[PODCAST] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 191: "The Morning After"

midniteshadow7

Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 191: "The Morning After" has been published on Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from: http://bit.ly/1N4so9y

Captain MidNite Shadow discusses all the news from Star Trek Online and Star Trek with the crew of the USS Tribble where this week we discuss:

• 20% Costume Sale,
• Season 11 is LIVE,
• New Featured Episode & Week 1 Rewards,
• Adjusting Season 11 Terran Mark Rewards,
• Lockbox Ship Stats,
• the new Role Playing Blog,
• Return of Hearts and Minds,
• Arc Voice,
• STO Release Notes,
• Internity,
• Star Trek Renegades,
• 5th Passenger,
• Star Trek: Captain Pike,
• and more!

Please help friend of the show and fellow Star Trek Online player and podcaster Mav with donations to support his recovery with his current health situation here: http://www.gofundme.com/tomsrecovery.

alex1ger

Hello there.

As you might have noticed, I was not there for the live show. Why? Well, remember when sunseahl said (last episode) I would have to stay up one hour longer because the US went back to standard time this weekend (after the show) while EU did last weekend?
When I showed up a couple of minutes before 2 a.m. the show was running.
Wait, the show started early? That's new...
Wait, why does it sound like they are winding down? sunseahl said... *tribble purr*
Never trust sunseahl! Ever... (notice the smiley)



Choose your ship design:
I might have missed it, but I don't think we have talked about the fact that Omega won. As I mentioned before, I was not invested in that contest, so none of the designs were really tickling my fancy, but... well, I kinda like those enormous forcefields to imply that it's a carrier. I'm not sure whether it was the best design possible, but I do consider it one of the more fitting designs.



Borticus on reddit:
Okay, sunseahl, you are really stretching it here with that comparison. So, I'm gonna poke a hole into your hole-poking...
An episode consists of many different things. Story, mission design/flow, art.
The rewards are... the cherry on top of a (more or less) delicious cake. Now, you may not like cherries, but you could have the decency to acknowledge that the rest of the cake exists...
The way I understand it, Borticus got (understandably if I might say so...) upset because people smeared the cake all over the place just because they did not like the cherry...

The klingon situation is different. I know, you are tired of hearing this argument, so let me try to make it more juicy...
If Star Trek was a hamburger, Starfleet/the Federation are basically the bun AND the beef patty. Always have been and probably always will be...
Klingons are... uhm... the tomato slices? Or would you consider the sauce(s) to be more important? You can be the sauce(s) then...
You can make a burger without the tomatoes, it won't quite be a hamburger, but it would be pretty close.
Now make a burger without the bun and the beef patty. You don't have a burger, you've got some sort of salad...
You can ask for a few more tomato slices on your hamburger, but remember that this is still supposed to be a hamburger, not a tomatoburger...



Hearts and minds:
Okay, sunseahl, this is not "bonnie-kin", I'll give you that.
I'd argue that it is much more cerebral than that.

This is about having lost contact with this scientist who is alone in a research facility.
This is about you going in there and finding strange clues. Not scary, but maybe a little creepy?
This is about immersing yourself in the "mystery" presented. What kind of weird things happened here?
This is about morality/ethics and science.

Maybe this episode should not be advertised as a "halloween/friday 13th" episode, because people seem to expect something more straightforward... Jump scares? "Ghosts"? Gore?

But I don't see why it would need to be revamped. It was an episode that a dev made in his spare time. I do appreciate it for what it is. A short little mission that asks you to use your imagination.
And if that's not your thing, just rush through it to get the DOff and the Lirpa.
And if that's not your thing... don't play it?

Although... maybe it would be scarier if the clones that showed up in the end asked in unison: "Are you my mummy?"



Featured Episode Sunrise:
Mmh... I'm not quite sure what to think, yet. I mean, I liked trying to figure out the problem with the star and the first contact part (which was a bit rushed/too short in my opinion), but then the time travel stuff just forces its way into the episode. Yes, I know, time travel is supposed to be the big theme here. I'm just saying that the pacing felt off to me.
So I guess I'll have to wait for the next episode (or the whole story arc?) to rate this properly.



Klingon ships don't sell:
How many ships that have been "eaten alive" were science ships? None? Now we're getting somewhere... You place the burden of proof on Cryptic. Well, they do put out KDF ships, just not as many. Because there are just not as many players.
And they don't put out KDF science vessels. Because they tried twice and the KDF players voted with their wallets saying that they didn't want those science ships. I know, you are tired of these facts, but... uhm... you just seem to ignore them all the time, so I feel like I have to bring them up all the time.
Now, the whole kickstarter thing... I'm not working for Cryptic/Perfect World, but that idea has been mentioned (by CaptainGeko?) somewhat tongue-in-cheek style in an interview or two quite a while ago. So maybe the higher echelons did not approve of this idea? Maybe there's some sort of legal issue they don't want to touch?



