@fleetcaptain5#1134 - unfortunate timing to post that right after Val's criticism of Cryptic and more civil players in the post just above yours.
My own perception: stronger moderation has made the forums more friendly once offending posts are removed, but the overall tone is negative. I'd say much of the negativity about bugs, business practices and new content is justified, but much of it that survives moderation also edges up to the line for acceptable speech.
If I worked for Cryptic I wouldn't be eager to hang out in the forums and try to defend myself for not quickly fixing all bugs, not convincing management to sell all ships for $15, and not releasing a new story episode / TFO / Exploration 2.0 this week.
But what I don't get: this forum used to be much more toxic in the past. Devs visited then. Now they don't, even though there's a much more friendly atmosphere here (or at least, that's my perception, but can any of the people who've also been here for a long time disagree with that?)
You are not wrong.
The forums always had a certain level of negativity on them, even in BETA. I remember vividly all the negative posts ranging from the game being "unfinished" to citing all of the fibs Jack Emmert made about the game and Klingons in particular prior to release. A player named PeregrineFalcon had a long running thread about the Klingon issues specifically that had a whole slew of rants in it. Some of the posts joking about the utterly disastrous launch of Delta Rising were truly epic in mocking the "best expansion ever and the players love it" slogan.
I am sure those threads would be nuked into oblivion under the current regime.
The developers did frequent the forums back then, despite all of that "toxicity" and would engage with the players. They were a different breed though. You had adult men like Gozer - a developer who could dish out as good as he could take it and had no issue calling things as he saw them and was not always nice about sharing his thoughts.
So yes, your memory is correct.
Many of the devs who were around during the DQ-best-expansion-ever-etc.-mocking are still around though. So I don't think that can fully explain it.
@fleetcaptain5#1134 - unfortunate timing to post that right after Val's criticism of Cryptic and more civil players in the post just above yours.
My own perception: stronger moderation has made the forums more friendly once offending posts are removed, but overall tone is negative. I'd say much of the negativity about bugs, business practices and new content is justified, but much of it that survives moderation also edges up to the line for acceptable speech.
If I work for Cryptic I wouldn't be eager to hang out in the forums and try to defend myself for not quickly fixing all bugs, not convincing management to sell all ships for $15, and not releasing a new story episode / TFO / Exploration 2.0 this week,
Didn't see that when I began writing, we must have been writing our posts at the same time.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
Correct and at this point, I think it best to just not bother anymore since the cowardice toward and contempt for the customer by Cryptic is abundantly clear here. Good luck to those who wish to continue trying sunshine and rainbows and magic prancing ponies. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for them. Being that afraid of words typed on the internet has to be paralyzing.
Well, personally, I'd hate to see you go. Even though, we've not always seen eye to eye, I've never doubted your sincerity or commitment, and you've been a valuable member of the community.
As I'm still of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with the moderation here, I'd like to focus on another thing:
Yes, they are aware of that. I honestly believe that they'd like to come here more, but as Kael once said, it's hard to get up the wherewithal to wade into a bunch of flame posts, which is unfortunately how they perceive this forum. If that were to change, though, then I believe you'd see them here more often.
Although I perfectly understand this reasoning, there is one thing I don't understand. These forums were always rather rough. There were always both rude players and players who could communicate their concerns in a more civilised way.
As the forum has become noticably less busy compared to years ago - and most trolls were effectively banned by Kael, which I applaud him for - that also means that there are far fewer rude players here.
Yet in the past there were quite a few Devs who did frequent the forum, whereas they're now mostly gone.
I can understand why people wish to stay away from a toxic website. I can also understand that, if this place is perceived as toxic, that would require change from the toxic people.
But what I don't get: this forum used to be much more toxic in the past. Devs visited then. Now they don't, even though there's a much more friendly atmosphere here (or at least, that's my perception, but can any of the people who've also been here for a long time disagree with that?)
I agree with what you're saying and the only thing I can say is that some of those devs are now gone. Not all, but some. Others may just be too busy, honestly. Like Taco used to frequent the forum often, and one cannot say that Taco is afraid to walk into the fire, so my only guess there is that he's too busy.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, Val. Everyone is different, and handles/reacts to such things differently. This is Cryptic's house, though, and they get to decide what they find acceptable and what they don't. Others can either choose to modify their behavior, or choose not to participate.
Correct and at this point, I think it best to just not bother anymore since the cowardice toward and contempt for the customer by Cryptic is abundantly clear here. Good luck to those who wish to continue trying sunshine and rainbows and magic prancing ponies. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for them. Being that afraid of words typed on the internet has to be paralyzing.
I am not trying sunshine, rainbows, and magic prancing ponies and I do not want anyone to feel sorry for me. I am trying to live at peace with all the people in these forums (including you) as much as is possible, I have admitted when I have been wrong as well and have been moderated when I engaged with someone who began a flame war with me instead of me backing out or when I created a post when it did not need to be created. This also included the controversy about a certain item during a Summer Event that did not appear after backlash. I have not always agreed with the mod's actions, I have just accepted it and learned from it.
