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Geko post about the game, his feelings, and the current situation
erei1
Member Posts: 4,081 Arc User
A few days ago Geko posted a rather long post about the game, and his position as Lead Designer. As long as some discussion about the Excelsior (don't ask).
Unfortunately, it was on REDDIT, and not on the forum.
Since it might be interesting for everyone, I'm quoting the entire post, and providing the link to the Reddit post. As for the context, someone saw a Captain Gecko ingame, and was wondering if it was him.
Anyway, I hope you'll stay civil, I thought this was worth reading for any STO player.
Unfortunately, it was on REDDIT, and not on the forum.
Since it might be interesting for everyone, I'm quoting the entire post, and providing the link to the Reddit post. As for the context, someone saw a Captain Gecko ingame, and was wondering if it was him.
Am I the only one who think it's a bit sad to have the Lead Designer posting on a non official forum instead of the official forum ? Someone had a quite similar question, and I don't think he was ever officially answered (topic closed), where he said a friend of his was banned 3 days for having "Geko" as a name, not knowing why he was banned (it seems geko is a word in some Slavic country or something).[]CaptainGeko 26 points 4 jours de ça
Hi, This is CaptainGeko (I dont spell my name using GeCko). So if you saw a Capt Gecko (or any other spelling of the name) it isn't me. I dont play STO using that name. I play anonymously. If you want to verify this is me, you can check my twitter account @CaptainGeko. I'll tweet a link to this reddit.
I am not the content lead, the systems lead or the executive produce. I am the Lead Designer of STO. That means in one form or another, I am responsible for all aspects of the design of the game. I am not responsible for the art, the code, the web, the marketing or even the business of the game - although I do work closely with all those involved with those departments. We all collaborate to bring you the game.
Building a Free to Play MMO is no small task. Its a huge challenge and, for the most part, Cryptic studios is blazing a trail, along with Perfect World, on how to deliver a FTP MMO. There are lots of different models. Some companies will, say, charge for content or expansion packs. STO does not do that. We rely on microtransactions to keep the lights on and bring you this game for free.
Let me say one thing that is very important to me. I love Star Trek, and I love Star Trek Online. If you listen to any of the podcast I go on, such as Priority One, STOked, G&T show, Podcast UGC, Trek Radio, and more, I hope you will get a sense of the passion and respect I have for the IP and the Game. I have been a trekkie since I was probably around 5 years old. My sister introduced me to TOS and all sci-fi. I have seen every episode and every movie multiple times - even before I started working on STO. And I have been working on STO from the very beginning - almost 7 years. I was one of 6 original employees on the projects. I have put a lot of my life into STO. It is my art and it has forever changed me. I've been at Cryptic Studios for 12 years now. Before STO, I worked on Champions, Marvel, and City of Heroes and City of Villains. Before Cryptic, I worked on the Sims Online at Maxis, and before that, I was at Sega.com/Sega soft where I worked on 10SIX, Vigilance and I was involved in the online aspects of a few Dreamcast games.
If you are reading this, you probably are more than an average fan. So I assume you like the game. As the Lead Designer, most design decisions come through me one way or another. Not all the decisions are mine. Like any business, STO exists to try to deliver the best product we can and to get as many people to play as much as possible, and in turn, earn money for the company. As with any game, I realize there are parts of STO that some people don't like. In also know that most people who play STO love the game. If you are reading this, I am going to guess there are more things about STO that you like then there are things that you don't like. If you didn't, that would be strange - I would imagine you would stop playing and stop reading forums and reddits about it.
I sometimes read post that people don't like me because of something in the game. That's ok, it comes with the territory. I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt my feelings, but I have been in the industry long enough to understand things like that are typically only said because someone love the product you are working on or wants more from that product. So in a weird way, even when someone says something mean, its sort of a compliment. Hey, I love my I-phone, but I have more than once cursed the company and the leaders of Apples for the product. Although I love my I-phone, it's not perfect and it still sometimes frustrates me. But I get it - humans made it, humans use it. I am still glad for it and admire those who made it.
When it comes to the business, I have a boss just like everyone else, and he has a boss, and so on. Not everything we do is my decision, but I stand behind everything we have done and I am proud of it. STO is the best game I have ever had the privilege to work on. I hope you love the game as much as I. I suspect there are some here that may even love it more than I. At Star Trek Conventions, I meet some wonderful people who love this game. I have met wonderful fans, men and women, children and adults, people of all races, creeds and colors. I met a young boy who showed me pictures of his STO themed bar mitzvah. I have met people who have dedicated countless hours making videos and podcasts dedicated to STO. And I have even met a couple who lived in different countries, met on STO, and then got married. Those people make it all worth it.
