indeed, to be as generic as possible. Spelled out in a less benign way, a sig like that could say "What do you mean we love it?! Everyone I've ever spoken to hates the insane Upgreed cost associated with DR, and the overall steep monetization direction you guys at Cryptic have taken this game!" See!? That sounds a lot less friendly! Which is why I maintain that sigs are a highly appropriate medium to convey a form of protest, in a light-hearted manner, without getting nasty.
And it's not exactly like people haven't been specific about problems with the game. It's just that signatures are not a good place for those.
You should feel however you want to feel, always. Nonetheless, I would feel remiss not pointing out that, in all honesty, this particular meme likely started, in part, because people felt baited by the blatant "Best Expansion Ever" statement (even though it may have been technically true, on that day, from a financial point of view). Or you guys saying the empty queues are just a reporting bug. All that stuff is meme-worthy, right there! Much like how Baghdad Bob continually stating the most outlandish things, contrary to perceived reality, soon made him subject to global ridicule.
For what it's worth, stuff from your hands is usually great! Pure gold! DR is no exception. And I'm not saying that to suck up. In fact, ironically, I personally think DR actually really *is* a very good expansion, in and by itself, if not for the egregious monetizing.
I hope to see this go in a direction where peeps here (myself included) will be more considerate of the Devs' feelings; and, vice versa, that the Cryptic PR department will run less of its "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!" mantra in response to people's often legitimate grievances.
The Vaadwaur really do have neat AI, and fun attacks to deal with. Only problem is, they're also massive bags of HP, which become really boring to fight once you have found some way to deal with the bombardment of cool blue particle effects. If they buffed the Vaadwaur base weapon damage a tiny bit and nerfed their hull HP somewhat, I'd be happy with them.
...As for the Elachi and Voth, I find both incredibly easy to deal with unless I'm asleep or busy assembling a LEGO model of the Tower Bridge while fighting them... And keep in mind that this is coming from a Science player in an unupgraded D'kyr that apparently does 1.7k DPS according to someone's parser in an Argala run. That said, however, I'd much rather fight Elachi, Voth, and Vaadwaur all day than sit there blowing up Kazon - massive brown hull-bags with no real challenge to fighting them. At least, with the Elachi or Voth, I have to actually think about what direction I have to fly.
However, that's besides the point. I understand that HP buffs make for more challenging enemies, but not when that's the only change. When it is, it's just boring. And, as you said, older mobs (And even some newer ones - try the Kazon, or maybe Hierarchy if you happen to have Sci Team and decent maneuverability) really didn't get much of an improvement other than hull and shields.
Walked into that one I guess. lol
And this is how a hug box is made. There was a joke I want to add but common sense told me not to. Maybe more people should listen to that guy.
Still if you want to compare an idea with something universally hated, there is that, perhaps the westboro folk, or Justin Bieber, there are plenty of things that speak to the base. I would say you SHOULD at least be hard pressed to find a trek fan who could be called a racist. (at least you would hope)
You know what I'm sorry. I didn't realize you have also been joking this entire time. Protests happen when people feel they are not being listened to. I guess protests against things like police brutality, or Gov policies or anything of the like should end because there are proper channels to file complaints.
I really don't understand how you could not understand what 90% of the sigs say. Its not exactly veiled. Many protests are in fact GENERAL. The more examples there are of something the more the protests become "generalized". Look at recent history with protests in the US in regards to policing. Yes there where specific protests about specific cases. However after a point many of those protests became a "genera" form of protest against a system. Of course there are different views on something like that... that doesn't mean the people doing the protesting are not trying to make a point.
Take for example my own SIG. Is it unclear what I am saying. I used a quote from the Geko. I mixed it with a reference to The outer Limits... known as a Twilight Zone contemporary. I think its pretty clear what I am saying about Gekos words. If you don't get it though I am saying... they have done the opposite of what they have claimed. They will monitor and do the opposite of what you would expect. Very must like many of the Outer Limits/Twilight Zone style stories. I think the majority of the Meme protest sigs where just as easy to understand as mine should be. I found the majority of them funny.
In any street protest there is always one Jerk that writes something stupid on his Hunk of cardboard. That doesn't mean everyone else standing on the street has no point to make.
What taco has done with his words is try and be that reporter that sides with thing being protested... that takes there camera and follows the moron with the sign. Cause you know this protest is simply "mean spirited" and unsavory.
Its just a reporting error.
The Westboro Troglodytes and the Beliebers would similarly take offense to jokes on their behalf.
Even the Bronies of STO dislike jokes made against them. There really is no "Universally Hated" group.
They do listen, they do make changes based on what they say. Sometimes we think they made the wrong decision, sure! I thought redoing ESD was a bad idea since it was functional. Tacofangs and I debated about that but we both came to an understanding. The new ESD does look fantastic, but I still hold my opinions that they should have done something different with that time.
Does that mean he or Cryptic did not listen to me? Of course they did. They just didn't think my feedback necessitated action.
That's how it's supposed to work. It's not like police brutality. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It doesn't mean they're inherently against player feedback in their design decisions, nor does it mean they aren't listening.