Have you ever heard of the golden rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Val, if you spoke to me in the way that you are speaking about Cryptic as well as forumites who disagree with you (myself included), I would refuse to listen to you even if you had a legitimate beef because it is verbal abuse and no customer service representative or forumite should be exposed to that. Contrary to you and anyone else, it is not as much about developing a thicker skin but how you say things, your tone matters. Our words have power, they can be used to help, build bridges, heal, or to hurt people. The tongue is a very powerful organ and it needs to be bridled so it does not run amok causing a spark that then becomes a raging fire.
I disagree that those who work at Cryptic are cowards and have contempt for the customer. They just want to be treated as human beings (as evidenced in the How To Have A Discussion thread and not just solely as someone who provides a service. I would not frequent the forums as a dev if I was exposed to comments like this. There is one thing to not agree with certain actions (I have not always agreed with all the actions on Cryptic's or the mod's part) and providing constructive criticism, it is another to attack Cryptic and/or the mods, engage in name-calling, insults, and providing unconstructive criticism. This is not just you, there are others who have also engaged in this behavior on here and on social media. Civil discourse is important in society and is desperately needed.
I do wish the communication was better (livestreams and tweets seem to be the major medium of communication which not all players have access to (whether because of a questionable ban, timezone differences, or no desire for social media) while forum posts are not as prevalent though with the recent forum threads on how to that have been created, the activity in bug reports and now the new Q & A threads this is changing for the better, deadlines were more flexible so that the whole season update comes when it is scheduled to arrive barring any unforeseen circumstances and if it needs to be pushed back since not all of it is complete then so be it, the usage of Tribble as a test server for players to test content where there used to be Tribble patch notes, the dates, spelling errors, info in the blogs, and the patch notes are always correct and accurate (please look over blogs before publishing them online and/or use Grammarly). If the fix for a specific bug did not work it should be removed from the patch notes and all the fixes that were done should be there as well so I can keep better track of the bookmarked bug reports (I eliminate and/or add a bug if it is fixed or comes back. I hold professionals to a higher standard than the average person.
Finally, before and after the acquisition of Cryptic by Gearbox from PWE, I have seen more progress with the posting in the official forums lately so that is changing. I indeed wish the priorities were different but it is what it is. I see this deal with Gearbox as a new beginning, a new chapter in Cryptic's history, starting from scratch and wondering what will come next. I would like the roadmap and calendar to come back so that players can better plan for events, sales (except flash sales), anniversaries, giveaways, etc. in advance.
In following this thread, and being someone who looks for solutions, I have of some of questions/observations.
Who writes the Forum Rules? I'm not asking for specific names or anything of that nature, but is it a collaborative effort between departments, who has the final say, is the answer a tightly kept secret, etc... I ask because if the Forum Mods are not involved then the rest of us are addressing the wrong group.
If we are going to claim that bilateral communication is a two-way operation, then would it not be consistent that our (the Not Mods) concepts of civil discourse also be taken into account on a basis that is more than a mere exception?
There are sections in this next observation to which I believe someone will take offense. That is not my intention and perhaps it is a failing on my part that I can't think of another way to express it. Indeed, the disclaimer I just wrote is a fine example. I'm trying to give us all a tool to use here in the hopes of better understanding some distinctions in the way we communicate, as well.
I believe there are a good number of us Forum Users who would like to discuss these concerns in an adult manner rather than in a mature manner. Here's some examples:
1. "Hey, Joey, don't take this the wrong way, and I certainly don't mean to offend, but that shirt looks like one of Elton John's stage costumes took a tropical vacation and the hotel ran out of toilet paper."
2. "Hey, Joey, nice shirt! You lose a bet?"
In the first example we have a mature conversational gambit that is over burdened with disclaimers and it takes up too much of our time for the purpose it is meant to serve.
Meanwhile the second example is an adult conversational gambit that gets the point across in a far more efficient manner.
And, no, I don't mean the unrestrained use of profanity and insults. I'm talking about being able to efficiently and accurately describe a concern to those that may have the ability to address said concern. Even if in doing so the word, "sucks," (to exert negative air pressure) or the word, "TRIBBLE," (the human backside what expels assorted excreta), are thrown into the mix to express in no uncertain term the level of disappointment the player may feel at the time.
If it were me, I'd far prefer to have a passionate player base than an indifferent one, even if I have to deal with being called a dickhead (the male reproductive wand, but it's attached to the cranium).
My bizarre sense of humor notwithstanding, I sincerely hope that I was able to get my point across without insult.
Cheers!
Hopefully Joey is a good friend or coworker, where you both understand each others' sense of humor. Both examples are insulting the person's fashion choice, and the "polite" one might be mistaken as homophobic by working "Elton John" into the insult.
No, I'm not personally offended, triggered, whatever, but someone else might be, and you do not know the other forum members to the extent that you know your pal Joey. I hope you would not walk up to a stranger on the street and say "nice shirt! You lose a bet?"
That's why I'm arguing you need to be careful. We can't see your expression or hear your tone of voice, and most of us don't know you well enough to translate in-jokes, personal slang, Some people are fine with rough and tumble arguments, some want milder discourse. Cryptic has apparently decided to err on the side of inclusiveness and set phasers to "mild."
I specifically chose to state, "Elton John's stage costumes," precisely because it's not about the man. Rather, it is about the gimmick. There is nothing non-inclusive nor homophobic in what I've written. That's a charge too often levied by those who have no argument and need public support and/or attention. But that's a discussion for another time and place.
