Hit Fire at Will with the nerfbat to bring it in line with scatter volley.
Rebalance all the existing abilities to make every single one appealing and not useless (Aceton Beam much?).
Increase the XP gain by x2.
Remove the T5U thing and straight make a ship upgradable to T6 capabilities (minus the trait), making their Lieutenant seats hybrid universal.
Hit AtB with the nerfbat by allowing to slot only one of those doffs.
Hit Romulan Boffs with the nerfbat to bring them in line with other factions. (It's not possible that my Scimitar has 1/3 crit chance, 33% and unspeakable CrtD).
Give innate resistance to energy damage on hull to give torpedoes a reason to exist.
Give some basic matchmaking to PvP matches and make them more rewarding by increasing the awarded XP and adding an Advanced R&D Pack Reward.
I'm looking for a thing on that list that could be accomplished in a day or wouldn't be reverted back the next day.
Some of those things are things they're actually doing. Some of those amount to giving away money unless you can explain how they'd raise revenue. Many of those things are way outside of what a lead developer would be allowed to do and you'd be lucky to last the full day doing them.
The one thing I think I'd agree with is doubling XP, which I think I would call "a good start" on the level 60 content.
If I were a dev for a day, I'd do my best to make the boss as happy as possible, try to keep the job (working on a Star Trek property.. I mean come on) and then see if they'll let me work from home, North Carolina, so that I don't have to deal with water shortages! Plus my girlfriend that's from the Bay area refers to the vast majority of cities in California as "ghetto" and her mom refers to the place as a hell hole. Probably in the eye of the beholder and what not, but still
If somehow that worked out... then I'd work on getting an interior pack for the TWoK time period, more assets for New Romulus. A New Romulus for complete Rep as opposed to the in progress Romulus that we have now. I'd give the KDF some ships that look like they can compete in the 25th Century. I'd also use my newfound dev powers to gie myself a Kor'ath sot hat I wouldn't have to wait on a good ship for the KDF.
Hit Fire at Will with the nerfbat to bring it in line with scatter volley.
Rebalance all the existing abilities to make every single one appealing and not useless (Aceton Beam much?).
Hit AtB with the nerfbat by allowing to slot only one of those doffs.
Hit Romulan Boffs with the nerfbat to bring them in line with other factions. (It's not possible that my Scimitar has 1/3 crit chance, 33% and unspeakable CrtD).
Give innate resistance to energy damage on hull to give torpedoes a reason to exist.
While I find myself in total agreement with the not quoted suggestions from your opening posts (good ones!!!) I have some trouble with the quoted. You are correct as in to point out that some game mechanics do have obvious advantages over some others. Yet in my opinion I dont think that a nerf is the solutions to reward players for finding out whats best in coping with game demands and play for builds accordingly. Id rather see to it that less useful abilities are brought more in line with the overused ones. For examples deal with range related damage loss of cannons more than nerf BFA. I also dont mind the efficiency increase that come with MK14 guns because they are simply extremely expensive and harder to obtain.
On other fronts cryptic is working on indirect nerfs or rather on the enhancement of alternatives . Aux2bat? Sure can use but if u take a look around ant whats available (ship traits e.g.) its far from being the only option to make a potent build. K, Romulan Operatives are an advantage of Romulan players but we got at least 2 pirates available for fed and all for kdf. Perhaps they arent as good as the Romiis but I still dont feel my Fed chars at the disadvantage side. Cryptic could make the pirate trait stronger or reintroduce human veteran boffs.
So my conclusion is the issues you are addressing are worth taking a look at but nerf? Nope, there should be other ways to simply give peeps alternatives.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
- Add T5 Retrofits of all Gorn, Nausican, and Klingon ships that don't currently have them.
- Add every vanity title that has been requested but ignored over the past 5 years (Fleet Captain, Commodore, etc)
- Get work started on an Interior revamp, as well as development of things to do inside our ships.
- Boost XP across the board by 60% from Levels 50-60.
- Make every patrol mission in the game repeatable.
- Add patrols for Klingons and Romulans.
