Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 217: Sun-sational Discussions (w/Giveaways)

midniteshadow7

Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 217: "Sun-sational Discussions" has warped on to Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from:

http://bit.ly/tie217

Another week’s worth of news is discussed from Star Trek Online, Star Trek Timelines, Unofficial Productions and more by the Tribbles in Ecstasy crew.

The topics discussed this week are:

• Star Trek Online,
• Events and Giveaways,
  • Star Trek Online coming to XBox One and PS4,
  • New Voiceovers coming to STO,
  • A new Foundry Challenge from Foundry Roundtable,
  • Agents of Yesterday Expansion,
  • Underrepresentation of Romulans and Klingons
• Star Trek Timelines (1:13:10),
• Star Trek News,
• Unofficial Star Trek Productions (1:27:35),
  • Star Trek Anthology,
  • Star Trek Renegades,
  • Star Trek Axanar
• Conventions (1:33:12),
• Other News,
• and more!

Our community questions this week are:
1. What are your thoughts on lack of content in the expansion for Romulans and Klingons?
2. What are you most looking forward to with the Agents of Yesterday expansion?
3. Have you played Agents of Yesterday on Tribble? What did you think of it? (no spoilers!)
4. Where did you come in the Blood and Circuses Event of ST: Timelines?
Did you go to FedCon? What did you think of it?

Please reply to this post with any feedback you have about any topic we've covered or even about the show in general, we'd love to hear what our listeners have to say. And feedback to us now and be entered in to a prize draw to get yourself a Star Trek Online Legacy of Romulus Starter Pack, Zen and Lockbox keys. Rules are here: http://holosuitemedia.com/tiefeedbackgiveaways2016/ - Just reply to this post to enter.


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.

LLAP

vengefuldjinn

I think adding TOS versions of KDF and Romies would be a boost in the arm for PVP, make PVP TOS oriented, set when all the factions were at odds with each other, BEFORE all the techno cheese, and reputation stuff.
Good old fashioned shoot'em ups, with very limited ships and balanced abilities. (Just connies, K't'inga and TOS Romulan bird's of prey. )

darakoss

vengefuldjinn wrote: »

I think adding TOS versions of KDF and Romies would be a boost in the arm for PVP, make PVP TOS oriented, set when all the factions were at odds with each other, BEFORE all the techno cheese, and reputation stuff.
Good old fashioned shoot'em ups, with very limited ships and balanced abilities. (Just connies, K't'inga and TOS Romulan bird's of prey. )

That would have been so epic! But I will still try the expansion since I am a big TOS fan.

Looking forward to see just how immersive this expansion is. TOS sounds and music would be a big plus.

No, I have not played it on Tribble. Not a lifer and last time I subbed was about three years ago.

I tried Timelines but way too many paywalls and bugs.

sisteric

vengefuldjinn wrote: »

I think adding TOS versions of KDF and Romies would be a boost in the arm for PVP, make PVP TOS oriented, set when all the factions were at odds with each other, BEFORE all the techno cheese, and reputation stuff.
Good old fashioned shoot'em ups, with very limited ships and balanced abilities. (Just connies, K't'inga and TOS Romulan bird's of prey. )

Doing it that way would have been like Starfleet Battles. That would have been cool. Seeing Rom's Klinks, Feds, Gorns and others in a computer setting. Would have been very cool.

alex1ger

Okay, tribbles, listen... there will not be a STOrytime today, because it seems like I need to go over some basics. O_o

But before we get into the boring stuff...



Community questions:


1.) So, when Al Rivera was asked about this, he said (parts of this were on twitter, other parts in the P1 interview) something to the effect that TOS was about the feds and klingons/romulans/other aliens basically existed to drive the fed plot forward.
Which is true, but did that really change during TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT? I mean, we got some glimpses into their respective cultures, but the main focus has been and will be the feds/starfleet, so... what's your point, Mr. Rivera?

The other explanation was, well, they couldn't possibly do three stories. And I actually agree with that.
I mean, look at SWTOR. They started with 8 different class stories and during RotHC they basically condensed it down to 2 (faction) stories. And later on you could make the argument that they went to 1.5 stories (SoR) and KotFE seems to be just 1 story. Maybe an active SWTOR player can come in and confirm this/correct me?