I agree that there are those that can't handle sincere and honest discussion that might require a phaser to be set to Mild, but how can one know without taking the chance? If you simply ask them you'll get no useful answer because too many people don't know themselves enough to answer accurately and some may over compensate for not wanting to look weak in one direction or cruel in another.
I do appreciate the insight, though.
BTW, if Joey were a personal friend I would have said, "Hey Joey, nice shirt! What, did your wife come back?" But, again, that's another story...
Correct and at this point, I think it best to just not bother anymore since the cowardice toward and contempt for the customer by Cryptic is abundantly clear here. Good luck to those who wish to continue trying sunshine and rainbows and magic prancing ponies. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for them. Being that afraid of words typed on the internet has to be paralyzing.
Well, personally, I'd hate to see you go. Even though, we've not always seen eye to eye, I've never doubted your sincerity or commitment, and you've been a valuable member of the community.
As I'm still of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with the moderation here, I'd like to focus on another thing:
Yes, they are aware of that. I honestly believe that they'd like to come here more, but as Kael once said, it's hard to get up the wherewithal to wade into a bunch of flame posts, which is unfortunately how they perceive this forum. If that were to change, though, then I believe you'd see them here more often.
Although I perfectly understand this reasoning, there is one thing I don't understand. These forums were always rather rough. There were always both rude players and players who could communicate their concerns in a more civilised way.
As the forum has become noticably less busy compared to years ago - and most trolls were effectively banned by Kael, which I applaud him for - that also means that there are far fewer rude players here.
Yet in the past there were quite a few Devs who did frequent the forum, whereas they're now mostly gone.
I can understand why people wish to stay away from a toxic website. I can also understand that, if this place is perceived as toxic, that would require change from the toxic people.
But what I don't get: this forum used to be much more toxic in the past. Devs visited then. Now they don't, even though there's a much more friendly atmosphere here (or at least, that's my perception, but can any of the people who've also been here for a long time disagree with that?)
I agree with what you're saying and the only thing I can say is that some of those devs are now gone. Not all, but some. Others may just be too busy, honestly. Like Taco used to frequent the forum often, and one cannot say that Taco is afraid to walk into the fire, so my only guess there is that he's too busy.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, Val. Everyone is different, and handles/reacts to such things differently. This is Cryptic's house, though, and they get to decide what they find acceptable and what they don't. Others can either choose to modify their behavior, or choose not to participate.
Correct and at this point, I think it best to just not bother anymore since the cowardice toward and contempt for the customer by Cryptic is abundantly clear here. Good luck to those who wish to continue trying sunshine and rainbows and magic prancing ponies. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for them. Being that afraid of words typed on the internet has to be paralyzing.
I am not trying sunshine, rainbows, and magic prancing ponies and I do not want anyone to feel sorry for me. I am trying to live at peace with all the people in these forums (including you) as much as is possible, I have admitted when I have been wrong as well and have been moderated when I engaged with someone who began a flame war with me instead of backing out or created a frivolous post that did not need to be created and other scenarios whether I always agreed or not with that said action, I just accepted it. Have you ever heard of the golden rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Val, if you spoke to me in the way that you are speaking about Cryptic as well as forumites who disagree with you (myself included), I would refuse to listen to you even if you had a legitimate beef because it is verbal abuse and no customer service representative or forumite should be exposed to that. Contrary to you and anyone else, it is not as much about developing a thicker skin but how you are saying things, your tone matters. Our words have power, they can be used to heal or to hurt people. The tongue is a very powerful organ and it needs to be bridled so it does not run amok causing a spark that then becomes a raging fire.
I also disagree that those who work at Cryptic are cowards and have contempt for the customer. I would not frequent the forums if I was a dev if I was exposed to comments like this. I do wish the communication was better, the dates were always correct, the spelling errors were corrected, and the info in the blogs was always right as well that they posted more in the official forums not just social media. Though I have seen more progress with the posting in the official forums part lately so that is changing. I indeed wish the priorities were different but it is what it is. Finally, I see this deal with Gearbox as a new beginning, a new chapter in Cryptic's history, starting from scratch and wondering what will come next. I would like the roadmap to come back as well as the calendar so more players can plan for things.
Bringing back the roadmap would be nice indeed.
I'm always here anyway, but for those who take long breaks away from the game, I think it would be useful to know when what will be released. And it might even get some people to log on more often - I have quite a few fleet mates for example who were enthusiastic players but have now been gone for years. Maybe they'd come back if they could see the things that have changed (upgrade tokens for ships and characters, legendary packs, new hull materials, Dominion faction, the ability to earn premium ships, etc.) without having to install the game first.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
When it comes to bugs people need to understand that sometimes they take time to fix. I know I've said this many times, but it's not as simple as flipping switches as much as we wish it was. In order to fix a bug, you have to first know what is causing the bug. If you can't reliably reproduce the bug then you can't nail down the problem to fix it. The devs have also touched on the process of fixing bugs before and there is a priority to what is fixed. the more severe and game breaking a bug is, the higher on the list it's going to be. A bug resorting in a consistent crash on startup is going to see a higher priority than a tailor piece clipping. Both are bugs, both they would like to fix, but one is going to be higher on the list than the other. This is nothing new when it comes to fixing bugs. To further illustrate things for people, below is a small bit of code from a thruster mod I created for Space Engineers.