- Rework all ground weapon visuals to be settings in the Costume Designer, much like Kit visuals.
- Add Disable Visual toggles to anything that has "glowies".
- Develop a T5 frigate from the 2409 era Excalibur / Vesper. Universal seats like the BOP.
- T6 BOP
- T6 Romulan Carrier
- T6 2409 version of the K'tinga. Updated visuals.
- Finish all remaining canon ships for all factions.
- Resort the ships based on their era. Grandfather existing ships as T5-U, then lock down the ships into lower tiers based on the era they came from. (D'kyr, Kumari, Xindi ships, Excelsior, etc.) Anything built before 2350 never gets above T4. Anything built after 2350 can have a T5 Retrofit or T6 with a true Retrofit look.
"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
If I was lead dev for a day I would (in no particular order):
1. Devote some resources towards creating faction-specific story content. Either having more differences in how episodes run depending on whether you're Starfleet or KDF, or outright different episodes entirely. This would also include more tech to have different factors and variables affect the mission and dialogue. So your vulcan boff won't talk in histrionics when he speaks to you, your non-klingon boff won't talk to you about honor and Kahless and all that junk.
2. I would put a stop to the double-dipping form of revenue that has happened since Delta Rising. Either T5U will actually be meaningful or existing T5 vice-admiral ships will be retroactively made T6. If I've already bought a T5 Defiant, Voyager or Galaxy I don't see why I should pay for it again, and pay MORE to boot for a T6 version. I remember those ships costing me $20, T6 ships are $30. That's a 50% rise.
Or I'd give holders of those ships the benefit of a discount, kind of how if you buy the c-store ship you can buy the Fleet version at a discount.
3. I'd also commission the ship design guys to get a T6 Hegh'ta/K'vort into the game. If there's one ship the klingons have that is iconic it's the bird-of-prey. If for whatever reason we can't have a K'vort BoP then make it a Hegh'ta. They're the same size anyway.
4. I'd do more to help Foundry authors. I don't know what exactly though.
5. Next expansion or season will focus on exploration and/or cold war intrigue with the Dominion. Exploration of the Gamma Quadrant is the only thing that hasn't been touched by STO, the Dominion have been a minor factor at best (True Way are more threatening than them) and I'd like to see them come to the fore. I'd tone back the grimderp Warhammer: The Final Frontier aspect of the game's storyline. So I'd really like to see a COLD war develop under the aegis of exploring the GQ.
6. Voyager has gotten quite a bit of love over the last couple of years, I'm not complaining about that mind you but DS9 needs a bit of love too. See how many of the DS9 cast are free to lend their voices. I wouldn't mind seeing a Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine make a cameo, or Julian Bashir head of Starfleet Medical. Or Odo. Or Nog. I reckon Aaron Eisenberg would jump at the chance at reprising his role.
7. I'd love to see TNG get some love too, but I'd fear the actors would be too expensive. But I'd see what we could do. Brent Spiner as Data or John DeLancie as Q would be great. So would having all of the cast but in-universe it might be hard to justify. I think Picard is dead at this point, Riker, Troi, Crusher and LaForge would be really old, only Data would be ageless. Similarly Q. But time travel might be a thing.
8. And then at the end of the day I'd probably be fired :V
I really think it's a problem of dis-connect. Fakrissakes, Geko was caught pants-down and embarassed publicly in a livestream because he didn't know that Ionic Turbulence wasn't working as intended-three months after it was launched.
That kind of disconnect and it's easy to see how the Dev Staff can be 'aware of' but totally ignorant of, other gameplay and graphics issues, including lag issues, distortion of challenge issues, and lack of counter-play and balance issues.
I've said it several times and I'll say it one more time, they should hire a hardcore player to act as a link between the playerbase and developers.
Add Romulan SRO's to the embassy in science and engineering so Feds and Klingons can match up in crit chance to Romulans this should be easy
Cater in a Spread , Feast for a 3 hour lunch for the staff.....With Bacon of course
block the fails on advanced Q's that's very easy to do
chit chat with the real Devs and give them my views on how to make things more fun for players which in turn would make them more money for the game
not much more you could do in a day I would think
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I would log onto a developer account, use the debug tool to spontaneously generate some awesome stuff that I really want, then I'd mail it to my actual account. Hello Strike Ship and 4 CrtDx3 pen beam banks.
