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[PODCAST] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 238: "Where's The Hype?"
midniteshadow7
Member Posts: 787 Arc User
Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 238: "Where's The Hype?" has warped on to Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from:
This week we go through all the recent news from Star Trek Online (0:04:44), Star Trek Online on Consoles (0:39:11), Star Trek Timelines (0:48:51), Destination Star Trek Europe (0:59:43), Listener Feedback (1:15:56) and more!
Our community questions this week are:
1. What do you think of the new Star Trek Online Tier 6 ships replacing the Tier 5 ones?
2. What are your thoughts on the letter from Star Trek Timelines to the community?
This week we go through all the recent news from Star Trek Online (0:04:44), Star Trek Online on Consoles (0:39:11), Star Trek Timelines (0:48:51), Destination Star Trek Europe (0:59:43), Listener Feedback (1:15:56) and more!
Our community questions this week are:
1. What do you think of the new Star Trek Online Tier 6 ships replacing the Tier 5 ones?
2. What are your thoughts on the letter from Star Trek Timelines to the community?
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Comments
Is this like in reference to the entire concept or specific ships? Specifically: I'm really looking forward to the T6 Sovereign. The Sovereign was the ship my characters have flown the most over the years, but I moved away from it to the Guardian on my main. Then AoY happened and I switched to a TOS character and fly TOS ships. But a T6 Sovereign will breathe new life into that character I've switched from. So that will be fun. I also finally have an excuse to buy an Attack Wing ship. So I like this promotion a lot.
In General: T6 is fun. The traits are a new dimension to gameplay. The spec seating is another new dimension. It's a decent way to build the game out, without relying on constant level cap raises and tier raises.
Specifically we were talking about the replacement of the T5 Lockbox Ships with their T6 counterparts via the Infinity Lockbox.
Ohhhhhhhhh. Ok. That makes more sense. I'm a fan of the idea. And the infinity lockbox is kind of the perfect vehicle for such an idea.
Granted I'm not fully invested in the economy so I'm not worried about the impact the infinity lockbox is having on exchange value of items. So there's that.
The Keldon class may be a nice upgrade... but the Galor SHOULD be cheaper now, not MORE expensive....
Same with the Jemmy ships.... They should be cheaper... not more expensive now that they have T6 counterparts. Keeping the level 50 T5 variant prizes is a way to help entry-level end-game players with not a lot of Cash4Keys and who DO spend their "cheeks in seats" time grinding out for a ship without spending multiple hundreds of millions of EC or Millions of Dil for one.
when cryptic sells a T6 ship in store.... do they sell it for 30 dollars while jacking up the price of the T5 version to 40/50? no.... because it's still THERE.
This is just another "lets remove the thing" argument with what i feel will be followed by an "exclusivity" excuse later.
Keldon
The main differences are that the Lt. Universal slot has been bumped up to Lt. Commander Universal/Intel and that the Lt. Engineering has been given the Intel hybrid specialization. In case anyone forgot, a hybrid seating doesn't force you to use Intel, Command or Pilot boff skills if you don't want to. It's just there to give you more options. Both ships still keep the same number of free Spiral Wave Disruptors with the same weapon mods, four of them with [Acc]x2 [Dmg]x2. Both ships also have the same starship mastery package. So both get Absorptive Hull Plating, Rapid Repairs, Enhanced Hull Plating, and Armored Hull.
Since you can still use the Galor skin on the Keldon, you're losing nothing major when you make the transition from T5 to T6. You're honestly only gaining. So unless someone just prefers a definitively outclassed ship, there's no reason to be upset about replacing the T5 ships. I'm not quite sure why someone would bother buying a discontinued Galor for hypothetical hundreds of millions of EC when the Keldon is exactly the same, only better. The admiralty card is the only thing that you'd be missing out on, but I'm not losing any sleep over it. If someone is losing sleep, then I'm sorry about your OCD.