Each of those bits of code tells the game what to do and how to treat the specific thruster. The resource sink group tells the game to treat this object like a thruster when determining grid/ship resources. The force magnitude tells the game how many newtons of force the thruster can apply to an object, the min/max power consumption tells the game how many megawatts of power the thruster can pull, and the the slowdown factor is basically the SE version of inertia for the thruster. If a single character is out of place in those 5 lines of code, it can cause a multitude of issues, such as crashing. If for example I leave a > sign out, this will lead to a crash. If I types 4.03 instead of 40.3 the thruster will not pull as much power as it's supposed to. If I typed 403 the thruster will pull far more power than it's supposed to. When working with code you have to be extremely precise. Everything I've said so far about coding applies to just these 5 lines of code. Now scale this up to something akin to thousands of lines of code. Sometimes you can be looking for a single character that's out of place in a sequence of several thousand lines of code. "well why don't they look for that stuff" you might ask. They do, but it's not always easy to catch every single thing before you send it out, especially a 1 character error until it actually errors out. Sometimes you get an error log that helps you know where to look, sometimes you don't. It's extremely easy to fat-finger something in the code and mess up if you're not careful.
If you have 5 different possible things that could be triggering a crash across 5 different features of a game that have 10k lines of code each, this means you have to search through 50k lines of code to find the thing causing an issue. Sometimes it's only one line of code, sometimes it could be several. This is why it's important to be able to consistently reproduce bugs so you know where to look and can pin a problem down. It's also possible to have instances where you can have 2 items that are coded correctly and work fine on their own, but fail if they try to interact with each other. Thus you have to figure out why they're failing when they interact.
People also need to understand that just because the devs respond to every single report of a bug individually, it doesn't mean they're avoiding fixing a bug. Not every bug report they get is going to be a good report. If there are 10 different reports saying "the pets on the Enterprise J are broken" but they never say how they're broken, then those reports are useless. If they then get an 11th report saying "the pets on the Enterprise J are broken, here's how they're broken" then that is the first report they've gotten that is useful. The devs aren't omniscient and in order to fix bugs, they need to have the proper information. This is why when people report bugs they ask the questions they do and why it can seem like a game of 20 questions at times. It's not that they're trying to ask a bunch of questions to avoid doing anything, they're trying to work through a process of elimination to know what they need to do, and/or trying to get a piece of information they need to know what to do.
I know people get annoyed when they report a bug and they don't see anything for say 7 weeks until its fixed. Though I have to ask, what exactly do you want them to tell you aside from they're aware and working on it? They can't exactly tell you every little thing they're doing, and at most would only be able to tell you, "hey we're still working on it."
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
@sthe91 - to clarify, my "I feel sorry for them" comment was for the developers, not any of the members here. It most certainly was not directed at you personally. Apologies if that was unclear.
As for the golden rule, yes I know of it. That too is a road that goes in both directions.
Were you to look at my post history over the years, you would very clearly, very plainly see that I have no issue whatsoever heaping praise on the developers and their work that I feel deserve it and handing down harsh criticism where I feel it warranted, so please do your due diligence before trying to paint me as some nasty, belligerent troll who is just here to bad mouth Cryptic.
I never painted you as a nasty, belligerent troll. If that is what you think I was saying, forgive me that was not my intent. I was making a general observation.
Remembering back to the DQ launch and some surrounding changes that were being made, there was a Dev, whose name I shall not mention for fear of derailing, who was a nasty piece of work. He treated the players like trash when they would voice concerns, then go misrepresent those concerns in interviews to paint those players in a negative light. He generated a helluva lot of animosity within the player base.
I only bring this up now to illustrate that not only is the hostility not one-sided, but that it had also been instigated by a Dev at times, too.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Welcome to the Chinese industry where foreign opinion means little to them.
We're no longer subjected to the Chinese Industry. We've been bought out by Swedish Overlords. Now go sit quietly in a corner or else someone might start making us eat Surstromming.
And... isn't it against the rules to reopen a closed thread's topic? Because I specifically asked another mod about that back in November when this was going on and they repeatedly evaded giving me an answer.
...
Well, let me unequivocally answer that question for you: It is NOT against the rules to reopen a closed thread. Kael is the ultimate authority over the forum, and he can change/do what he wills, so anyone is welcome to plead their case to him about any forum issues. But since he is a very busy person and not always available in a pinch, you can plead your case to one of the moderators, who will investigate the situation. Personally, I will do this for anyone, even if I'm the one who closed the thread. I have no problem reversing my own decisions, if compelling evidence is offered up to me. That doesn't necessarily mean, though, that we will reopen a thread, even with compelling evidence. There could be other factors as to why we might not (i.e. said thread may have been closed due to a flame war and reopening might restart said flame war). But no, it's not against the rules, and you can most certainly ask.
I meant reopening the topic in a new thread. Which I did not do because I thought it would be a forum violation, after the mod involved repeatedly evaded when I explicitly asked "can I open a new thread on the same topic as the closed thread?".
Which had the effect of forcing me to remain silent about the topic which (as you can see) I very much wanted to discuss... because of the player who kept flaming the original thread, matching me post for post with "you are being impatient" and similar statements, including a direct statement with ZERO evidence or authority to back it up, that the issue I was bringing up is a bug and I should "wait for a fix"....