Approve the addition of the new KDF race "Smooth Foreheaded Klingons."
Invent two new bridge officer traits called "Make My DPS GO" and "Cowardly Opportunist." Both identical to Superior Romulan Operative, but spawning on Federation Aligned Pakleds and the new KDF race "Smooth Foreheaded Klingons."
Propose the addition of a "Dominion Omni-directional Polaron Array" that's part of the Dominion set.
Finally add a Fleet Guramba, but make it a Tier-6 ship. Because it's fleet, it needs no new art assets.
Then take the rest of the day off because I'm not qualified to do any actual work, all the while hoping the new lead developer sticks with my ideas.
Given the response of Taco and the other esteemed dev lets change this to a year instead of a day. Dev is a broad term with so many different jobs so lets say EP.
I would have a project wide meeting between the art/environment, design and system teams I would sit down and listen to their concerns about the game and listen to what they have to say. I would then weigh this against the C-Level execs and PWEs metrics and see what I could make happen for my team. I would push those metrics to the breaking point for creative over profit.
These meetings would be held once a month during the course of a season development or as needed.
The next thing to address is to change the corporate culture at my level to one of better quality management that would hopefully trickle down. If someone is an underperformer then they should be replaced for the good of the project and overall profitability of the project. With the money saved from the underperformer. With only one of the underperformers salaries I would create incentives for QA personnel to find the most game stopping bugs, with a ranking system with incentives for not only the winner but top 5 per month. This bonus being contingent on a good smooth release of weekly patches. The other part of the salary being paid for completing project deadlines with accuracy and quality as a bonus for the teams. It doesn't need to be big but a note of good work.
I would be an advocate for my team to the C-Level Execs not the other way around. I would put a hard cap on the hours able to be worked. 50 Hours maximum during slower development periods and 65 hours maximum during the last month to launch seasons not counting lunches. This would only be lifted in the event of a major game stopping bug or data security breach. Vacations after major launches would be encouraged highly and if a member was suffering from burnout would be on a list to switch projects for several months not let go if they were a decent performer.
Kinda of boring I know, but it would be my job to make a game and make money. My real job is to ensure the quality of my product as best as management will allow and to take care of the people that work for me while turning a profit. I could have listed off my personal wants but after all if it were my job was the question.
I'd FIX this freakin game instead of focusing more than 90% on ways to drive up the Dil Exchange! Sick and tired of seeing more ships/lockboxes/whatever things come out that drive up Dil than actual game content and bugfixes! Still seeing bugs and glitches from over a year ago!
Then I would crawl through as much information as I can so I know precisely what is going on.
Then I would attempt to hold an AMA and give as many factual answers as possible - even if either the company or the community don't want to hear it.
At the end of the day everyone will be on the same page, and would appreciate why certain things are as they are. Cryptic meanwhile may rush to clean up the 'mess' I made
Are a lot of the issues people have with the game a result of PWE meddling, or are they Cryptic designs?
I'd like to think that if it's a Cryptic issue, they can be resolved. But if they're PWE, then it's understandable that you guys are powerless against them and falsely face The Rage Machine.
It's not that the Lead Designer doesn't call some of the shots. It's that if you were Lead Designer for a day, you would have no idea what you were doing, and would probably just follow along with whatever other people were already doing.
1 day is not enough time to come up to speed, and make a significant change.
Many of the things people in this thread are saying they'd do on their 1 day as Lead Designer, are things that would take weeks or months to happen. Ok, maybe you could dictate that they start doing something. But generally, you're involved in the entire process, and shape it as it goes. There is almost nothing that can be accomplished in a single day, especially if you're new.
I'd make sure it was a Friday, so folks could take me out to a longer lunch on my last day.
Eh, we can do that whenever. Doesn't have to be a Friday.