Everything I said applies to the Jem'Hadar ships as well. They are also straight upgrades. The consoles that they come with are the same, except that the enhanced T6 consoles come with passives. As for what I actually think about all this, it's great. New cosmetic skins, more options from the specialization hybrid seatings, and more starship traits to play with. Ultimately, I enjoy seeing these older ships receiving the same treatment and being more flexible.
For those feeling bitter about already acquiring the T5 versions and feeling as if they have to reacquire these new T6 ones all over again, don't fall for it. T5-U is still very viable for endgame content.
That Attack Wing promo tease got me giddy.
Think of it this way, Sun. If the Keldon doesn't drop to about 160-190 mil (or perhaps even less) in two to three weeks, then it will by the time we get to the next infinity lockbox rerun. That's the beauty of the infinity lockbox. Letting players choose their reward changes everything. You can still have your Keldon with Galor skin if you're patient and have the EC.
Another week, another wall of feedback.
Community questions:
1.) That is an interesting question, I'd say as long as the T6 ship is strictly better (gains something, but does not lose anything) I can understand it and don't mind it too much. Well, under one condition:
When/if Cryptic implements a way to obtain ships that were supposed to be "exclusive" (like the event ships), these retired lockbox/lobi ships should be made available, too.
Maybe make them harder to acquire compared to event ships.
Maybe take away the ability to upgrade them to T5-U for free.
Maybe make event ships account-wide and keep the lockbox/lobi ships as character unlocks, but just because of their usefulness for the admiralty system I think they should not just "disappear".
2.) Nope, not playing Timelines, but let me just say something... What does their new game have to do with anything? I mean, cross-promoting another game you're developing is all fine and dandy, but why would you do that in a "state of the game" kind of blog? I mean, the guy literally says that their new game won't have a negative effect on Timelines. Case closed, no need to write a whole paragraph about it.
Feedback:
Communication, Community and you 101:
See, in episode 237 MidNite claimed that the whole communication thing (engineering reports, ask cryptic and so on) stopped because it only caused hate and backlash and misunderstandings and trolling. That is a nice theory, but it shows that you're not following other games/MMOs. (I apologize if that sounded condescending, because that was not my intention.) Why? Because pretty much every game forum ever is a cesspool.
And guess what... Everybody else keeps trying. So communication must be beneficial in some way, shape or form. You say that people don't understand "soon". A few weeks ago, I linked a semi-humorous post made by Sapience (a former community manager for Lord of the Rings Online) that "explained" the meaning of a few variations of the word "soon". That post was made years ago. If people want to misunderstand "soon", they will misunderstand "soon". And there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Another interesting insight into the community management thing: Use your favorite search engine and look for "Tseric". He was a community manager for World of Warcraft. And one day he made two or three forum posts pretty much dropping the act and saying how community management was not about "winning" but about how long you can stand the constant trolling. I probably don't need to mention that he was replaced soon after... That happened YEARS ago.
When you asked the listeners to come up with suggestions how to improve communication without causing hate and backlash and taking up any dev-time... you pretty much asked for the holy grail. I don't have that holy grail and I doubt I will ever find it (since not even juggernauts like ActivisionBlizzard and EA can seem to find it), but I can assure you, I would NEVER just hand it over to Perfect World. I'd try to sell the secret to Blizzard.
Now that we got that out of the way, why did the engineering reports and ask cryptic things stop? Well, my theory is... because DanStahl and BranFlakes left. Some dev (whether it's "a" lead designer or the executive producer/game director) has to spend time either talking to the community team or writing the blog himself/herself to get a "state of the game" blog out there. DanStahl seemed to enjoy doing that. Stephen D'Angelo apparently didn't enjoy it as much and let's not forget that he was doing "double duty" as both Cryptic's CTO and STO's EP at the same time.
And the community team needs to have the time to read through the forums, collect useful feedback, pass it on to the devs, wait for their answers, take those answers and put them into a forum post. And having a devtracker is really REALLY useful for that kind of communication. So when you decide to use a forum that does not support a devtracker feature, you are actually making a statement about the value of communication whether you want to or not.
