Actors: Good selection, I'm sure if you worked with them (like Wheaton) you can get them. With Wheaton, maybe something that can redeem Wesley?
Enterprise-C: Yeah, if they left T'nae on the Enterprise-C, that would be a pretty major fubar situation, since you wasn't allowed to go back. "Oops, we missed one Captain".
Also, surprised while you picked up T'nae, you didn't ask about the Enterprise-C's crew. Where were they? Were they beamed up during the escape? Did they board after you? Were they already on board?
Jupiter and Typhoon: Al, you got the Jupiter shows up in the Starbase Events. :P
But be interesting they get reinvisioned. Since the Typhoon is so similar to the Sovereign, would've been better to have that as a ship skin than that awful Imperial skin.
Canonical Ships: You should add the remaining canonical ships, even the Kitbashes.
Maybe as a Lockbox ship (like the Mirror), maybe a regular store as an alternate, or Fleet Store ship (non-fleet).
Klingon Ships: Yes, you mentioned the VoD'leh (though can't use that since you used that for the Vo'Quv Varient).
Wheres the K'Vort!!!
With the Toron, there is the Canonical shuttlepod, and the 2409 Toron (now a runabout), why redesign than not make the Runabout as a new shuttle?
Ship Interior: Be nice if we could get more function. I made a proposal to you guys how its possible to make a playble bridge (though not the same as playing in space maps with other player ships).
Romulan Ships: I got some ideas of a nice Transition from the Romulan D7 into the D'Deridex that I got to draw up soon.
EDIT: Continued Listening
PvP: Honestly, I think PvP is dead in STO and nothing will bring it back. One of the major things is balance and balance where Veteran players over newbie players (the faster newbs die, the less likely they will endure to improve.)
Content: Yes there is lots to do, but some people can't do anything they want. For instance I told Branflakes its a literal job having to grind Fleet Marks so my little Fleet can progress. Which means I have no time to PvP, STFs, Accolade Grind (DSE and Exploration clusters), and no time to play missions on the Foundry. So working on Fleet Marks is a literal job and completely kills the fun of the game. But large fleets, people have this option because they can put in a little and move on to something else for the day, like Dilithum grinding.
Foundry: I understand people have their duties, but whats the point in promoting the Foundry if you don't have time to improve it?
Big Bang Theory: Speaking of BBT with the City Of Heroes poster, I'm honestly surprised they haven't mentioned STO on their show, since they often reference Star Trek. But we seen then play WoW, ***, and TOR.
You ought to talk to CBS in doing a STO promo, maybe (if you can afford them), maybe have them voice a character in STO. I could easily imagine Jim Parsons being a EMH like the Picardo's Doctor.
For long stretches of this "interview" it was easy to forget that Geko was present, because for whatever reason it's more important to hear the lengthy and frequent opinions of the casters than to hear from their guest.
Some really good info and thoughts from Geko, but honestly I gave up some time in the middle of the foundry discussion when I hadn't heard from him for what seemed like 10 full minutes.
Sorry to be so critical, but if you're going to have a guest, please make that cast about the guest and not about the casters.
Well it's easy to understand they'd hate to say anything concrete or make promises.
Unfortunately it also means exactly that, rarely anything concrete is said or promised.
"We would like to..", "The team talked about...".
That along with the 1/1 chance of overly biased positive interviewers who never discuss anything remotely tied to what I see going on, on the forum, zone chat, team chat or fleet chat or anywhere else.
It just makes podcast superficial and disconnected from reality is all - and of course from the interviewers' perspective they feel their priority is to make sure they land another interview rather than protecting the quality of the what they are releasing.
All in all I can't really blame anyone for their position, it is what it is.
For long stretches of this "interview" it was easy to forget that Geko was present, because for whatever reason it's more important to hear the lengthy and frequent opinions of the casters than to hear from their guest.
Some really good info and thoughts from Geko, but honestly I gave up some time in the middle of the foundry discussion when I hadn't heard from him for what seemed like 10 full minutes.
Sorry to be so critical, but if you're going to have a guest, please make that cast about the guest and not about the casters.