(But I'm glad to see someone has some realistic expectations for their single day as Lead Dev )
It's not that the Lead Designer doesn't call some of the shots. It's that if you were Lead Designer for a day, you would have no idea what you were doing, and would probably just follow along with whatever other people were already doing.
1 day is not enough time to come up to speed, and make a significant change.
Many of the things people in this thread are saying they'd do on their 1 day as Lead Designer, are things that would take weeks or months to happen. Ok, maybe you could dictate that they start doing something. But generally, you're involved in the entire process, and shape it as it goes. There is almost nothing that can be accomplished in a single day, especially if you're new.
Thank you for the response.
Going with that theme of "long term projects", is there any chance you could put a worm into Salami's ear about bringing back Engineering Reports, or something of the like? Just so we know what's coming up and what the long term goals are
...I'd ask Tacofangs to dance the jig...or something.
...Then I'd take the art team out for lunch...at a Mexican restaurant...for tacos of course!
Ok, not all that serious of a reply, but all in good fun.
A more serious reply I'd probably be going around meeting all the devs because I truly want to know how the whole team works. Wouldn't get much done that day though!
5:00 - Realize that I don't have time to login to STO send out my doffs like I usually do before work, because I don't yet know how long the commute will take and have to leave way early to deal with Day 1 setup
5:45 - Arrive at work, realize that I don't yet have a badge, send email from my phone to the person who's supposedly my lead and ask them to come let me in
5:50 - Realize that my AD and Exchange Server credentials have still not been provisioned by IT; spend time eating breakfast and getting to know coworkers
6:00 to 7:00 - Roll chair over to coworker's desk while they show me the volume of email I'd be dealing with if my email was actually set up
7:00 to 8:00 - Corp login and email credentials provisioned; login to company laptop and receive an email from my manager with twenty links to applications I need to install, set up, and familiarize myself with in order to do my job - and do so while being constantly randomized by people coming over to say hi to the new person
8:05 - Laptop still not completely set up, no access to P4 or whatever code repo is being used; missed the morning standup because no one forwarded me the meeting request
8:30 - New employee orientation! Spend half an hour filling out hardcopy forms that duplicate information I've already provided, because HR and reasons
9:00 to 9:10 - Mandatory self-study HR materials on sexual harassment in the workplace, which involve a video that no one watches and questions everyone already knows how to answer
9:10 to 9:30 - Now that everyone's in the office except career developers who don't get out of bed before 10am (kidding! I love all you guys, even when you resolve my bugs as Won't Fix), endure the obligatory tour where I'm taken around the office and introduced to fifty people whose names I won't remember until I've heard them repeatedly
9:30 to 11:30 - Excruciatingly long meeting with the project managers and QA team where I largely sit there in silence and look derpy while everyone uses impenetrable internal jargon that I'm not expected to understand because it's my first day
11:30 - Still no access to repository, but that's okay because I really shouldn't be checking in anything on my first day anyway; spend time continuing to install required software on my laptop and set up rules to filter the deluge of email
11:40 - Shown where to find the beer in the walk-in cooler; day improves significantly
12:00 - 1:45 - "Working" lunch with the team that almost invariably involves Indian food and a lot more beer; I learn more during this lunch than in all of the training materials thus far combined
2:00 - Return to desk and learn that I missed several important emails and a meeting invite because they were buried amongst the other 2,000 emails with which I'm not yet familiar enough to write effective rules
2:10 - Trendy puts up a blog post announcing the change in leadership; manager strongly "suggests" that I jump in the forums and introduce myself in order to get to know the players in my new role
2:35 - After twelve pages of disparaging commentary about my ancestry, hobbies, habits, politics, criminal record, sexual orientation, hostility to PvP, past forum posts, involvement in every unpopular decision made since the game's launch, as well as my preferred operating system and game console, I manage to completely lose my **** at some idiot a valued customer and go on a 4,000-word rant about how the dev team could design a Tribble that ate latency and crapped Zen, and the forums would still explode with complaints that the cooldown was too long
3:05- Handed a cardboard box and escorted out of the building
Any resemblance to actual persons or events may or may not be the product of personal experience.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
If anyone was Lead Dev for just one day then nothing would actually get changed because the guy that came in after you could just stop all your changes so yeah you wouldn't do anything but make a bunch of promises and not go thru with them. Just like politics.