... after I publicly said that, in my experience, devs don't answer bug reports in which other players have offered solutions/advice, unless that has been proven unhelpful.... and that therefore I felt the thread would be ignored if one of his posts was the last post in the thread, and POLITELY ASKED him MULTIPLE TIMES to drop it and let my question stand unanswered.
I'm not a mod here, but did you possibly give up too soon?
I've just spent a couple of weeks at work dealing with another company where the responses to questions were too vague to help. It was tempting to throw up my hands, but I needed this settled for one of my projects so I kept trying and eventually got past that stage. Tomorrow it's on to the next steps (sigh).
If PMing the mod involved didn't get you a clear response, it might've made sense to bring it up with another mod or Kael (or Trendy if this was during her era).
If the stalker / white knight poster tried to disrupt the new thread and you flagged them for moderation instead of responding, you still might not have gotten an answer from Cryptic but at least you wouldn't have thought you had to stay silent.
That said, this is a forum and unlike me you weren't being paid to put up with the aggravation. I can see giving up after an attempt or two.
And... isn't it against the rules to reopen a closed thread's topic? Because I specifically asked another mod about that back in November when this was going on and they repeatedly evaded giving me an answer.
...
Well, let me unequivocally answer that question for you: It is NOT against the rules to reopen a closed thread. Kael is the ultimate authority over the forum, and he can change/do what he wills, so anyone is welcome to plead their case to him about any forum issues. But since he is a very busy person and not always available in a pinch, you can plead your case to one of the moderators, who will investigate the situation. Personally, I will do this for anyone, even if I'm the one who closed the thread. I have no problem reversing my own decisions, if compelling evidence is offered up to me. That doesn't necessarily mean, though, that we will reopen a thread, even with compelling evidence. There could be other factors as to why we might not (i.e. said thread may have been closed due to a flame war and reopening might restart said flame war). But no, it's not against the rules, and you can most certainly ask.
I meant reopening the topic in a new thread. Which I did not do because I thought it would be a forum violation, after the mod involved repeatedly evaded when I explicitly asked "can I open a new thread on the same topic as the closed thread?".
Ah! That's something else entirely. And I'm sorry you had to deal with that. An answer should've been provided to you by the moderator. You did the right thing, though, given that you didn't get an answer.
Yes, I suppose one could be granted permission to open a new thread on the same subject, if the original thread cannot be reopened for reasons (I would prefer the original thread reopened, if possible though). I would advise my fellow moderators, who might grant said permission, to make a post in the new thread, after it's started, stating that the new thread had been allowed, just to avoid the thread getting reported.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
if every bug could be squished in 7 weeks, i bet all of us would be happy little gamers.
but lets be honest mate...many have been around for years. well over 7 weeks.
can we please stop also making it as if coding is the bees knees? we all choose a job, be it for fun or financial, so can we also learn to accept the responsibilities associated with them as well?
i mean lets get a little bit real...if i am watching the house burn down, while standing next to the firetruck, people will surely be upset i am not doing anything. more upset if i looked at them and said, "well, putting out fires is a tough job, its not that simple." "i have to calculate hose distance, both to and from the truck, calculate the pressure needed to maximize water flow to eliminate the fire. am i also going uphill or down?" the questions could be endless, and i could stand there and debate the science of how to put out a fire with efficiency, but in reality, all they care about is that it gets put out. they are not a firefighter, plain and simple. would i expect them to know anything about it? more than likely they dont, but im also not going to act as if its so difficult that i cant do anything to put it out. lets also get a bit more real...if i dont put out that fire, it can catch the next house on fire, and so on. akin to programming. but if i dont even try to do my job, i effectively allow it to get out of control.
so lets stop with the programming is hard...mmmkay? they chose a career/job and should tackle it as such.
the ticketing system sucks. you all close tickets and send people to the "official forums, bugs section." the avenue of how that goes is not helping in your favor. it in fact is offering you "outs" since there is no accountability from a customers report of a bug, to you fixing it.
now, that has nothing to do with the thread, so i will leave it at that.
I never said it takes only 7 weeks to fix a bug. Nor did I say that programming was hard. It can be at times. But more often than not it's tedious if anything. Sometimes it takes longer to fix certain bugs depending on what's broke, and what is required to fix it. Some of them are easy fixes that only take a few minutes, some aren't. Sometimes you may easily know what's broken, but the work involved to fix it amounts to a complete rebuild of whatever is broken. Not only this but when fixing something, you also want to make sure it doesn't break something else even worse.
The fire fighting example doesn't work here because you don't need to be as precise as you do with programming. Also something you need to understand, just because they don't fix a particular bug you want them to fix as quickly as you wished they would does NOT mean they're sitting on their hands doing nothing. A single character out of place can bring an entire thing of thousands of lines of code crashing down. Prime example being the US Navy warship years ago that had their computer systems shut down on them and had to be towed back to port because their computer tried to divide by zero.