Aren't these the podcasters who gave up on reviewing foundry missions because it cut too much into the time that they used to talk about themselves?
4 Hours? Meh, no thanks. Anyone got the highlights?
Beers,
Jengoz =/
"Star Trek Online is powered by the most abundant resource in the galaxy . . . Gullibility"
Talk about insulting your players. PvP are 14 year olds with too much time for min-maxing?? And the head of systems is too scared to queue up because of that??? wow
"PvP is too bursty", here is the smurf with 5 frontal weapons. WTF?!?
"Too much cannon to little glass" indeed. Maybe those insane healing and resist procs that are given away for free a part of that equation, hmmm... time to have another look at your spreadsheet.
Seriously Gecko, if you don't like PvP fine, but please relegate your pvp related duties to someone that has the will to at least pretend to try. With every patch you keep compiling the mess that pvp is in. That revamp you envision gets harder and more work intensive week by week. We need a new pvp czar, and systems should start listening to balance concerns of this csar.
Also if you are uncomfortable queuing up because of the iNsANe min-maxing of PvPers. Maybe give boot-camp a try. We would love to help, even incognito.
New PvP maps in 2014, heard that for 2012 in 2010, so yeah i believe it when i see it on holo.
I don't suppose somebody would be willing to provide a transcript?
Yes please.
...Tho it might be easier to read the forums the following days as it always generates thousands of new threads that almost always say the same things.
BTW, don't the rest you 14 Y.O. PvP'ers also have degrees ? I can't feel insulted as I'd love to be 14 again.
I've listen to parts of the interview. What i can tell so far:
I find the evolutions of pvp intriguing. It sounds fine to me if we get rid off the FPS elements for more tactical ones, like collecting resources and occasional skirmishes. I think it might be a step in the right direction.
The next Klingon ship, yet another cruiser, seriously? Don't we have more than enough cruisers in the store? Meh. Not waiting for that one.
I'm satisfied with the answer about cruisers and agree, they're balanced as they are. And yes I fly some of them.
Overally, interesting interview. I wish we could know more about the may update though.
Synopsis? SOmeone wants a synopsys (evil grin) Your j going to need to listen to it again to getust begging to get propagandized!
If you want the information in the podcast then you're just going to have to listen to it. I'm going to listen to it again today for a little dicussion planned for later to makes sure I get my facts strait.
What was most important in a lot of ways for we STO Gronyard types was that Geko went into some detail on the design, approval, and vetting process.
Nugget: CBS does not so much approve what goes into the game, but they do how ever definiatly disaprove of what they don't like. They recieve story and plot information, and artwork from the dev team constantly. The dev team usually doesn't hear anything back unless its something CBS doesn't like.
Nothing quite like dead silence when you really want to know if they like it, because you have some sort of nebulous long range plan that builds off a proposal. *sigh* I feel for them. I've delt with something very like that and no matter what there is always a constant fear in ones gut waiting for a shoe to drop, and what will need to be retconned, and adjusted when it happens.
The insights into the "process" Geko provided were enlightening.. And a nice indirect way of encouraging foundry authors!!! Yes, encouraging them! Foundry authors don't have to deal with any of that! Much smaller set of rules, and as long as they stay with the few rules there are for foundry content concerning IP properties, they're good. (of course he was encouraging foundry authors.. its Podcast UGC. It's what the show is all about..anything out for the rest of us players and fans really is strictly a lovely bonus!)
Ship design and approval process. Gave a few nuggets.. might see a few goodeis, and Geko, "I" happen to think the "New Orleans" class is a pretty ship, even if it is a kit bash..
but oh dear god please no Shelly! *shiver* there are kit bashes and there are kit bashes, some work, some don't.
The Fed NPC battlewagons. The more conventional one, meh.. the really ugly slab sided one.. yea, broadsider/bombardment ships. Toss it to art people for some refinement..