What I'm trying to say is, I understand not doing three separate stories. Why not make it a completely faction-agnostic expansion? (Because of immersion? Sorry, but that won't fly. Immersion, meet T6 TOS skins... T6 TOS skins hit immersion critically. Immersion dies.)
Why is there not a single klingon/romulan ship? No, those "cross-faction" ships don't count because they are starfleet ships. As evidenced by the Wells class starship. Unless you intend to retroactively make that one cross-faction as well.
Yeah, thought so.


2.) I'm looking forward to... uhm... either the day the stories start making sense or the day the expansion ends. Whichever happens first.
Right now, I'm betting on the following expansion. You cannot imagine how sad it makes me to say that.

Wait, wait, I got something. In all of that mess, I might cautiously look forward to Chekov. And whoever else they might get. EXCEPT for Shatner. Yeah, I know, he's gonna be too expensive anyway, but I wanted to get that out of my system.


3.) Oh hell no. Why would I do that?
Since the Temporal War nonsense is leading up to this, I think I would prefer not to play it at all, but as a trekkie I feel compelled to do it at least once. When it's live.


4.) I'm still not playing Timelines.


5.) No, I didn't.



Feedback:

Oh boy, where do I even begin...

MidNite, I never asked them to reveal "everything" immediately. I do understand "open plot points"/"loose ends" that get revisited/filled in/tied up later on.
Stuff like... where is Noye? I mean, he disappeared and even the RP blogs seem to have forgotten his existence. (I suppose that's on purpose, but at this point in time, I'm really not sure...)
Then there's the Iconian War. There's still a lot of loose ends in there.
I already mentioned Rinna Khev and Charva and Lt. Cmdr. VanZyl. Then there's Tom Paris' task force and probably some other stuff I'm missing.
Those are not plot holes, those are "loose ends"/"open plot points".

A plot hole is stuff like... if anyone had any semblance of competence, Noye could not have turned into a villain. Well, he could have, but he would have needed to be smart about it and then you would have needed to give him a motivation to get smart about this stuff and we can't have developed characters with proper motivations in our stories, can we?
So, can we agree on: "loose end/open plot point" != "plot hole"?

From my point of view, Cryptic basically builds their story arcs around "clever" reveals and tries to fill the gaps with something very remotely resembling a story. Seriously, I look at this stuff and it immediately falls apart. If I had to do some severe poking to unravel the story that would be a different... story...
What I am asking the writing team to do is... write a sensible, even compelling story and THEN try to seed your "clever" reveals afterwards.


Next up... announcements.


Announcements usually try to be... "surprising". When CaptainGeko and Kestrel lost their minds because of Liam McIntyre, they tweeted about it before we ever got to hear his voice.
Same thing with CaptainGeko's tweet about David Sobolov who voiced that gorilla on The Flash. (and Azmodan in Diablo 3, but who cares about voice actors, right?)
Same thing with the official announcements about Chase Masterson as Mirror Leeta or getting Michele Specht to voice some character (we now know that she voiced Krog).

Btw., when Cryptic/PW told us Salami_Inferno would make a big announcement at FedCon? The biggest announcement ever?
Yeah, the same console announcement that was not "first" announced at FedCon but here? 15? 20? hours before the FedCon panel?
Let me tell you something. Blizzard would not do something like that. When they said, there would be an announcement at GamesCom, the WoW: Legion expansion announcement happened at GamesCom. That's how you do an announcement at an event... Sure, someone at Blizzard (in their long history) might have pulled the trigger a few minutes early for some announcement, but 15? 20? HOURS early? *headdesk*
Poor Salami_Inferno.


Now, MidNite (sorry for calling you out here), when you put Vic Mignogna in the trailer, people might recognize his voice. If they recognize his voice, the element of surprise is... maybe not gone, since not everyone will notice it, but it diminishes any potential announcement.