The devs don't like it when things take a long time to fix anymore than you do. As another example back with the Kemocite debacle. Kemocite used to be able to proc on its own and the more copies you had the more it would proc, and it was in an incredibly broken state. At the time CrypticSpartan straight out said not to get used to the ability as it is now because it's broken and would be getting fixed. People ignored the warning because it wasn't fixed when they thought it should have been fixed and started assuming it was working as intended. When the fix finally did come about 12-16 weeks later, people threw the mother of all hissy fits saying "you can't do this I paid money to get this power" and so on even though they were warned prior. They treated Spartan and the other devs like garbage as a result. I even heard rumors of one or two death threats getting sent because of it.
As to how this relates to previous stuff, people coming on here and screaming at the devs saying "It'S bRoKe fIX iT NoW" and calling them every 4 letter insult in 50 different human and alien languages alike isn't going to help matters. It's not going to make things get fixed faster. If folks want to ask if there's an update they can give us on a specific bug and can do so respectfully, that's one thing and something they may just answer you on, or give us some info we can pass on to you guys depending on the situation and what they can tell.
So point being, I get it when people are upset about bugs, which is why we try to be understanding as possible when it comes to people reporting bugs and having issues. We'll work with people so long as they're willing to work with us. At the same time, we also must enforce the rules of the forums as having an issue doesn't grant someone license to go on a tirade and do whatever they please. Sometimes when I've stepped in and tried to work with folks they've calmed down and worked with me and saw their issues resolved, or been told what they need to do in order to get it resolved. Other times they've bit the hand that fed them so to speak and I've had to close threads.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Getting back to the topic of the thread: Communicating with the devs without getting moderated. Facilitating that communication is one of the reasons why I enacted the Q&A thread. Collecting several questions, respectfully worded, to be presented to the devs that we can actually get answered. I'm hoping that this initiative will help foster better communication between the forum community and the devs. And as long as I'm here, I will continue to push for this.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
And you could've just as easily accomplished the "getting back to the thread" by not responding.
This is how flame wars and thread derailments happen, folks. Someone just can't let go and let the thread get back on topic. This isn't just for you, chive, but for everyone, including my moderator cohorts. If the post is off topic, you're never going to get the thread back on topic by continuing to respond to off topic posts. One "final parting shot" doesn't really result in any finality.
This can also result in getting moderated, so let's avoid this in the future. Ok?
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
And you could've just as easily accomplished the "getting back to the thread" by not responding.
This is how flame wars and thread derailments happen, folks. Someone just can't let go and let the thread get back on topic. This isn't just for you, chive, but for everyone, including my moderator cohorts. If the post is off topic, you're never going to get the thread back on topic by continuing to respond to off topic posts.. One "final parting shot" doesn't really result in any finality.
This can also result in getting moderated, so let's avoid this in the future. Ok?
selective quoting? i didnt see you respond to him, after my initial reply, where i left it.
kettle meet black.
this is also why this topic is important. you quoted me, and while "addressing" a cohort within the sentence, it was a focused reply, and not a general one. why didnt you post that reply to him? curious.
Sweet baby Kahless. 🙄 Seriously? You're going to get your knickers in a knot, because I quoted you and not him? I addressed you and him and everyone else. But let's argue with the moderator about moderation and further derail the thread. Just stop.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I have no words atm, in either capacity as a mod or forumite.
Also I'm kinda in a semi agitated state atm from outside sources unrelated to the forums so I am going to refrain from saying anything for a while on this.
Comments
My own perception: stronger moderation has made the forums more friendly once offending posts are removed, but the overall tone is negative. I'd say much of the negativity about bugs, business practices and new content is justified, but much of it that survives moderation also edges up to the line for acceptable speech.
If I worked for Cryptic I wouldn't be eager to hang out in the forums and try to defend myself for not quickly fixing all bugs, not convincing management to sell all ships for $15, and not releasing a new story episode / TFO / Exploration 2.0 this week.
Many of the devs who were around during the DQ-best-expansion-ever-etc.-mocking are still around though. So I don't think that can fully explain it.
Didn't see that when I began writing, we must have been writing our posts at the same time.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Well, personally, I'd hate to see you go. Even though, we've not always seen eye to eye, I've never doubted your sincerity or commitment, and you've been a valuable member of the community.
I agree with what you're saying and the only thing I can say is that some of those devs are now gone. Not all, but some. Others may just be too busy, honestly. Like Taco used to frequent the forum often, and one cannot say that Taco is afraid to walk into the fire, so my only guess there is that he's too busy.
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I am not trying sunshine, rainbows, and magic prancing ponies and I do not want anyone to feel sorry for me. I am trying to live at peace with all the people in these forums (including you) as much as is possible, I have admitted when I have been wrong as well and have been moderated when I engaged with someone who began a flame war with me instead of me backing out or when I created a post when it did not need to be created. This also included the controversy about a certain item during a Summer Event that did not appear after backlash. I have not always agreed with the mod's actions, I have just accepted it and learned from it.
Have you ever heard of the golden rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Val, if you spoke to me in the way that you are speaking about Cryptic as well as forumites who disagree with you (myself included), I would refuse to listen to you even if you had a legitimate beef because it is verbal abuse and no customer service representative or forumite should be exposed to that. Contrary to you and anyone else, it is not as much about developing a thicker skin but how you say things, your tone matters. Our words have power, they can be used to help, build bridges, heal, or to hurt people. The tongue is a very powerful organ and it needs to be bridled so it does not run amok causing a spark that then becomes a raging fire.