KDF. The enlarged Negvar (The intendents mirror universe ship?) Don't get married to it..
does the KDF need another really big ship unless its seriously got a substancial increase in fire power? Does it need another big ship? What I see in the forums is a re-envisioning wanted of the what the Raptor class ships are supposed to be doing. They're not very good as a counterpart to fed escort ships...best suggestion I have heard on the forums is turn them into KDF sci ships.. in Enterprise the Raptor was a scout ship. Lets get back to its roots. Current BOP Raiders are fine.. the scream are still that thier to weak, or need to be nerfed..*snicker* if everyone is complaining that way, they're just fine.
Keep the Klingon ship formula for anything you make for Klingon KDF ships..Manuverability, hard hitting (cannon cannons, and more cannons), but not quite as durable as federation ships. What STO is missing is the non-combat roles of starships. Even KDF ships need to be capable of non-combat missions. Its not something we see reflected a great deal in game systems of mission content.
PvP.. yep, get the KDF finished.. lets figure out a way to pump KDF numbers and get people to stay there and play that faction... needs carfull management of KDF toys ... and if you please...
Complaint to Dev's dept: Please no more giving KDF exclusives to the Fed faction.. if they want to play with KDF style toys then they need to come play KDF faction. They've gotten dual cannon cruisers.. dual cannon sci ships, universal BOFF's and the use of fighters and cloaks. So, why are there no KLINGON sci ships..
they get to use our stuff but klingon dummies.. no figure out shiny blinky science stuff ..uhg, beat with club, Kor fix!
................. Off subject but related......................
KDF could also use some good propaganda. Need missions where the KDF is clearly, and obviously the good guys in by Federation player standards. Needs missions where the Federation err's and the KDF comes in to save the day even though the two empires are at war.. Something to offset the historically recent knee jerk reactionaryism that seems to have overcome the Federation and starfleet leadership.
"Someday your Federation will understand the cost of honor, how to recognize it, and why that cost must be paid. Untill then, this war continues. May we meet again in glorious battle!"
Kuiama del Solima, Orion captain of the I.K.S. Dancer
(Just how was it that Starfleet managed to TRIBBLE up and allow a war to happen between the federation and the Klingon Empire anyway? Thats a story element that doesn't make a great deal of sense in retrospect..)
................. Back to it ...........................................
I know and understand that the Dev team doesn't want to do unoforms and cloathing for the KDF faction because its time intensive etc..
IMHO, too damd bad, do it anyway. Over due and then some, just like the KDF development. Needed to help make the faction more attractive,
to help bring up faction numbers, and eventually tie into long range plans for much better then current PvP... ie: The war between the factions that should have never happened, but we seem to have anyway, and when are we actually going to get to fight that war?
Over all an outstanding interview. Geko had much to say. All of it quite informative and well delivered even if the hosts..well, ya know, Were not talk'n Johnney Carson and the Tonight Show, Meet the Press, or All Things Considered here.
While many like me may not like the studio's justifications, or reasons for doing things a specific way (I'm KDF ok, very difficult to not sound negative or dissillusioned here. At least I AM aware of it!) the why of it is much much clearer then its been before which is a GOOD thing.
Now all I have to do is get my 18% of the player base to convince 40-50% or the rest of the total player base to let it be known that getting KDF goodies in is "do it now" important.. (hey, want to see close to over all 2/3rds of the players thinking and saying "its a good idea" the sort of numbers that leave a dev studio going.. ok, maybe so.)
The real trick is getting 'em to communicate it. Unlike the phenominally loud minority here on the forums (of which I am a loud, proud, and prickly member)
The vast majority of STO players are not only never going to post on these forums, they don't read them, and never will. Nor do they watch/listen to podcasts and fan based inititives to get the word out. They "might" respond to a cryptic initiated survey, But even cryptics surveys are going to be biased toward a certain point of view. It's happened before. I was there, I saw it, and more then once... survey numbers can be made to damd near justify any thing you want them to. Its all how they are presented..I learned that in corporate sales, and poly sci classes a long time ago. Demographic pols can be uses, and have been used as a tool to support any point of view the the group presenting the pool wants. When they're used as a propaganda tool though they become a political tool of control and become a self fulfilling prophecy which is WHY a good many of the KDF player types on these forums have always objected to having it revealed that KDF only amounted to 18% of the player base. KDF play is going to tend to draw an older age group..older and wiser isn't a given, but its a lot more likely to be!