Since we're both a fan of analogies. "Occupy Wallstreet" is not helpful. "End Corporate Welfare and raise Taxes on the 1%" is helpful. The Delta Rising signatures are like Occupy Wallstreet. There is no specific message. No channel they're going through to get what they want. They just feel resigned because they get the idea in their heads that Cryptic doesn't listen to them, doesn't care, doesn't take action based on what they say.
When the opposite is true. They just don't want to accept it, nor do they want to put the effort into continuing the feedback cycle in a productive (not necessarily positive) way.
I do find your signature funny. And I also understand the message of your signature. I interpret it as, "Cryptic needs to communicate better, because we're not metrics, we're people. They need to interpret their metrics differently than they are currently doing."
Your signature is far more specific about the issue you care about than what is currently being discussed.
It does mean that maybe they should have it pointed out to them by fellow protestors that they're not helping. The fact they aren't, and even cheer it on? It's support by omission. Do people think I pick debates with other forumites because I just want to win? That I just hate everybody else? No, because I want to see us police each other so the mods don't have to.
I want to make changes in the playerbase as much as I want to make changes with STO. The biggest thing for me is making sure the channels are clear. That people know how to communicate.
And I want people to do the same to me. Even if it means calling me a white knight or a fanboy, I take that feedback into consideration that maybe I should be more objective with what I post.
I still don't see it that way. When the message is uniform and just parroting other signatures? That makes everybody the moron with the sign.
If your jokes offend people they have ceased to funny to someone. If you think you are funny and are not they may never have been funny. Most people temper their attempts at humor depending on how well they know their mark. It rarely matters what the intent of the "comedian" is. Humor is entirely subjective and what you or I find amusing is likely to be different. If someone doesn't understand your humor it is most likely because you are not funny.
When someone who is really not funny says something inappropriate or crosses the line they might to try excuse their behavior by deflecting. An ignorant joke is an ignorant joke whether it is an ignorant racist joke or ignorant joke about politicians. A failed comedian can defend their poor sense of humor by comparing their own patter with racist material because everybody hates racists and people compared to them are inherently better for it. Jokes about politicians are low hanging fruit because the majority of people have little empathy for them.
What makes me sad is that I couldn't feel as excited about DR as I was about LoR. LoR had tons of cool new missions for Romulans, and the new KDF stuff and Nimbus was great too. DR has a fraction of that story content, including "filler" patrols (though I don't mind them really).
What really killed my excitement when DR came out were the level gaps that prevented me from playing the new stuff and "forced" me to play content I didn't want to play so I could continue.
I'm not sure what went wrong, but I suspect it has something to do with the huge "buttons and sliders" updates realeasing near or with DR. Usually an expansion is all about (playable) content and system updates are left for Seasons. That is how Cryptic explained it once at least.
I think the Upgrade system is alright, until you start raising rarity levels, the gamble there is just insane.
I did make some Players love it joke meme sigs as well. I switched to this one after I heard geko say it cause I swear the second I heard him say it, I flashed to the Outer Limits Intro and couldn't stop laughing.
I found the players love it memes to be pretty on point. I understand the majority of those jokes. They poked fun at many of the games problems directly and yes many of them where a more general this is enough type protest. That doesn't mean there not valid protest.
As far as the "parroting" going on. Sure there is some of that. Like there is in any protest. In most protests there is that one good idea that gets repeated. Yes I know in this case repeating one devs words has become the thing. That doesn't mean that everyone doing it doesn't have the same understanding of there meaning. I mean would you say anyone saying "Je suis Charlie" is simply a parrot.
I think you're taking this way too personally. It's a signature on a forum.
I understand if you are thinking that, even if it's not directed at you, it's still your team. Fine. Although, if one were to read the pages and pages of criticism, feedback, and detail, one would know exactly what is disliked, what is liked, and what is despised.
Maybe someone does look at it, and immediately dismisses it. Who knows, all I see is a ton of one-sided conversations. Of course, there are the "we heart Cryptic and everything in the game is AWESOME!" people, but pretty much everyone knows them by now. Sycophants don't add anything to any discussion anyway.
Now, since all of these well thought out, carefully worded, constructive posts are only seeing replies from other players, a normal person would assume that they aren't being seen. Especially since seemingly none of the information is taken into account by the developers. Why would people assume that their signatures are going to insult anyone, since it's apparent that nothing they post is seen anyway?
If there were 25 threads, today, that had useful feedback in them, would they even be acknowledged? Going by (at least recent) history, all signs point to "No."
I keep thinking of Japori when I think of the forums. So much feedback explaining it was going on, then DR goes live, everything players talked about happened, and suddenly it's a surprise. Then you get the sycophants calling other players liars (when it turned out they weren't lying!) because "metrics."
I'm sorry, but after all of that, the "Best expansion ever" thing was just ridiculous. Did things change after that? No. The pattern of "We post feedback that has no indication of even being seen by the developers" continues. All we see is how great all of this is, when so many are saying it isn't. So many threads, so much feedback, and then we get the "growing" thing.
It's one of three things:
1. No one puts any stock into any feedback that is offered.
2. No one looks at the feedback.
3. All of the feedback is carefully and purposefully ignored.
Nothing personal, but come on, now.