5:00 - Realize that I don't have time to login to STO send out my doffs like I usually do before work, because I don't yet know how long the commute will take and have to leave way early to deal with Day 1 setup
5:45 - Arrive at work, realize that I don't yet have a badge, send email from my phone to the person who's supposedly my lead and ask them to come let me in
5:50 - Realize that my AD and Exchange Server credentials have still not been provisioned by IT; spend time eating breakfast and getting to know coworkers
6:00 to 7:00 - Roll chair over to coworker's desk while they show me the volume of email I'd be dealing with if my email was actually set up
7:00 to 8:00 - Corp login and email credentials provisioned; login to company laptop and receive an email from my manager with twenty links to applications I need to install, set up, and familiarize myself with in order to do my job - and do so while being constantly randomized by people coming over to say hi to the new person
8:05 - Laptop still not completely set up, no access to P4 or whatever code repo is being used; missed the morning standup because no one forwarded me the meeting request
8:30 - New employee orientation! Spend half an hour filling out hardcopy forms that duplicate information I've already provided, because HR and reasons
9:00 to 9:10 - Mandatory self-study HR materials on sexual harassment in the workplace, which involve a video that no one watches and questions everyone already knows how to answer
9:10 to 9:30 - Now that everyone's in the office except career developers who don't get out of bed before 10am (kidding! I love all you guys, even when you resolve my bugs as Won't Fix), endure the obligatory tour where I'm taken around the office and introduced to fifty people whose names I won't remember until I've heard them repeatedly
9:30 to 11:30 - Excruciatingly long meeting with the project managers and QA team where I largely sit there in silence and look derpy while everyone uses impenetrable internal jargon that I'm not expected to understand because it's my first day
11:30 - Still no access to repository, but that's okay because I really shouldn't be checking in anything on my first day anyway; spend time continuing to install required software on my laptop and set up rules to filter the deluge of email
11:40 - Shown where to find the beer in the walk-in cooler; day improves significantly
12:00 - 1:45 - "Working" lunch with the team that almost invariably involves Indian food and a lot more beer; I learn more during this lunch than in all of the training materials thus far combined
2:00 - Return to desk and learn that I missed several important emails and a meeting invite because they were buried amongst the other 2,000 emails with which I'm not yet familiar enough to write effective rules
2:10 - Trendy puts up a blog post announcing the change in leadership; manager strongly "suggests" that I jump in the forums and introduce myself in order to get to know the players in my new role
2:35 - After twelve pages of disparaging commentary about my ancestry, hobbies, habits, politics, criminal record, sexual orientation, hostility to PvP, past forum posts, involvement in every unpopular decision made since the game's launch, as well as my preferred operating system and game console, I manage to completely lose my **** at some idiot a valued customer and go on a 4,000-word rant about how the dev team could design a Tribble that ate latency and crapped Zen, and the forums would still explode with complaints that the cooldown was too long
3:05- Handed a cardboard box and escorted out of the building
Any resemblance to actual persons or events may or may not be the product of personal experience.
This post is absolutely brilliant.
And totally accurate.. well done. I can tell just by reading it that you have also worked in an IT Office Environment. Very very 'on the nose.'
Comments
I'm looking for a thing on that list that could be accomplished in a day or wouldn't be reverted back the next day.
Some of those things are things they're actually doing. Some of those amount to giving away money unless you can explain how they'd raise revenue. Many of those things are way outside of what a lead developer would be allowed to do and you'd be lucky to last the full day doing them.
The one thing I think I'd agree with is doubling XP, which I think I would call "a good start" on the level 60 content.
If somehow that worked out... then I'd work on getting an interior pack for the TWoK time period, more assets for New Romulus. A New Romulus for complete Rep as opposed to the in progress Romulus that we have now. I'd give the KDF some ships that look like they can compete in the 25th Century. I'd also use my newfound dev powers to gie myself a Kor'ath sot hat I wouldn't have to wait on a good ship for the KDF.