I wonder how much the faction has grown as a percentage of the player base. That "18%" metric is somewhat dated. Seeing the cats out of the bag anyway could we get an update?
Q: Many people flying ships armed with beam arrays feel that these weapons are somewhat lackluster, due to the way that beam arrays seem to drain a lot more power than cannons or turrets. These leads to beam heavy ships not coming anywhere close to their rate damage output because of the power drain issues. Is this something we can have looked at or are beam arrays performing at expected levels?
A: Ok, well, there are two answers to this.
One is, that it is working as designed because cannons are supposed to do more damage and escorts are supposed to be DPS ships. It's how we make sure that cannons, that have only a 45 degree arc, do more damage.
The second answer is, if that's not acceptable, the answer is not to decrease the power drain on beams, but increase the power drains on cannons. Right, cause when there's a lump in the floor, its easier to pound down that lump than to raise the height of the floor to that lump. I really don't think that beam boats are suffering. So I'm really having a hard time thinking that they are. And honestly, I would be more inclined to nerf cannons. The more people ask me, the more likely I'll be to nerf cannons than to make beams drain less. I really don't think they... they're performing more as I would expect them to than cannons are. Dual heavy cannons need to drain more, they really do. It's just something I haven't wanted to do as it TRIBBLE... (doesn't finish sentence due to 'don't nerf cannons' remarks). See, that's why its like that, cause cannons need to get that and beams don't. That's my feeling, I don't... is there any disagreement to that? (Responses are upon hearing what he would do, they're fine, don't touch them and if you're going to push out a constant beam then quick little bursts then that makes sense.) There's something a lot of people don't realize is that cannon damage drops off at range far faster than beams weapons do. You can always infest skill points in Power Insulators or, and there's Nadion Inversion, is it, will help you reduce that problem. So there's systems ingame to mitigate that.
My thoughts:
1) To me, it doesn't sound like the interviewers or Gecko deal with beam boats much (or at all).
2) I thought the higher DPS of cannons was due to the lower firing arc. Beam DPS, we were told was lower due to the wider firing arc. If the power drain on beams were adjusted for less drain, they still wouldn't outperform cannons (which I have no problem with).
3) Nerfing cannons is not the answer.
4) Cannon (except for Dual Heavy Cannons) shoot out a constant stream of bolts, so is that really all that different than a beam?
5) I tought it was common knowledge about the damage drop off. But at under 7km the so-called advantage that beams have, becomes moot.
6) Power Insulators by itself does nothing to help with Weapon Power drain. It does boost the drain resist, but only if you have Nadion Inversion; not by itself as he is implying.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
Q: Many people flying ships armed with beam arrays feel that these weapons are somewhat lackluster, due to the way that beam arrays seem to drain a lot more power than cannons or turrets. These leads to beam heavy ships not coming anywhere close to their rate damage output because of the power drain issues. Is this something we can have looked at or are beam arrays performing at expected levels?
A: Ok, well, there are two answers to this.
One is, that it is working as designed because cannons are supposed to do more damage and escorts are supposed to be DPS ships. It's how we make sure that cannons, that have only a 45 degree arc, do more damage.
The second answer is, if that's not acceptable, the answer is not to decrease the power drain on beams, but increase the power drains on cannons. Right, cause when there's a lump in the floor, its easier to pound down that lump than to raise the height of the floor to that lump. I really don't think that beam boats are suffering. So I'm really having a hard time thinking that they are. And honestly, I would be more inclined to nerf cannons. The more people ask me, the more likely I'll be to nerf cannons than to make beams drain less. I really don't think they... they're performing more as I would expect them to than cannons are. Dual heavy cannons need to drain more, they really do. It's just something I haven't wanted to do as it TRIBBLE... (doesn't finish sentence due to 'don't nerf cannons' remarks). See, that's why its like that, cause cannons need to get that and beams don't. That's my feeling, I don't... is there any disagreement to that? (Responses are upon hearing what he would do, they're fine, don't touch them and if you're going to push out a constant beam then quick little bursts then that makes sense.) There's something a lot of people don't realize is that cannon damage drops off at range far faster than beams weapons do. You can always infest skill points in Power Insulators or, and there's Nadion Inversion, is it, will help you reduce that problem. So there's systems ingame to mitigate that.