I guess the main point I am trying to make is that I know not everyone loves every aspect of STO, and sometimes I am the scapegoat for that. That's OK. But remember this - If there are design aspects of STO you dont like, I am probably in some way responsible for that. I am sorry you dont like those things. But on the other side, if there is something you love about the game (the story, the systems, the ships, the characters, the missions, the items, the enemies, the Star Trek-iness), I probably had a lot to do with that too. And so did a lot of other talented people. I hope there are more things you love about STO then there are things you don't like. And if you are on this reddit, I am guessing that is true - and that makes me happy. I will always strive to bring you the best Star Trek experience and the best game we can possibly deliver. I appreciate every one of you and I hope you will all play for a very long time.
LLAP
Al "CaptainGeko" Rivera
Anyway, I hope you'll stay civil, I thought this was worth reading for any STO player.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by erei1 on
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Joke aside, he can always post and lock the thread.
But on the good side, STO does have some great events. I certainly enjoy the Wonderland, and Risa. At the very least, it provides something outside of the ordinary expectation to grind everything, and that gives me a reason to login. And if you catch me in a generous mood, I might even be giving away some of the Wonderland/Risa commodities, just because I can. And for this year's Wonderland, I was also giving a free coat and scarf to every member who joined the fleet during the Event. That just goes to show that there is still fun to be had if you know where to look.
My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
Click here to view my DeviantArt.
Agree.. nothing to said to a guy that is constantly insulting the players.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
But but...he wrote this letter! All if forgiven right? Slight of hand still works doesn't it??
In his defense, he did not make the topic.
Someone created a post called "Who is CaptainGeko?" because they legitimately did not know. Geko then created an account and responded.
Geko is in an unfortunate position, because he is - by the nature of his job - the lightning rod for all complaints about and criticisms of the game. And there would always be those, even if the game was perfect. (And most of them would be unjust, personally insulting, and highly ungrammatical.)
But - it's one of those "cycles of negative reinforcement" things. If the game's official forum becomes seen as a place of pointless negativity where people do nothing but rail against a dev team who pay no attention, there's a terrible danger that that's what they'll become. Now, we, as posters, can try and stop that from happening by, well, trying to be reasonable and moderate in our tone. (I know, I know... but I can dream, can't I?) But it does require some engagement from the devs too.
Some of the dev team who do engage with the forum dwellers don't get such a hard time of it. Recent contributions from tacofangs have been well received... and several people, myself included, posted notes of thanks to pweadamanteus for keeping us informed during the New Year's Eve server outage. They're communicating with us, and they're appreciated for it.
They're not able to give us everything we want, and they don't necessarily agree with everything we say - but at least they give the impression of listening, of being willing to enter into some sort of dialogue. And that is important.
So, I'd urge the game's designer to get in and get some dialogue going. He could - and probably should - simply ignore all the stuff that's pointlessly negative and personally abusive. But some of us can understand where he's coming from, are capable of keeping things relatively civil, and might just have some ideas he'd find worth listening to.
Well for once that's not the reason I don't like him ... Dstahl i.E. made lots of "questionable" Decisions as well & kept talking about stuff that never saw the light of day ... yet, I liked the guy, because he was respectful to his community, even interacted with them on a regular basis ...
So I'm not sure to whom, this letter is supposed to be adressed ? I don't think the "recipients" actually exist ...
Well we know it's not the main STO forum readers...
They are more positive because reddit is a hugbox where dissenting opinions are downvoted to hades, but they are more positive than we are. If I were a dev, I'd post there, too.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Is not? He was the one that insulted us. It may be both sides foult, but Geko has his share.
If I were a dev, I would like to know what my community feels and think. I wont hide on a "frendly" forum.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I know this, but that alone shouldn't stop him posting here.
I don't even need to spend more than 10 minutes a day here to get a feel for what the vocal minority thinks of the game.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
He still has posted more often on the STO forums than on reddit.
Please listen to the player feedback.
Listen to the feedback on the insanly slow pace of grinding XP and the mismatch between what areas of the game reward what XP a.k.a. why everyone grinds Argala and why alts are dead...