While I find myself in total agreement with the not quoted suggestions from your opening posts (good ones!!!) I have some trouble with the quoted. You are correct as in to point out that some game mechanics do have obvious advantages over some others. Yet in my opinion I dont think that a nerf is the solutions to reward players for finding out whats best in coping with game demands and play for builds accordingly. Id rather see to it that less useful abilities are brought more in line with the overused ones. For examples deal with range related damage loss of cannons more than nerf BFA. I also dont mind the efficiency increase that come with MK14 guns because they are simply extremely expensive and harder to obtain.
On other fronts cryptic is working on indirect nerfs or rather on the enhancement of alternatives . Aux2bat? Sure can use but if u take a look around ant whats available (ship traits e.g.) its far from being the only option to make a potent build. K, Romulan Operatives are an advantage of Romulan players but we got at least 2 pirates available for fed and all for kdf. Perhaps they arent as good as the Romiis but I still dont feel my Fed chars at the disadvantage side. Cryptic could make the pirate trait stronger or reintroduce human veteran boffs.
So my conclusion is the issues you are addressing are worth taking a look at but nerf? Nope, there should be other ways to simply give peeps alternatives.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
- Add every vanity title that has been requested but ignored over the past 5 years (Fleet Captain, Commodore, etc)
- Get work started on an Interior revamp, as well as development of things to do inside our ships.
- Boost XP across the board by 60% from Levels 50-60.
- Make every patrol mission in the game repeatable.
- Add patrols for Klingons and Romulans.
- Rework all ground weapon visuals to be settings in the Costume Designer, much like Kit visuals.
- Add Disable Visual toggles to anything that has "glowies".
- Develop a T5 frigate from the 2409 era Excalibur / Vesper. Universal seats like the BOP.
- T6 BOP
- T6 Romulan Carrier
- T6 2409 version of the K'tinga. Updated visuals.
- Finish all remaining canon ships for all factions.
- Resort the ships based on their era. Grandfather existing ships as T5-U, then lock down the ships into lower tiers based on the era they came from. (D'kyr, Kumari, Xindi ships, Excelsior, etc.) Anything built before 2350 never gets above T4. Anything built after 2350 can have a T5 Retrofit or T6 with a true Retrofit look.
"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
1. Devote some resources towards creating faction-specific story content. Either having more differences in how episodes run depending on whether you're Starfleet or KDF, or outright different episodes entirely. This would also include more tech to have different factors and variables affect the mission and dialogue. So your vulcan boff won't talk in histrionics when he speaks to you, your non-klingon boff won't talk to you about honor and Kahless and all that junk.
2. I would put a stop to the double-dipping form of revenue that has happened since Delta Rising. Either T5U will actually be meaningful or existing T5 vice-admiral ships will be retroactively made T6. If I've already bought a T5 Defiant, Voyager or Galaxy I don't see why I should pay for it again, and pay MORE to boot for a T6 version. I remember those ships costing me $20, T6 ships are $30. That's a 50% rise.
Or I'd give holders of those ships the benefit of a discount, kind of how if you buy the c-store ship you can buy the Fleet version at a discount.
3. I'd also commission the ship design guys to get a T6 Hegh'ta/K'vort into the game. If there's one ship the klingons have that is iconic it's the bird-of-prey. If for whatever reason we can't have a K'vort BoP then make it a Hegh'ta. They're the same size anyway.
4. I'd do more to help Foundry authors. I don't know what exactly though.
5. Next expansion or season will focus on exploration and/or cold war intrigue with the Dominion. Exploration of the Gamma Quadrant is the only thing that hasn't been touched by STO, the Dominion have been a minor factor at best (True Way are more threatening than them) and I'd like to see them come to the fore. I'd tone back the grimderp Warhammer: The Final Frontier aspect of the game's storyline. So I'd really like to see a COLD war develop under the aegis of exploring the GQ.