My thoughts:
/snip
Oh the mighty insulators of power, the secret min-maxing knowledge of the 14year olds once more defies the head of the systems team.
WHile props to Gecko for being up front, and sitting through a 4h interview. there is some serious PR disasters in there. I don't even know what to say to the man, if all the video proofs, and repro steps (voldi anyone) in the world, are ignored, because that's just stuff for teenies with too much time on their hands
You do know that all cruisers should do is healing and possibly dealing with mine spam on a pvp map don't you?
And from a pve point of view, healing makes sense. People not enjoying themselves flying support ships because it's not glorious enough to help others can fly escorts if they want.
When I play my cruiser I barely hit the spacebar, especially in the toughest instances or pvp. I don't need to anyway, all I have time to do is making sure everyone else is alive and won't die in the next 15 seconds, that's my role when I log on Mr cruiser and it's pretty cool.
Oh the mighty insulators of power, the secret min-maxing knowledge of the 14year olds once more defies the head of the systems team.
WHile props to Gecko for being up front, and sitting through a 4h interview. there is some serious PR disasters in there. I don't even know what to say to the man, if all the video proofs, and repro steps (voldi anyone) in the world, are ignored, because that's just stuff for teenies with too much time on their hands
This is the person who designed the loadout for the Nebula. Why did it take everyone else this long to understand he's not in touch with the players, doesn't have much of a handle on how the game plays, and really doesn't get Star Trek?
Nugget: CBS does not so much approve what goes into the game, but they do how ever definiatly disaprove of what they don't like. They recieve story and plot information, and artwork from the dev team constantly. The dev team usually doesn't hear anything back unless its something CBS doesn't like.
Why would anyone need to listen to a four hour interview to learn something CapnLogan told us all years ago when CBS nixed the initial design of the Nomad skin and its release was pushed back?
You do know that all cruisers should do is healing and possibly dealing with mine spam on a pvp map don't you?
And from a pve point of view, healing makes sense. People not enjoying themselves flying support ships because it's not glorious enough to help others can fly escorts if they want.
When I play my cruiser I barely hit the spacebar, especially in the toughest instances or pvp. I don't need to anyway, all I have time to do is making sure everyone else is alive and won't die in the next 15 seconds, that's my role when I log on Mr cruiser and it's pretty cool.
Two things...
First, where did I mention cruisers? I was responding to Gecko's opinion on Beam Weapon drain.
Second, while I do not PVP, I am well aware of a cruiser's role in it. And again, his comments about Beam Weapon drain were not solely for the PVP community.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
And again, his comments about Beam Weapon drain were not solely for the PVP community.
I think you're even more right than that quote indicates. Considering his other comments about PVP, I'd say much of his commentary on design duties have absolutely nothing to do with PVP since he's pretty much abandoned it.
Phew! Almost done the interview. 30 minutes left and am taking a break.
A few things:
1) captain geko should be the only person that cryptic allows to be interviewed. I am not saying everyone else is bad but he is definetly the best because of his honesty and knowledge
2) tholian carrier and Jen hadar ships are awesome but lots of people won't play them because they completely destroy the ip (why would I drain out the lava in the tholian ship and enter in all my equipment just to fly in?) so it would be nice to pay for a more ip centric skin for them
3) kdf will not be getting fixed this may
Actors: Good selection, I'm sure if you worked with them (like Wheaton) you can get them. With Wheaton, maybe something that can redeem Wesley?
If you pay attention to Wheaton's career and his twitter, you'd see two things as a trend:
- He likes playing villains. He REALLY likes playing villains.
- The bulk of his commentary on Wesley boils down to his notions of a sombrero-wearing, evil, gets-the-girl, shoots-first anti-Wesley.
I REALLY think the way to go, as I've said for awhile, is a Mirror Wesley. The perks are too numerous. He gets to be evil. CBS would probably let players kill him. Killing Wesley already borders on being a running gag on the shows.
You might talk him into playing regular Wesley at the same time as the backend part of the pitch but Mirror Wesley is what would snag him.