I don't care what Cryptic/PW wants me/us to pay attention to. I will pay attention to whatever I choose to pay attention to. And if I want to pay attention to Vic Mignogna's voice, I will focus on his voice. And if the trailer is good enough, I might rewatch it to try and catch some details in the background.
Same thing with Uneasy Allies and Laura Bailey... That stuff might not be important to you, but it is important to some of us. Like the KDF or the roms, eh?

Oh, and MidNite... Yes, ST:C does not mean anything to an official production, but the devs announced all these people BECAUSE of ST:C. I highly doubt anyone would have announced... wait, let me rephrase that... nobody would have even tried to hire Michele Specht and Vic Mignogna if it wasn't for ST:C. Why? Because Cryptic showed time and again that voice actors aren't "important" enough to them.

Oh and @sunseahl yes, it was on... twitter? reddit? anyway, some dev said that Vic would voice a guy called... uhm... spoilers, sweety? No, seriously, would that be considered a spoiler?
But even if that had not been the case, saying you only found out about it through "back channels" and then namedropping your source was... uhm... an interesting move to say the least.


Unfortunately, I'm not done yet. When the 5/5 thing happened, Trendy tweeted about how some people were... upset? angry? that the 5/5 teaser was basically just "announcing an announcement" and then she said how they made some more announcements.
Okay, Trendy... I'm with you when it comes to the fact that an expansion announcement is a rather big deal and being disappointed/angry/upset about the 5/5 thing being "just" an announcement is stupid.
But technically those people are right. All those things you mentioned were part of the expansion announcement. When you announce an expansion, you do not just announce the expansion.
Remember the Delta Rising announcement? The devs did not just go on stage and say: "We are gonna do an expansion, it's called Delta Rising. Thank you for your attention and good night!". No, part of that announcement were the new levelcap, the Delta Quadrant, Captain Harry Kim, T6 ships, "Your old ships won't be obsoleted!"
When WoW announces an expansion... new levelcap, new playable classes/races (if applicable), new "continents", maybe a new system or two? All that good stuff is part of the announcement.
When LotRO announces an expansion... new levelcap, new classes (if there is one), some new game system (if there is one), new zones...
So, the 5/5 thing did "announce an announcement". But not just any announcement, but an expansion announcement. THAT could/would/should have been your hook.


You know what, let me talk about one last thing... There was an MMO and as (probably?) all MMOs do, it launched an expansion. And some players were not that happy. So the devs announced an expansion that would "go back to the roots" of the franchise. Which involves timetravel and parallel universes. Guess what? People seemed to love that expansion since subscription numbers went up. Until people left in droves and subscription numbers plummeted faster than ever before.
What am I talking about? The "hated" Mists of Pandaria and the "beloved" Warlords of Draenor. I always said MoP wasn't as bad as people made it out to be and WoD wasn't as great as people made it out to be. Seems like I was right.

So... don't repeat (Blizzard's) history, Cryptic. Prove me wrong. Make this the best expansion ever. Give me good stories.
Convince me that those T6 TOS skins are a great... you know what... you can't, so don't even try.
Still, make this a great expansion, give me good stories. That won't be easy, but if it was, it wouldn't be fun, would it?

sunseahl

I'm... more or less, kinda further disheartened that nobody's said anything about my soapbox moment.... It makes me feel like I should just walk away from STO alltogether if I'm the only one feeling that way.​​

sisteric

Hi Alex,

So story "plotholes", I have a serious question about this. When does a unresolved plotpoint becomes a plothole?

In many shows that I watch, there plot points left unresolved for seasons and then brought back around closed. Some shows ended before the plots were closed. Heck my favorite book series has major plot points developed in the book 2 that in book twelve still remains unresolved. And characters of major and minor importance to the story may not even be covered in one book or two and then suddenly appear again with out explanation. This book series is great and does very well, and yet no one complains about these unresolved plot points.

STO seems to try to follow this style. Albeit not as effectively has others have done, but that is my general perception of their story telling process. And in this fashion, NPC's will come in and out of the story as necessary to tell the main story with out regard to why's and how's they became involved. And once they are gone, there is no need to follow up on their story because it's not important to the story at the time. End result is that there will be plot points that are not such to them, only to us. And the importance of those points are on us, and not on them or the story.

