[PODCAST] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 266: To Torg or not to Torg!

midniteshadow7

This week we discuss this week's news on Star Trek Online, Star Trek Online Consoles (0:47:32), Star Trek Timelines (1:01:20), Community Feedback (1:17:37) and more.

Community Questions:
1. What are your thoughts on this year's summer event in Star Trek Online?
2. Are you testing Star Trek Timelines Beta on Steam and if so, what do you think?

alex1ger

Hello tribbles.



Community questions:


1.) Well, the last patch actually managed to hook up missing voicelines, although I'm not sure how they decide who gets voiced and who doesn't since there are still "quest" NPCs that are completely mute. *shrug*
And it seems like they finally fixed the "grab multiple flags" bug. Within a week. After they couldn't be bothered to do anything about it last year when I reported it. That's just so Cryptic... *golf-clap*

And you know what else is just so Cryptic? You might know that we can't grind our risian birds and monkeys into competitive marks. And on reddit Borticus said that it's "too soon" for that. Well, I kinda expected that, but here on the forums another dev claimed that they didn't want to give out competitive marks for PvE because it wouldn't feel right. There were players who told him that some PvE events already awarded those marks and others pointed him at Borticus' statement on reddit. And he admitted he was wrong and we should listen to Borticus.
Hey, Cryptic... COMMUNICATION. Ever heard of that? Even if you're not truly willing to talk to us, you should... I don't know... TALK TO EACH OTHER! This is just beyond baffling.

Apart from that my issues with the biathlon and its unlocks still stand. Oh and people complain about the accolades because it seems like the events are only available for a few seconds every other hour. And why did they have to change it at all? Because Lighting 2.0 can't handle day-night-cycles. I guess Cryptic just couldn't help being Cryptic and took all kinds of shortcuts when developing Lighting 2.0. *shrug*


2.) Timelines had a short window of opportunity after launch to get a standalone (NOT Facebook) browser version out there. No matter how much you try to change my mind, I am not interested anymore. Seriously. I understand why you keep talking about it but let's face it, IF I have to step away during the live-show I will try to do so during the timelines segment. You know... From now on I should probably refrain from commenting on Timelines. At all. Not even jokingly. It seems like I might not get my point across otherwise.



Feedback:


Cosplay NPC:

You know, you made a good point. Helna is a Duty Officer. That might have been a nice way to thank that cosplayer for using her 15 minutes of fame to advertise STO. Make an Entertainer DOff who happens to be good at "Infiltration" DOff missions. Get it? Infiltration because of her ability to make costumes? Yeah, I'll be over there in the corner.
But no, some character artist spent time making this new hairstyle, while my female Vulcan tactical officer still has her shoulders clip through her hula-shirt. And no, I did not make her some freak of nature. She is supposed to be slightly more buff, but I really don't like putting the sliders to the max. I try to stay within the 20-80% range.

THANKS, Cryptic! (/sarcasm)

And they actually made a tweet about the NPC and the cosplayer... Where are your tweets when you get your VOICE-actors into the booth again? Where are your tweets about how you invited them to visit Cryptic Studios and meet the devs? Oh wait, you only ever did that for Vic Mignogna and his significant other Michele Specht. Guess what... BOTH of them are VOICE-actors!


Upcoming voice-actor:

So... CaptainGeko just tweeted about having another voice-actor in Cryptic's recording booth (which means it's not a VOICE-actor but a Trek actor...) And I have a hunch who it might be, because... I found a thread on reddit. See, a Star Trek actor has been interviewed by a Star Trek Podcast and revealed that he would be at Cryptic Studios to do voice-over for Star Trek Online in june. I'm not gonna put the link here but I'll get it to you.

I'm done for today.

alex1ger

Hello again, tribbles.

Since you skipped two shows in a row (are you alright?) I guess I'll have to add some more feedback here. Although I'm starting to get a bit of a backlog when it comes to feedback. There's still the mail about voice-acting waiting to be sent and I feel like I have to send you an e-mail about game design (or rather game development) before. Because of the last couple of livestreams.

Anyway, let's get the party started:


Feedback:



Constitution and Miranda graphical update:

Once again representatives of the art team prove that they are BY FAR the best team at Cryptic. Just outstanding work. And now I respectfully ask you to leave.
Are the artists gone?

I still hate the fact that these T6 ships have access to the original skins. YOU, the content team at Cryptic, made such a big deal out of the Temporal Prime Directive. YOU not me! But let's throw in these ships that have absolutely no business being available as endgame ships. Just like the 23rd and the 26th and the 31st century "temporal ships". But hey, my fun is wrong and "immersion" doesn't pay the bills. Except that it would, if you did it right. But that "might" require reinvesting more money into the game. And PW is either unwilling or unable to do that.

And look at that, the new skin is done just in time for a re-run of the R&D promo. What a coinkidink...



Season 13.5 launches 18th july:

Uhm... Another half-season release. That's nice? *shrug* So what do we get? Let's go over this:



Endeavor system:

*reads the blog* Okay... They're trying to push their almighty metrics. Fine, whatever, next.



Martok joins the STO cast:

Yeah, I knew that. Like I said in my previous piece of feedback, someone posted about it on reddit. J.G. Hertzler spilled the beans in an interview... I think the podcast has been published the last week of may. I don't remember if he said he would voice Martok but when I listened to that part of the interview he did state that he would do VO (voice-over) work for Cryptic in june.



Ferengi Admiralty campaign:

You know, during... I think it was last week's livestream... Borticus mentioned that they might potentially be working on new latinum stuff. (Which translates to: They are definitely working on something but are completely clueless whether or not they'll get ANY of it done in time.)
Well, it's a new admiralty campaign so I will max it out anyway and worry about potential latinum purchases afterwards.



Kobayashi Maru event:

Like the Sompek thing I won't play it. But if you do, have fun! (And as a side-note... I guess the next time Sompek comes around it might have a timed version, too.)



RP blogs:


"A First's Tale": Once again it's well-written. It still seems to make sense and I guess we'll never meet any of these characters in-game. So... uhm... yay? *shrug*


"Retaking the Test": So this blogs claims that the cadets have been prepared to fail. But our protagonist still suffers a panic attack. And it's a fellow cadet who notices this and tries to snap her out of it.
Uhm... Where are the real counselors? Shouldn't some senior staff member have noticed something? Maybe during the extensive debriefing?
And after however many years this particular captain still needs to leave the bridge in a hurry to do breathing exercises in her ready room because she's been ordered to take the test again.
Let me try to phrase this very carefully... I am not sure if she should be in command of a starship at this point in time. I would encourage her to seek counseling. Thorough counseling. She seems to have some sort of issues and I am not sure if breathing exercises are enough.
I mean, read the blog again. She'd rather be sent to the front lines than having to take the test again and her first officer gets the counselor because she left the bridge in such a hurry. This captain has issues. She needs help. I mean, she may be a fictional character but if she was real I'd worry about her...

Btw. mentioning her curls and using the new hairstyle in the picture that accompanies this blog? That's attention to detail and I see you try really hard to justify the time and effort that has been put into that cosplayer.



Other stuff:

Remember my previous feedback about my female vulcan with the clipping hula shirt? Cryptic finally got around to fix it. I would be impressed if it hadn't taken them this long but that's a scheduling problem.
So... Whoever fixed it, you have my sincere gratitude! Keep up the good work.