6. Voyager has gotten quite a bit of love over the last couple of years, I'm not complaining about that mind you but DS9 needs a bit of love too. See how many of the DS9 cast are free to lend their voices. I wouldn't mind seeing a Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine make a cameo, or Julian Bashir head of Starfleet Medical. Or Odo. Or Nog. I reckon Aaron Eisenberg would jump at the chance at reprising his role.
7. I'd love to see TNG get some love too, but I'd fear the actors would be too expensive. But I'd see what we could do. Brent Spiner as Data or John DeLancie as Q would be great. So would having all of the cast but in-universe it might be hard to justify. I think Picard is dead at this point, Riker, Troi, Crusher and LaForge would be really old, only Data would be ageless. Similarly Q. But time travel might be a thing.
8. And then at the end of the day I'd probably be fired :V
I've said it several times and I'll say it one more time, they should hire a hardcore player to act as a link between the playerbase and developers.
not much of anything in one day........perhaps
Add Romulan SRO's to the embassy in science and engineering so Feds and Klingons can match up in crit chance to Romulans this should be easy
Cater in a Spread , Feast for a 3 hour lunch for the staff.....With Bacon of course
block the fails on advanced Q's that's very easy to do
chit chat with the real Devs and give them my views on how to make things more fun for players which in turn would make them more money for the game
not much more you could do in a day I would think
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Approve the addition of the new KDF race "Smooth Foreheaded Klingons."
Invent two new bridge officer traits called "Make My DPS GO" and "Cowardly Opportunist." Both identical to Superior Romulan Operative, but spawning on Federation Aligned Pakleds and the new KDF race "Smooth Foreheaded Klingons."
Propose the addition of a "Dominion Omni-directional Polaron Array" that's part of the Dominion set.
Finally add a Fleet Guramba, but make it a Tier-6 ship. Because it's fleet, it needs no new art assets.
Then take the rest of the day off because I'm not qualified to do any actual work, all the while hoping the new lead developer sticks with my ideas.
I would have a project wide meeting between the art/environment, design and system teams I would sit down and listen to their concerns about the game and listen to what they have to say. I would then weigh this against the C-Level execs and PWEs metrics and see what I could make happen for my team. I would push those metrics to the breaking point for creative over profit.
These meetings would be held once a month during the course of a season development or as needed.
The next thing to address is to change the corporate culture at my level to one of better quality management that would hopefully trickle down. If someone is an underperformer then they should be replaced for the good of the project and overall profitability of the project. With the money saved from the underperformer. With only one of the underperformers salaries I would create incentives for QA personnel to find the most game stopping bugs, with a ranking system with incentives for not only the winner but top 5 per month. This bonus being contingent on a good smooth release of weekly patches. The other part of the salary being paid for completing project deadlines with accuracy and quality as a bonus for the teams. It doesn't need to be big but a note of good work.
I would be an advocate for my team to the C-Level Execs not the other way around. I would put a hard cap on the hours able to be worked. 50 Hours maximum during slower development periods and 65 hours maximum during the last month to launch seasons not counting lunches. This would only be lifted in the event of a major game stopping bug or data security breach. Vacations after major launches would be encouraged highly and if a member was suffering from burnout would be on a list to switch projects for several months not let go if they were a decent performer.
Kinda of boring I know, but it would be my job to make a game and make money. My real job is to ensure the quality of my product as best as management will allow and to take care of the people that work for me while turning a profit. I could have listed off my personal wants but after all if it were my job was the question.
Then I would crawl through as much information as I can so I know precisely what is going on.
Then I would attempt to hold an AMA and give as many factual answers as possible - even if either the company or the community don't want to hear it.
At the end of the day everyone will be on the same page, and would appreciate why certain things are as they are. Cryptic meanwhile may rush to clean up the 'mess' I made
It's not that the Lead Designer doesn't call some of the shots. It's that if you were Lead Designer for a day, you would have no idea what you were doing, and would probably just follow along with whatever other people were already doing.
1 day is not enough time to come up to speed, and make a significant change.
Many of the things people in this thread are saying they'd do on their 1 day as Lead Designer, are things that would take weeks or months to happen. Ok, maybe you could dictate that they start doing something. But generally, you're involved in the entire process, and shape it as it goes. There is almost nothing that can be accomplished in a single day, especially if you're new.
