That was...what was that? Favourite line has to be:
The new bridge officer training system doesn't exactly work with the loadouts but it still works with the loadouts.
I can picture him squirming in his chair, sweat dripping from his forehead, as if he's just be caught red handed by a Mafia Don skimming off the top.
It's classic Geko doublespeak. He did basically the same thing when talking about nerfing the reward payouts in a previous intervioew. He said that certain STFs were having payouts reduced because they were 'over-rewarding; then 30 seconds later he states,'I don't have a problem with content over-rewarding.'
The man doesn't seem to remember what he says from minute to minute and OFTEN makes conflicting statements over the course of practically every interview he's given. Why marketing lets him constantly continue to put his foot in his mouth and speak about the game publically is beyond me because he's usually just a PR nightmare in an interview.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
The best way to cut off the flow of information from the dev team is to crucify them every time they speak...
I mean, yeah, the loadout system et al. is still buggy as hell, it still rarely makes it past 5 zonings without all my BOffs going AWOL... and it is ridiculous that this far in they still haven't fixed it.
That being said, we really need to stop pillorying these guys for every misstep. There are more mature and helpful ways to deal with issues, even outrageous ones.
Geko: In all honestly its just stupid bugs and this is entirely, very little, that the design department has to do, with those lev, its just technical bugs that are just failing and some reasons and you know you fix one thing and you cause another bug and bugs happen so its been too buggy for my taste considering the amount of time put into it. Its still a fantastic system. The new bridge officer training system doesn't exactly work with the loadouts but it still works with the loadouts. And that was really your answer but basically whatever you put on your ship will be remembered but its not remembered in the loadouts. Its just remembered in that ship so you cant have differant bridge officer loadouts with the loadouts but it is saved for the ship. So erm their not necessarily tied together. But they are remembered per ship. So why has it broken? Just because humans, and hopefully the worst of this is behind us at this point. I mean we have got the new system now. I think its live now. If you get a brand new ship. It'll try to move all the items over from your last ship. Which will be a really good time saver for any new ship. It will work for any ship that doesn't have loadouts. Even if you have an old ship that you didn't modify. As soon as you modify a ship it gets a default loadout. So if you have never modified a ship, when you go into it and you load it up it will take the items from your last one. The whole thing is supposed to make things easier but yeah its frustrating when you log in and your bridge officers are missing and your powers are missing or your items are not there.
Is it just me or is this the kind of statement we'd expect from a slimy politician as he glides towards an election year? A lot of words, no substance and no definitive answers at all.
All I really glean from this is Geko appears to me a man tired of dealing with the problem, tired of working on this game and would rather be anywhere else working on ANYTHING else. It does not fill me with the least amount of confidence.
The best way to cut off the flow of information from the dev team is to crucify them every time they speak...
I mean, yeah, the loadout system et al. is still buggy as hell, it still rarely makes it past 5 zonings without all my BOffs going AWOL... and it is ridiculous that this far in they still haven't fixed it.
That being said, we really need to stop pillorying these guys for every misstep. There are more mature and helpful ways to deal with issues, even outrageous ones.
We didn't really crucify the EP for that messup regarding dil for rep marks because he apologised and made a rational, thought out explanation. I disagree with him but he was... rational about it.
I know a lot of us, myself included, would far rather read a transcript then listen to a podcast so for those of you like me who are interested in how seriously cryptic take our loadout issue I took the time to transcribe what Geko had to say in the latest priority one interview. (I know some of this doesn't read well. I just wrote what was said, I didn't edit it I would have put in some paragraphs, but much was presented in a stream of consciousness)
Priority One: Al. I want to have a sit down talk with you about the loadout system for a moment.
Geko: [Chuckle]
Priority One: What can you tell us about the mechanic?
Geko: I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know...
Priority One: [Laughter]
Geko: ...wasn't me. Our loadout system should be pretty solid right now. Are you still having problems? I am currently not having any problems. But I do feel your pain because it has frustrated me that things keep breaking on it. But at this point we will see what happens right?
Priority One: Not since the anniversary event I haven't had an issue but then again I haven't, Well no I have changed maps. And so far its been pretty stable. But do you know what was causing the problem? In the weeks leading up to the 5th anniversary event some times you would log in and there were no bridge officers in your stations.