Also, as we are taking the role of being a Starship "Captain", we will not be privy to all of the data collection and intel that say, Admiral Quinn or J'mpok or even D'Tan could possibly have. And as I have learned from my stay in the military, Command feels no obligation to tell you anything outside of what they want you to do. We are military commanders in charge of a military unit, going on military missions to complete military objectives. This is truly what we are doing. So the all these plotholes and missing NPC's are just the fog of war that comes with being in the military. I overlook these things because I view it as either these NPC's have moved outside of the purview of my government, went into hiding, or that information is above my clearance at this time. Will I get to know everything, probably not. Would I like to know everything, definitely.

Now, I won't say that there are time that they TRIBBLE up, we have the poisoning of J'mpok as a great example of how they mishandled the storytelling and the information that needed to be presented because it would help explain why the story went where it did.

The announcement of the Agents of Yesterday is severely lacking in details that you would expect of a expansion announcement. And those points you made in that regard I whole heartedly agree with. This Agents trailer appeared more of a teaser trailer for the expansion than actually an expansion announcement. And I would hope by now that they know what they are going to put in. They don't have to announce everything, but the major things should have been announced. I would like to see a proper announcement for an expansion.

As for Vic Mignogna voicing things, I have never watched ST:C. HIs voice would not have been know to me. Same with the rest of the cast. In fact, only because the announced Ms. Specht that I even know of ST:C. And because of that I became aware of Vic and the rest of the cast. But if I had not looked it up, all of these names, outside of Chris Dohaan, I would not have recognized till they got to an actual actor of Star Trek. And I would hazard a guess that most people in STO probably do not know of these artist. It's not a knock against them, I am sure that many people do enjoy their work, but there is not a lot of people I know of that know of these fan productions. And until I started listening to Tribbles, I never know about them either.

I think I have droned on long enough...

sisteric

sunseahl wrote: »

I'm... more or less, kinda further disheartened that nobody's said anything about my soapbox moment.... It makes me feel like I should just walk away from STO alltogether if I'm the only one feeling that way.​​

I am at odds with your soapbox, but feel no need to invalidate what you have said. It is how YOU feel, and I don't. And I don't think I can say anything to change that feeling in you. So I remained quiet.

As for leaving STO, I wouldn't want you to leave unless you just can't find any enjoyment anymore.

sunseahl

sisteric wrote: »

sunseahl wrote: »

I'm... more or less, kinda further disheartened that nobody's said anything about my soapbox moment.... It makes me feel like I should just walk away from STO alltogether if I'm the only one feeling that way.

I am at odds with your soapbox, but feel no need to invalidate what you have said. It is how YOU feel, and I don't. And I don't think I can say anything to change that feeling in you. So I remained quiet.

As for leaving STO, I wouldn't want you to leave unless you just can't find any enjoyment anymore.

I love the community i've become family to... If it weren't for that... I probably would have left. I guess I'm just feeling more and more just.... out of place... like i don't belong if i'm the only one feeling this way.​​

alex1ger

Okay, the following should not be considered "proper" feedback.


@sunseahl
Okay, uhm, how do I put this... I understand where you're coming from. You may regularly bark up the wrong trees and forget that Cryptic operates on a tiny team and (presumably) a tiny budget, but there's usually a good thought hidden somewhere within that rant.
Although the "tiny team and tiny budget" argument flies out the window when you consider the time and effort and money they must have put into those stupid consoles... I'm one of those "PC master race" kind of people. Biggest announcement ever? Yeah, not for me.

But what I'm trying to say is...
Have you not noticed my feedback, especially the "story" reviews, getting increasingly frustrated and angry at the writing team? And yes, those quotation marks are there on purpose.
The way I tore through the gosh darn stupid T6 classic skin Excelsior and now we get T6 TOS skins. How did you think I would feel about that?