Mav:
You know, It's amazing that so few people managed to donate so much money. Now, my "problem" here is the following... Turning off his electricity? I don't know the habits in the US (maybe you could enlighten us non-US citizens there?), but in my country they usually don't turn off your electricity if you fail to pay once. Besides, if you're in that kind of trouble, wouldn't you qualify for some kind of financial aid? Let's call it "welfare" for lack of a better word...

Now, I'm not saying that everybody here in my country is okay with our "welfare" system. I mean, yellow press likes to single out people who abuse the system to rage against the system as a whole for about a week. And the following week they publish a tear-jerking story about a family that went broke through no fault of their own and the financial aid doesn't quite cut it for them. "Won't somebody please think of the children?"...

But whenever this kind of... "problem" presents itself it seems to me like some parts of the US audience are somewhat more likely to just go "You want money? Work harder. What? You cannot work? You are just lazy! Work harder! I said WORK HARDER!" whereas people here will rage at "lazy people" but generally seem to accept the general "need" for some sort of "welfare" system especially if someone is fighting some disorder. (Although physical disorders are more accepted than mental disorders...)

I guess my question is... Is that just from my limited outside perspective or did the US citizens among you experience that stuff yourselves at some point in time? Maybe through a family member? A friend? An acquaintance? And the other countries you're coming from, like Australia and the UK? What seems to be your societies' take on these kinds of issues?

No matter your answers, I think we can safely say that we (all of us) still got quite a few steps ahead of us on our way to a "trek society"...

This is not meant to be a political discussion, this is more about the inner workings/attitudes of different societies. Please treat it as such.

sisteric

Hi Alex1ger:

The winner was not really talked about. We didn't have everyone on and between technical difficulties for some people and lack of time for others, we didn't get it into the show notes. I'll see what can be done to rectify that.

Borticus apologizing for what he said was nice of him. And why he blew his top, maybe I didn't say it quite well enough. But you are right, he got upset about people being upset about the mission because the rewards were not "good" enough. And I understood his frustration and didn't even think to blame him for his statements. Seemed reasonable, if a little aggressive, to me. And yes, people should really consider what they like about a mission and then present it before stating what they didn't like. It works better as way to get your point across.

Klingons.....what can be said more? Klingons are second class to the Feds from a development standpoint mainly because Star Trek has always been centered on the Feds. And because of that, there will always be more people interested in playing as a Fed as to any other Galactic Power. And with the limited amount of official information about Klingons, and even more so the Romulans, it's always going to be this way. Could they promote the Klingons better to increase there sales? I think they could a helluva better job than they are doing. But I think that the weighed their manpower options and choose the current model as being the most effective us of their available manpower and resources. It's hard to know the truth though when they hide all the information from us.

Don't put this all on sunseahl about Hearts & Mind. I also said that it's not very scary. I don't think that they approached this mission really from the standpoint of it being a scary, or Halloween themed, mission. It's more of dealing with the fallout from amoral decision making. "What lies below" is way more thematically Halloweenish for it's use of lighting, it's story presentation and it's dialogue. They made it creepy in ways they didn't even seem to try to do with "Hearts & Minds". There doesn't need to be surprises or gore to make it scary, it has to be presented in a fashion that is scary or creepy. Now if they took H&M and turned the lighting down, through in some creepy creaks, groans and possibly whispers, and then maybe showed some more video logs of Doctor losing control of clones, or even better have different clones actually making their logs with their twisted viewpoints and not tell that they clones would have gone a long way towards hyping the spooky factor, I think. They can keep the game play the same and just add these things would truly make it more of a Halloween-like episode than it is now.

Back to Klingons again...lol. Making Klingon ships will only happen when they can bundle it with Fed Ships, because they sell well that way. That's all I have to say about that.

Mav's situation is dire. His electricity being turned off is not an unheard of thing. Being that we are a capitalist economy in the US and the Government is "supposed" to have a relatively hands off over this section of the business practices. Which means that Power companies can turn off power when the bill is not paid. Most Companies will refuse after two months have not been paid, but that is not consistent across the board. That said, getting "welfare" from the County, Cities and State and Federal is general a long, paperwork intensive and time consuming effort at best. And my experience with has been that usually the aid comes normally about month or two after you desperately had need of it. And with the number of limitations and time limits placed on such aide it makes it short lived and usually not nearly sufficient enough to pay for all the basic needs for the average American family. I really hope for the best for Mav, and wish I could do more. But I am doing all that I can for him and still making sure that my family is cared for too. And I don't think that the Star Trek like society will ever occur till we reach that point where the pursuit of wealth is not an option any more. Where the pursuit of knowledge replace wealth accumulation and that all people get the same level care for health, food and materials need. The Government funding for "welfare" is woefully underfunded in the US due not only to why the budget is reached (by committee) but also by what how the people voted. Whether we directly voted on the bills, or by who we voted into office. But, in general, welfare doesn't get funded as much as schools on local level, and the military on the national level. And people in the US general have a poor view of people on welfare, and most people on welfare feel embarrassed when on welfare.

I hope I stayed away from politics well enough, and the above opinions are wholly mine.

sunseahl

I really haven't been in the mood to reply this week... Honestly I've not felt too well at all. Maybe next week will be better.​​