Geko: In all honestly its just stupid bugs and this is entirely, very little, that the design department has to do, with those lev, its just technical bugs that are just failing and some reasons and you know you fix one thing and you cause another bug and bugs happen so its been too buggy for my taste considering the amount of time put into it. Its still a fantastic system. The new bridge officer training system doesn't exactly work with the loadouts but it still works with the loadouts. And that was really your answer but basically whatever you put on your ship will be remembered but its not remembered in the loadouts. Its just remembered in that ship so you cant have differant bridge officer loadouts with the loadouts but it is saved for the ship. So erm their not necessarily tied together. But they are remembered per ship. So why has it broken? Just because humans, and hopefully the worst of this is behind us at this point. I mean we have got the new system now. I think its live now. If you get a brand new ship. It'll try to move all the items over from your last ship. Which will be a really good time saver for any new ship. It will work for any ship that doesn't have loadouts. Even if you have an old ship that you didn't modify. As soon as you modify a ship it gets a default loadout. So if you have never modified a ship, when you go into it and you load it up it will take the items from your last one. The whole thing is supposed to make things easier but yeah its frustrating when you log in and your bridge officers are missing and your powers are missing or your items are not there.
Just shows you that the guy is completely clueless about the product he's working on. How on earth could such an incompetent person get into any kind of leadership position and what is Cryptic thinking when they're letting someone like him stutter around in an interview like that, on a subject that's currently percieved as one of the bigger problems in the game?
Anyone in PR who has some kind of sense would either send somebody who knows what he's talking about, send no one at all or exclude the question from the interview beforehand.
Geko: ...wasn't me. Our loadout system should be pretty solid right now. Are you still having problems? I am currently not having any problems. But I do feel your pain because it has frustrated me that things keep breaking on it. But at this point we will see what happens right?
No we are not having any problems with the loadout system at all. And the 20 page long thread in the Bug Report section is just another troll thread. :rolleyes:
Seriously. I don't expect Geko to read every single bug thread being made but whoever is supposed to do so could give him a heads up from time to time.
I know a lot of us, myself included, would far rather read a transcript then listen to a podcast so for those of you like me who are interested in how seriously cryptic take our loadout issue I took the time to transcribe what Geko had to say in the latest priority one interview. (I know some of this doesn't read well. I just wrote what was said, I didn't edit it I would have put in some paragraphs, but much was presented in a stream of consciousness)
I'm impressed you took the time to type a transcript. I tried it once before, but it was taking way too long, and I just gave up. Regarding what Geko said, I'll just quote myself from another thread:
I'm pretty sure what has become known as the "loadout issue" is not one bug, but several different bugs, some of which aren't even related to loadouts. I gave a list of several distinct bugs (at least they seem distinct to me):
I think flyingtarg fixed most of these bugs. However, I'm still seeing bridge officers unslot on map transitions. This bug is actually quite old and pre-dates loadout system. For more information about the loadout system, see flyingtarg's post below.
People had reported bugs with map transitions before loadouts were released. Cryptic should have fixed these bugs before building the loadout system. Instead, they built a new and untested system on top of a buggy system.
Geko is right that bugs are caused by human error, but that's true by definition. Much of software engineering isn't about programming; it's about reducing and managing human error.
To truly make STO less buggy, Cryptic has to go beyond fixing bugs as they happen. They need to stop producing so many bugs in the first place. First, they should stop rushing. People make mistakes when rushed. Most of STO's releases seemed rushed to me---pushed out the door as soon as possible. Instead, Cryptic should take the time to make sure things work properly. Second, Cryptic needs to fix buggy code before they build on top of it. In other words, they need to avoid repeating the same mistake they made with loadouts. Systems are interdependent. The most important systems are those on which several other systems depend. Some systems may not be apparent to the user, but are nonetheless fundamental to the functioning of the game. It should be a priority to fix bugs in these core systems, even if the bugs don't happen very often and don't affect very many users. The reason is that such bugs tend to cause larger problems down the line.
In all fairness to Geko, his position is "lead designer". He's not a programmer; he's not in charge of the programmers; he may not even have the first clue about programming. His team comes up with ideas for features and hands them off to the programming team to implement. Software is produced through the collaboration of programmers, testers (QA), and those who design the features (who may sometimes, but not always, be the programmers). Software engineering is about the management of everyone involved in this process. Cryptic has a problem with software quality, and ultimately, responsibility for the quality of their product lies at the top. It may not be Geko, but someone at Cryptic is responsible for allowing the problems to continue. It's not just about fixing the bugs, but about changing the way they work to produce fewer bugs.
Every damn time I have to beam to a ground map because of the anniversary grind, all my boffs get removed from their stations and it's extremely annoying.
Oh man it is. Making a loadout on my toons seems to help on 5 but there is no hope for 3 others toons.
Besides random game client crashes after the anniversary patch as well cogent related lag wizardry the boff station bug really belongs to my top 3 STO annoyances.