You know, if they ever do announce anything like a T6 (or let's call it "endgame") Connie (Btw., it's the Constitution. The Constellation is that four-nacelled abomination.) or that other thing that has been speculated about, that's when I get my soapbox moment.
Seriously, if you wanted to make "TOS Online", you should have made "TOS Online" and I would not have played it. What's the point in setting this whole game in 2409/2410 when you "boldly retread where a bunch of other people have gone before"?
When I ask for "Gamma Rising" or "Legacy of Cardassia", I'm not asking to replay DS9, I want those set-pieces and then... go forward. See new stuff. Explore strange new worlds. Avoid the stupid Dominion.


@sisteric "When does an unresolved plot point become a plot hole?"
Usually it doesn't. It stays an unresolved plot point. I mean, if a plot fails to make sense because of one tiny detail, it might be a plot hole or an as of then unresolved plot point.

The problem with the STO stories is, they fail to make sense because of everyone's complete and utter incompetence. It's like Spock's brain, but EVERY brain got stolen and for some reason people are still walking and talking. We are basically playing "STO: The walking brain-dead." That cannot possibly be explained later on. Well, they could try, but there's no way I would believe it, so it's a plot hole... or rather plot canyon.
Or the repeated complete and utter disregard for the Temporal Prime Directive. Do it once, might be a plot point. Do it as often as you did, shoddy writing. I mean, honestly, OUR temporal investigations should have been all over us how many times now?

And yes, in the military you don't get to know all the details. Just the stuff you have to know.
But... Tovan Khev is supposedly our "friend" and yet he never mentions his sister and her well-being ever again. Or Charva. We, as players, are not in the military. And even if we don't get to know this onscreen (which we should, since we're not front-line grunts, but super-mega-ultra-grand-poobah admirals!), why has there never been a follow-up RP blog to any of this?
But, like I said, those are not plot holes, they are "loose ends". Will they ever get tied up? I kinda doubt it. The devs probably forgot about their existence (well, they did remember VanZyl once, they might remember her again in another expansion...).

About important facts that failed to show up in the announcement... what exactly are you referring to? I mean, it's TOS, so I kinda tuned out.
I mean, I know what kind of information you're talking about. Remember the whole Delta Rising "Your old ships won't be obsoleted." thing and the T5U blog was... one of the last blogs to be published, iirc. And immediately after launch CaptainGeko went to P1 and got all smug about it, like... people wanted all the information at once and they could not have handled that much stuff... Yeah, no. I mean, some people probably did, but you knew what was the most controversial part of your announcement. The most important information people have been looking... clamoring for.
I know, I know. Cryptic kinda knew what T6 meant, because they wanted to start selling that pack soon after, but they were still making up their minds about what "your old ships won't be obsoleted" was even supposed to mean. Guess what? Not my problem.
I always enjoy devs who just talk about their visions and "let loose" a little. Even if the stuff doesn't come to pass. That was the one time I wished Geko had just stayed quiet. Oh well. *shrug*

And about ST:C... that's exactly my point. People get announced because the devs enjoy their work without regards to what some of their other voice actors might have accomplished.
As long as it's just official Star Trek actors reprising their (maybe one-time) role... fine. As soon as you blur that line, I will tear into you for disrespecting your other voice actors. All I've ever been asking for is consistency.

sisteric

sunseahl wrote: »

sisteric wrote: »

sunseahl wrote: »

I'm... more or less, kinda further disheartened that nobody's said anything about my soapbox moment.... It makes me feel like I should just walk away from STO alltogether if I'm the only one feeling that way.

I am at odds with your soapbox, but feel no need to invalidate what you have said. It is how YOU feel, and I don't. And I don't think I can say anything to change that feeling in you. So I remained quiet.

As for leaving STO, I wouldn't want you to leave unless you just can't find any enjoyment anymore.

I love the community i've become family to... If it weren't for that... I probably would have left. I guess I'm just feeling more and more just.... out of place... like i don't belong if i'm the only one feeling this way.​​

Hey Sun, I play this game primarily solo. Usually people are not on when I finally get on. I have grown accustomed to being the lone player in an MMO. Feeling out of place is normal for me when I join group content.

sisteric

Alex, the point of the question was viewpoint. All those things you state as plot holes I think more of as unresolved plot points that may never get resolved.