Listen to the feedback on critter balance and PVE difficulty/reward for doing said pve a.k.a why the queues are dead...
Listen to the feedback on crafting/upgrading equipment including the insane dil costs and ridiculous element of RNG in rarity increases a.k.a why people don't upgrade and so fail pve, why there are stupid imbalances in game economics where crafted items sell for less than the sum of their parts and also why alts are even more dead...
Listen to the feedback on T6 ships/traits/masteries and the lack of ability to upgrade older ships to gain traits and hybrid seats a.k.a. TRIBBLE you, you killed my lockbox ship and I don't want to buy those intel ship monstrosities I just want to play with new stuff in my Galaxy...(hint: this can still be monetised)
Listen to the feedback on specialisation powers and the in-balances caused by intel abilities (and will be made worse by command powers) a.k.a. why pvp is even more dead now than it was before...
Some older ones that were around before DR...
Listen to the feedback on fleet contributions and progress of smaller fleets.
Listen to the feedback on pvp.
Listen to the feedback on bugs.
Right so now you are listening. Please DO something about it.
...#LLAP...
I you were a dev, I would same as now beg for more skill points/exp
Yeah...except that's not exactly how human behavior works. I can only speak for myself but I looooooved STO. Been having a ball since Beta, through good times and bad. I keep playing post-DR hoping some of the feeling I had playing over the last 5 years will come back in some way. The game is still good at it's core, or at least was. great art, fun ships...cool things to do. DR changed all that in many ways.
I don't try to keep loggin on or reading about the game because I still enjoy it as I once did. I hang around hoping, nearly praying, that people that make this game understand how massively DR changed things and not for the better. Any sense of progression is lost behind timegates and really, really bad rewards for time spent playing. So much has been added that to get even one character geared pretty well is so expensive, so time-consuming, that it now feels insurmountable. It's like everywhere you turn, a player is confronted by one cost or another that even making any real attempt seems futile.
I hang around because of a foolish hope that Cryptic will back off nerfing everything and making every little aspect of the game have some cost associated with it. I don't mind dropping money and have. I used to play some, get some dilith and sometimes make up shortfalls with cash. With all the changes it's either a massive, months-long grind to get any decent in-game currency or me to feel guilty spending money I shouldn't...just to feel like I had the sense of progression I had pre-DR.
I'm not around because I think DR is the best thing ever. I'm hanging around hoping you guys wake up to the concept that it actually isn't. There's about a 1000 valid critiques and solutions all over these forums and Reddit...and Facebook...and Twitter.
I'm here for hope, man because I'm sure not feeling STO like I did pre-DR.
In my eyes, the "good vs. bad" count is something along the lines of... 5-10 good things vs. dozens or even hundreds of ever-growing bad things. His letter focuses on the very few good things while trying to make us ignore all the bad things. That's not going to fly.
STO Screenshot Archive
No ships or addins can keep me here till S10 pops
Loved the game till it went bat *&%$ crazy in every direction up in heah!
GOOD! Looks like priestofsin420 has all the data and numbers about what ppl feels and like in the game. Good! Now, can you share the numbers plz?
Is not about what some one like or not about STO. Beacose on that letter he not only talk about STO. He talks about him self, so he open that discusion. And if he wants to talk about him self, then ppl is going to tell him what ppl think about him and I bet that is going to be a bit negative.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Anyway only geko's fault is his hate for pvp and pvp players.The game will never be fun without PvP...PvP means balanced powers and ships .PvE should be for ocazional grind .All people which are in homo sapiens like to play with other people not with npcs.You can add pve in game in all forms ,as long the pvp is balanced the game is balanced and people would feel each ship/class is different experience.
Also i dont doubt he likes star trek but i do know he has no idea how the game is.
all games with pvp are on top of steam charts..The drama from pvp and stories are what keeps the comunity together.Thats why all pvp people i know are on my friends list...we play/ed togheter and have more to talk about our matches than any pve player about stfs.
While other games balance the PvE /w PvP.. like the biggest mmo ever.. that will only die by its creator.
Hope you see the irony here when discussing Geko and insulting comments.
Not sure why we're still talking about that ? We're on page 3 and the Thread didn't went to hell yet ... or did it ... same with the "Gutter Thread" with 30+ pages of civil discussion etc ...
I might have another Def. of Hell, though ...