Eh, we can do that whenever. Doesn't have to be a Friday.
(But I'm glad to see someone has some realistic expectations for their single day as Lead Dev
Some one starting and someone finishing on the same day? Wahay, double cake day! :-D
Thank you for the response.
Going with that theme of "long term projects", is there any chance you could put a worm into Salami's ear about bringing back Engineering Reports, or something of the like? Just so we know what's coming up and what the long term goals are
...I'd ask Tacofangs to dance the jig...or something.
...Then I'd take the art team out for lunch...at a Mexican restaurant...for tacos of course!
Ok, not all that serious of a reply, but all in good fun.
A more serious reply I'd probably be going around meeting all the devs because I truly want to know how the whole team works. Wouldn't get much done that day though!
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4:30 - Alarm goes off
5:00 - Realize that I don't have time to login to STO send out my doffs like I usually do before work, because I don't yet know how long the commute will take and have to leave way early to deal with Day 1 setup
5:45 - Arrive at work, realize that I don't yet have a badge, send email from my phone to the person who's supposedly my lead and ask them to come let me in
5:50 - Realize that my AD and Exchange Server credentials have still not been provisioned by IT; spend time eating breakfast and getting to know coworkers
6:00 to 7:00 - Roll chair over to coworker's desk while they show me the volume of email I'd be dealing with if my email was actually set up
7:00 to 8:00 - Corp login and email credentials provisioned; login to company laptop and receive an email from my manager with twenty links to applications I need to install, set up, and familiarize myself with in order to do my job - and do so while being constantly randomized by people coming over to say hi to the new person
8:05 - Laptop still not completely set up, no access to P4 or whatever code repo is being used; missed the morning standup because no one forwarded me the meeting request
8:30 - New employee orientation! Spend half an hour filling out hardcopy forms that duplicate information I've already provided, because HR and reasons
9:00 to 9:10 - Mandatory self-study HR materials on sexual harassment in the workplace, which involve a video that no one watches and questions everyone already knows how to answer
9:10 to 9:30 - Now that everyone's in the office except career developers who don't get out of bed before 10am (kidding! I love all you guys, even when you resolve my bugs as Won't Fix), endure the obligatory tour where I'm taken around the office and introduced to fifty people whose names I won't remember until I've heard them repeatedly
9:30 to 11:30 - Excruciatingly long meeting with the project managers and QA team where I largely sit there in silence and look derpy while everyone uses impenetrable internal jargon that I'm not expected to understand because it's my first day
11:30 - Still no access to repository, but that's okay because I really shouldn't be checking in anything on my first day anyway; spend time continuing to install required software on my laptop and set up rules to filter the deluge of email
11:40 - Shown where to find the beer in the walk-in cooler; day improves significantly
12:00 - 1:45 - "Working" lunch with the team that almost invariably involves Indian food and a lot more beer; I learn more during this lunch than in all of the training materials thus far combined
2:00 - Return to desk and learn that I missed several important emails and a meeting invite because they were buried amongst the other 2,000 emails with which I'm not yet familiar enough to write effective rules
2:10 - Trendy puts up a blog post announcing the change in leadership; manager strongly "suggests" that I jump in the forums and introduce myself in order to get to know the players in my new role
2:35 - After twelve pages of disparaging commentary about my ancestry, hobbies, habits, politics, criminal record, sexual orientation, hostility to PvP, past forum posts, involvement in every unpopular decision made since the game's launch, as well as my preferred operating system and game console, I manage to completely lose my **** at some idiot a valued customer and go on a 4,000-word rant about how the dev team could design a Tribble that ate latency and crapped Zen, and the forums would still explode with complaints that the cooldown was too long
3:05- Handed a cardboard box and escorted out of the building
Any resemblance to actual persons or events may or may not be the product of personal experience.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
This post is absolutely brilliant.
And totally accurate.. well done. I can tell just by reading it that you have also worked in an IT Office Environment. Very very 'on the nose.'