STO stories are like fan fic to me. Leaping points of imagination for me. Now, they do write sometimes better, and sometimes worse, that other fan fic I have read. But none of these people make their living by writing novels. SO I give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to believability, consistency and plot points. each is it's own little capsule of time, describing a moment not in the game to help us understand what is going on in the game. But I really think that they should tell the whole story in the game. But not even Blizzard does that.

As for the announcement, they did not cover anything other that the general time of release, the name of the expansion and some nice images. There was not any statements of what was coming in the next expansion in the announcement. No details like there is a new TOS-Fed faction, new ships, new starting story arc, continuation of the temporal story arc or any other thing that we know has to come in the announcement. This so unlike every other expansion announcement put out by any other game development company I know of. Instead of try to give us something to excited about in facts, they expect everyone to get excited about the pics only. And that doesn't cut it for me. If you are going to announce something, make sure you actually state what the major features are going to be. The features that you know will not be pulled, are part of the core of the expansion, or are the parts that you have completed or are almost done with. Details and data is much more important in an announcement that just pictures.

As for Tovan Khev and his sister, that I agree with, in that we haven't been told anything new. ANd the thing that could be done to rectify this is just by updating Tovan Khev himself. Say what he knows of his siter in his background page. That way, you can just go look if you want to know. Charva's fate is not ours to decide. And her fate is one of those things that I just think we are not cleared to know.

ANd as I have stated before, they could fix these plot holes by making the Ready Room console have these updates in text formats so that people could find out when ever they wish. There is a lot of things they could do in a cheap, cost effective way to clear up some of the plot points. But there are others that I think they have deliberately left blank, like where Sela is now. Even the disappearance of the Noye I think is understandable and deliberate. And was left unanswered in order to generate speculation. And I think Noye will return at some point because in the last mission we fought with him he indicated that we were always interfering with his plans. This was foreshadowing and may have been too subtle for people based on how people reacted.

alex1ger

I'm not sure how "The walking brain-dead" and the continuing violations of the TPD could be plot points. They are clearly plot holes to me, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree there.

The difference between fan fic and the STO writing team is, even if they are not novelists, they do get paid (to some degree) to come up with this stuff, so I will judge them based on that.
I would be much more lenient with a foundry author. (If I played foundry missions, which I probably should...)
Well, that and the fact that they are actually good at telling stories.
It's just... all NPCs are completely incompetent and ignorant and useless. I want to defeat Noye and take the Annorax to annihilate the universe, because everyone is too dumb to live. The people I'm supposed to save deserve to die! That is not how a story should make me feel. Unless I'm supposed to turn into the villain...

Star Trek Online Expansion 4: Galactic overlord.
Enslave strange new worlds, annihilate new civilizations, boldly conquer what no one has conquered before!
You heard it here first, folks...

About the announcement... uhm... there was a lot of stuff, all over the official website and reddit and twitter and... wait, that's the point you wanted to make, isn't it?
When Blizzard makes an expansion announcement, they have a dedicated website going online (and crashing under the incoming traffic...) that contains all the information. Basically a one-stop-shop for all the available information that gets updated with every new reveal.
Whereas Cryptic/PW/the devs themselves spread all the information all over the official site (a million dev blogs and news posts) and twitter and reddit and probably some facebook and interviews with podcasts and gaming sites and so on and if you find something: Good on you, mate.
Good point there. Would be really nice to have some place that got all the links readily available.

I guess that's it for this week.

sisteric

PlotHoles discussion...fair enough.

Writing style. I see your point. I will modify my view on their writing to expect better than Fan Fic but less than a novelist. I still can't expect them to be good as Weber or Eddings.

And hey, the next expansion might just be Mirror Universe, you are from the Mirrorverse on a mission to conquer all!

Two points, all the info in one spot, but also, every announcement trailer always extolled what they planned on bringing into the game. This trailer had nothing. No talk of a new faction, or story arcs or anything. Just neat pictures and a cryptic date at the end. Not what an announcement trailer should be, but as a teaser trailer it's darn good.