I disagree that those who work at Cryptic are cowards and have contempt for the customer. They just want to be treated as human beings (as evidenced in the How To Have A Discussion thread and not just solely as someone who provides a service. I would not frequent the forums as a dev if I was exposed to comments like this. There is one thing to not agree with certain actions (I have not always agreed with all the actions on Cryptic's or the mod's part) and providing constructive criticism, it is another to attack Cryptic and/or the mods, engage in name-calling, insults, and providing unconstructive criticism. This is not just you, there are others who have also engaged in this behavior on here and on social media. Civil discourse is important in society and is desperately needed.
I do wish the communication was better (livestreams and tweets seem to be the major medium of communication which not all players have access to (whether because of a questionable ban, timezone differences, or no desire for social media) while forum posts are not as prevalent though with the recent forum threads on how to that have been created, the activity in bug reports and now the new Q & A threads this is changing for the better, deadlines were more flexible so that the whole season update comes when it is scheduled to arrive barring any unforeseen circumstances and if it needs to be pushed back since not all of it is complete then so be it, the usage of Tribble as a test server for players to test content where there used to be Tribble patch notes, the dates, spelling errors, info in the blogs, and the patch notes are always correct and accurate (please look over blogs before publishing them online and/or use Grammarly). If the fix for a specific bug did not work it should be removed from the patch notes and all the fixes that were done should be there as well so I can keep better track of the bookmarked bug reports (I eliminate and/or add a bug if it is fixed or comes back. I hold professionals to a higher standard than the average person.
Finally, before and after the acquisition of Cryptic by Gearbox from PWE, I have seen more progress with the posting in the official forums lately so that is changing. I indeed wish the priorities were different but it is what it is. I see this deal with Gearbox as a new beginning, a new chapter in Cryptic's history, starting from scratch and wondering what will come next. I would like the roadmap and calendar to come back so that players can better plan for events, sales (except flash sales), anniversaries, giveaways, etc. in advance.
I specifically chose to state, "Elton John's stage costumes," precisely because it's not about the man. Rather, it is about the gimmick. There is nothing non-inclusive nor homophobic in what I've written. That's a charge too often levied by those who have no argument and need public support and/or attention. But that's a discussion for another time and place.
I agree that there are those that can't handle sincere and honest discussion that might require a phaser to be set to Mild, but how can one know without taking the chance? If you simply ask them you'll get no useful answer because too many people don't know themselves enough to answer accurately and some may over compensate for not wanting to look weak in one direction or cruel in another.
I do appreciate the insight, though.
BTW, if Joey were a personal friend I would have said, "Hey Joey, nice shirt! What, did your wife come back?" But, again, that's another story...
Cheers!
Ok thanks for the answer.
Bringing back the roadmap would be nice indeed.
I'm always here anyway, but for those who take long breaks away from the game, I think it would be useful to know when what will be released. And it might even get some people to log on more often - I have quite a few fleet mates for example who were enthusiastic players but have now been gone for years. Maybe they'd come back if they could see the things that have changed (upgrade tokens for ships and characters, legendary packs, new hull materials, Dominion faction, the ability to earn premium ships, etc.) without having to install the game first.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
<ResourceSinkGroup>Thrust</ResourceSinkGroup>
<ForceMagnitude>9360000</ForceMagnitude>
<MaxPowerConsumption>40.3</MaxPowerConsumption>
<MinPowerConsumption>0.000002</MinPowerConsumption>
<SlowdownFactor>1</SlowdownFactor>
Each of those bits of code tells the game what to do and how to treat the specific thruster. The resource sink group tells the game to treat this object like a thruster when determining grid/ship resources. The force magnitude tells the game how many newtons of force the thruster can apply to an object, the min/max power consumption tells the game how many megawatts of power the thruster can pull, and the the slowdown factor is basically the SE version of inertia for the thruster. If a single character is out of place in those 5 lines of code, it can cause a multitude of issues, such as crashing. If for example I leave a > sign out, this will lead to a crash. If I types 4.03 instead of 40.3 the thruster will not pull as much power as it's supposed to. If I typed 403 the thruster will pull far more power than it's supposed to. When working with code you have to be extremely precise. Everything I've said so far about coding applies to just these 5 lines of code. Now scale this up to something akin to thousands of lines of code. Sometimes you can be looking for a single character that's out of place in a sequence of several thousand lines of code. "well why don't they look for that stuff" you might ask. They do, but it's not always easy to catch every single thing before you send it out, especially a 1 character error until it actually errors out. Sometimes you get an error log that helps you know where to look, sometimes you don't. It's extremely easy to fat-finger something in the code and mess up if you're not careful.
If you have 5 different possible things that could be triggering a crash across 5 different features of a game that have 10k lines of code each, this means you have to search through 50k lines of code to find the thing causing an issue. Sometimes it's only one line of code, sometimes it could be several. This is why it's important to be able to consistently reproduce bugs so you know where to look and can pin a problem down. It's also possible to have instances where you can have 2 items that are coded correctly and work fine on their own, but fail if they try to interact with each other. Thus you have to figure out why they're failing when they interact.