I think I said it before, no matter what you thought about Brandon, he made the job look easy. When he left and Trendy and Smirk were hired, Smirk tried to keep communication (and livestreams) going. But as I mentioned, his operations report died rather quickly and both of them seemed to be overworked right from the start. And then Perfect World decided that they didn't need Smirk anymore. Since then Trendy is even more overworked (and underappreciated).
And let's not forget one of your past interviews... someone mentioned that Maria is scheduling the dev interviews now. I cannot imagine any company EVER letting a dev handle that kind of task. Kudos to her for stepping up, but what in the blazes is Perfect World doing?
And that's not the only issue with them. Remember the Legacy of Romulus announcement? Of course you do, you brought it up during this episode. That might not have been the most original announcement teaser, but it was well executed, so... whether Brandon did all of it by himself or not, that was well done. And let's be fair, coming up with an entirely new way to do this kind of thing is basically impossible.
Now let's look at the Delta Rising announcement. See, when Blizzard announces a new expansion, they are pretty tight-lipped about it. People dig for new trademarks, but for the most part everything is a surprise. Before Delta Rising we had Cryptic devs showing up for interviews and pretty much saying: "Next stop: Delta Quadrant". You know, Lord of the Rings Online can get away with that, because... if you know the books and/or the movies you pretty much know where the story is going. Sure, Turbine can do some backtracking here and there, but for the most part it's rather obvious what's coming up.
In my opinion, the biggest surprise about Delta Rising was that it was released... what... 10-12 weeks after the announcement?
But that was not the worst part, because other companies put together a new website about their upcoming expansions and flip the switch when the announcement happens or at least the following workday. And usually those websites go down immediately because they can't handle the traffic.
How long did it take Perfect World to put up an official announcement of some kind? A week? *facepalm*
Other issues with Perfect World? Well, remember how Stephen Ricossa was supposed to make an exclusive announcement at FedCon and then someone at Perfect World published the blog about that announcement... 15-20 hours early?
Or remember the "Conquests" blog? The one with S'taa's or whatever his name is and Kuumarke that you talked about during the show? That blog went up in europe (german and french translations) about 2.5 weeks early...
Oh and remember how I said that both Smirk and Trendy always seemed to be overworked? So Trendy got promoted and STO launched on consoles supposedly bringing in a bunch of new people, which in theory increases the workload for any community manager and NOW they seem to be trying to find a new community manager for STO.
You know, it would have made sense to hire and train a new community manager BEFORE launching on consoles. So they can dig right in? No? That would have been too logical?
I have no clue who at Perfect World is responsible for this, but ever since Brandon left, it seems like the person in charge has no clue how to do this commu... communi... "talky stuffz" or they simply don't care. *shrugs*
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Jupiter_Class_Dreadnought <-- And that's different from the Jupiter Carrier.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Even before I started co-hosting on Tibbles this was a question to Devs. Jupiter and Typhoon classes, when? And every time the answer was given...
These ships were created as last minute kit-bashes before most of the end game ships were even fully designed. They were placeholders for the ships they would represent.
As far as I'm aware the Jupiter dreadnaught is now mostly phased out of the STO ship lists, replaced by Odyssey and Gal-x variants(the intended "dreadnought" ships that the placeholder was created for) and the Jupiter class carrier was intended as the "you guys have wanted it, we hated the old thing so pick one we designed" replacement purchasable by players.
The only question that remains is.... Where's the updated/playable Typhoon?
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Typhoon_Class_Battleship
In the link under the notes, it says
sto.gamepedia.com/Federation_Battlecruiser
The Typhoon is to Command Battlecruisers as NPC Jupiter Dreadnought is to T6 Jupiter Carrier.
Jupiter's redesign was a single ship made into a carrier also called, funnily enough, "Jupiter"