Happy 5th anniversary STO and good job. The problem with empty queue lists because of unappealing reward/effort ratios seems ways beyond everyone.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
A developer doesn'T always get the choice what to implement. It is not unusual for a developer to warn about the risks of new features - but sometimes they still have to happen.
In the game industry in particular, "developer" may mean something else. On these forums, I've seen "developer" used to refer to anyone who works on the game. Different people may mean different things when they say "developer".
A game designer is the guy who figures out what the interactions are supposed to be, then articulates it to the programmer, who writes the actual code to make it happen.
a Lead Designer is responsible for taking the ideas and general mechanics come up with by the game-designers, and determining how those elements interact-his job is to say yes or no because ____, and to set priorities with the intent to make the entire thing playable.
The design team probably handed the programming team a design for the loadout system. That design probably included features to be implemented and maybe even a mockup of the UI. I doubt that the design specified how loadouts should function during map transitions. Geko's team specifies the combat mechanics. But I doubt they are involved in the technical details of how state is maintained during map transitions.
Comments
It's classic Geko doublespeak. He did basically the same thing when talking about nerfing the reward payouts in a previous intervioew. He said that certain STFs were having payouts reduced because they were 'over-rewarding; then 30 seconds later he states,'I don't have a problem with content over-rewarding.'
The man doesn't seem to remember what he says from minute to minute and OFTEN makes conflicting statements over the course of practically every interview he's given. Why marketing lets him constantly continue to put his foot in his mouth and speak about the game publically is beyond me because he's usually just a PR nightmare in an interview.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I mean, yeah, the loadout system et al. is still buggy as hell, it still rarely makes it past 5 zonings without all my BOffs going AWOL... and it is ridiculous that this far in they still haven't fixed it.
That being said, we really need to stop pillorying these guys for every misstep. There are more mature and helpful ways to deal with issues, even outrageous ones.
Is it just me or is this the kind of statement we'd expect from a slimy politician as he glides towards an election year? A lot of words, no substance and no definitive answers at all.
All I really glean from this is Geko appears to me a man tired of dealing with the problem, tired of working on this game and would rather be anywhere else working on ANYTHING else. It does not fill me with the least amount of confidence.
We didn't really crucify the EP for that messup regarding dil for rep marks because he apologised and made a rational, thought out explanation. I disagree with him but he was... rational about it.
Geko was um... lay off the weed dude...
Just shows you that the guy is completely clueless about the product he's working on. How on earth could such an incompetent person get into any kind of leadership position and what is Cryptic thinking when they're letting someone like him stutter around in an interview like that, on a subject that's currently percieved as one of the bigger problems in the game?
Anyone in PR who has some kind of sense would either send somebody who knows what he's talking about, send no one at all or exclude the question from the interview beforehand.
No we are not having any problems with the loadout system at all. And the 20 page long thread in the Bug Report section is just another troll thread. :rolleyes:
Seriously. I don't expect Geko to read every single bug thread being made but whoever is supposed to do so could give him a heads up from time to time.
I'm impressed you took the time to type a transcript. I tried it once before, but it was taking way too long, and I just gave up. Regarding what Geko said, I'll just quote myself from another thread:
In all fairness to Geko, his position is "lead designer". He's not a programmer; he's not in charge of the programmers; he may not even have the first clue about programming. His team comes up with ideas for features and hands them off to the programming team to implement. Software is produced through the collaboration of programmers, testers (QA), and those who design the features (who may sometimes, but not always, be the programmers). Software engineering is about the management of everyone involved in this process. Cryptic has a problem with software quality, and ultimately, responsibility for the quality of their product lies at the top. It may not be Geko, but someone at Cryptic is responsible for allowing the problems to continue. It's not just about fixing the bugs, but about changing the way they work to produce fewer bugs.
Oh man it is. Making a loadout on my toons seems to help on 5 but there is no hope for 3 others toons.
Besides random game client crashes after the anniversary patch as well cogent related lag wizardry the boff station bug really belongs to my top 3 STO annoyances.
Happy 5th anniversary STO and good job. The problem with empty queue lists because of unappealing reward/effort ratios seems ways beyond everyone.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I just want to clear up a potential terminological confusion. In the software industry generally,
software developer = software engineer = programmer
In the game industry in particular, "developer" may mean something else. On these forums, I've seen "developer" used to refer to anyone who works on the game. Different people may mean different things when they say "developer".
The design team probably handed the programming team a design for the loadout system. That design probably included features to be implemented and maybe even a mockup of the UI. I doubt that the design specified how loadouts should function during map transitions. Geko's team specifies the combat mechanics. But I doubt they are involved in the technical details of how state is maintained during map transitions.