People also need to understand that just because the devs respond to every single report of a bug individually, it doesn't mean they're avoiding fixing a bug. Not every bug report they get is going to be a good report. If there are 10 different reports saying "the pets on the Enterprise J are broken" but they never say how they're broken, then those reports are useless. If they then get an 11th report saying "the pets on the Enterprise J are broken, here's how they're broken" then that is the first report they've gotten that is useful. The devs aren't omniscient and in order to fix bugs, they need to have the proper information. This is why when people report bugs they ask the questions they do and why it can seem like a game of 20 questions at times. It's not that they're trying to ask a bunch of questions to avoid doing anything, they're trying to work through a process of elimination to know what they need to do, and/or trying to get a piece of information they need to know what to do.
I know people get annoyed when they report a bug and they don't see anything for say 7 weeks until its fixed. Though I have to ask, what exactly do you want them to tell you aside from they're aware and working on it? They can't exactly tell you every little thing they're doing, and at most would only be able to tell you, "hey we're still working on it."
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I never painted you as a nasty, belligerent troll. If that is what you think I was saying, forgive me that was not my intent. I was making a general observation.
I only bring this up now to illustrate that not only is the hostility not one-sided, but that it had also been instigated by a Dev at times, too.
No one is entirely clean here.
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I'm not a mod here, but did you possibly give up too soon?
I've just spent a couple of weeks at work dealing with another company where the responses to questions were too vague to help. It was tempting to throw up my hands, but I needed this settled for one of my projects so I kept trying and eventually got past that stage. Tomorrow it's on to the next steps (sigh).
If PMing the mod involved didn't get you a clear response, it might've made sense to bring it up with another mod or Kael (or Trendy if this was during her era).
If the stalker / white knight poster tried to disrupt the new thread and you flagged them for moderation instead of responding, you still might not have gotten an answer from Cryptic but at least you wouldn't have thought you had to stay silent.
That said, this is a forum and unlike me you weren't being paid to put up with the aggravation. I can see giving up after an attempt or two.
Ah! That's something else entirely. And I'm sorry you had to deal with that. An answer should've been provided to you by the moderator. You did the right thing, though, given that you didn't get an answer.
Yes, I suppose one could be granted permission to open a new thread on the same subject, if the original thread cannot be reopened for reasons (I would prefer the original thread reopened, if possible though). I would advise my fellow moderators, who might grant said permission, to make a post in the new thread, after it's started, stating that the new thread had been allowed, just to avoid the thread getting reported.
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The fire fighting example doesn't work here because you don't need to be as precise as you do with programming. Also something you need to understand, just because they don't fix a particular bug you want them to fix as quickly as you wished they would does NOT mean they're sitting on their hands doing nothing. A single character out of place can bring an entire thing of thousands of lines of code crashing down. Prime example being the US Navy warship years ago that had their computer systems shut down on them and had to be towed back to port because their computer tried to divide by zero.
The devs don't like it when things take a long time to fix anymore than you do. As another example back with the Kemocite debacle. Kemocite used to be able to proc on its own and the more copies you had the more it would proc, and it was in an incredibly broken state. At the time CrypticSpartan straight out said not to get used to the ability as it is now because it's broken and would be getting fixed. People ignored the warning because it wasn't fixed when they thought it should have been fixed and started assuming it was working as intended. When the fix finally did come about 12-16 weeks later, people threw the mother of all hissy fits saying "you can't do this I paid money to get this power" and so on even though they were warned prior. They treated Spartan and the other devs like garbage as a result. I even heard rumors of one or two death threats getting sent because of it.
As to how this relates to previous stuff, people coming on here and screaming at the devs saying "It'S bRoKe fIX iT NoW" and calling them every 4 letter insult in 50 different human and alien languages alike isn't going to help matters. It's not going to make things get fixed faster. If folks want to ask if there's an update they can give us on a specific bug and can do so respectfully, that's one thing and something they may just answer you on, or give us some info we can pass on to you guys depending on the situation and what they can tell.
So point being, I get it when people are upset about bugs, which is why we try to be understanding as possible when it comes to people reporting bugs and having issues. We'll work with people so long as they're willing to work with us. At the same time, we also must enforce the rules of the forums as having an issue doesn't grant someone license to go on a tirade and do whatever they please. Sometimes when I've stepped in and tried to work with folks they've calmed down and worked with me and saw their issues resolved, or been told what they need to do in order to get it resolved. Other times they've bit the hand that fed them so to speak and I've had to close threads.
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And you could've just as easily accomplished the "getting back to the thread" by not responding.
This is how flame wars and thread derailments happen, folks. Someone just can't let go and let the thread get back on topic. This isn't just for you, chive, but for everyone, including my moderator cohorts. If the post is off topic, you're never going to get the thread back on topic by continuing to respond to off topic posts. One "final parting shot" doesn't really result in any finality.
This can also result in getting moderated, so let's avoid this in the future. Ok?
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Sweet baby Kahless. 🙄 Seriously? You're going to get your knickers in a knot, because I quoted you and not him? I addressed you and him and everyone else. But let's argue with the moderator about moderation and further derail the thread. Just stop.
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I have no words atm, in either capacity as a mod or forumite.
Also I'm kinda in a semi agitated state atm from outside sources unrelated to the forums so I am going to refrain from saying anything for a while on this.
Keep it snarky and passive-aggressive, but not active-aggressive straying into rant.
Valoreah there is a top example of how to gripe and complain properly without those pesky mods unleashing their +3 Swords of Deletion.