I still think the way to do this is to create a Portal type STF/encounter. (It could even be something like rep/FE progression where it's a soloable series delivered in chunks with challenges and collection aspects required to progress.) Evil Wesley taunts the player ala GladOS from Portal. This builds frustration. Killing evil Wesley resolves the frustration.
It's been awhile since we had any Mirror story progression anyway and it's not really an area where even the basic questions have been resolved. I'd say the same is true for the Cardassians and the Klingons.
But I feel like Cryptic has some influential Romulan fans who keep skewing us back that direction. And that would be fine... But I think we need a good 5-10 episodes that better cap off the other fronts and address the questions raised, such as:
- How did the Terrans rebuild their empire in 30 years?
- Will the Gorn rebel?
- Is J'mpok a traitor?
- Who are the Undine in Starfleet?
I'd be perfectly fine at this point with these kinds of things getting wrapped up in standalone FEs but I feel that leaving them all dangling feels sloppy. That doesn't mean perfect resolutions but my feeling right now is that the fronts and subplots in STO don't have any kind of arc to them.
Whereas most MMOs I've encountered, even if they don't totally close the door on a group or a question, semi-resolve plotlines before they ask you to focus elsewhere. STO needs semi-resolutions.
And I feel like you could probably get that in a place where people notice it by having Mirror Wesley turn up. Because that takes us beyond the "random Mirror incursions" to give us someone who can address and wrap up the dangling stuff beyond Smiley's death.
And I'd feel a lot more comfortable focusing on Romulans/Iconians if each of these plots wrapped up in some kind of endgame way that led us back to the Romulans/Iconians.
Y'Know, 5-10 standalone Featured Episodes and every one of them provides some kind of hard conclusion to a game plot that shifts our focus towards the Romulan/Iconian state of affairs.
That's probably how I'd handle an Anti-Iconian rep, actually. 1-2 missions per rep tier that systematically go through the various fronts/plotlines and divert them towards Romulans/Iconians. Expose J'mpok and the Orion Leader as agents of the Tal Shiar. BAM. Reveal the rogue Jem'Hadar as being corrupted by an Iconian virus. BAM.
Make everything feel like it's building in one direction instead of being scattershot.
I feel like WoW is generally good at doing that by ultimately making almost everything ultimately boil down to the Dreadlords or the Old Gods or the Titans, with everything boiling down to some combination of those three groups interacting, even if it's sometimes a distant chain of events. But you can Kevin Bacon those three groups to any plotline, even the teenagers sending love letters to one another on the farm or the runaway pig or the TRIBBLE collection quests. They've probably hammed it up a bit too much there. But I think we need some dots connected. And it doesn't matter if they were initially planned as connected. If an unresolved plotline is distracting people (particularly if Cryptic didn't think it was unresolved), then I think we're approaching a point where a lot of dot connecting needs to start happening.
so what action will be taken over geckos derogatory remarks towrds players ? please do enlighten us mr flakes !
It's seriously stretching things to suggest that he's calling PvPers all 14 year-olds with too much free time.
What he's saying is that 14 year olds with too much free time will naturally be better at PvP and he wants to make PvP more accessible to less sophisticated players.
I've been hyper-sensitive about Geko in the past and I REALLY have trouble seeing anything he said as an insult.
If you pay attention to Wheaton's career and his twitter, you'd see two things as a trend:
- He likes playing villains. He REALLY likes playing villains.
- The bulk of his commentary on Wesley boils down to his notions of a sombrero-wearing, evil, gets-the-girl, shoots-first anti-Wesley.
I REALLY think the way to go, as I've said for awhile, is a Mirror Wesley. The perks are too numerous. He gets to be evil. CBS would probably let players kill him. Killing Wesley already borders on being a running gag on the shows.
Wil doesn't always play villians. Many of his Voice Acting roles were heroes. And his roles on Big Bang Theory and Eureka weren't really antagonistic, more like the arrogant type.
But I could get behind a Mirror Wesley, that has potential to being like an STO version of Khan.
If you pay attention to Wheaton's career and his twitter, you'd see two things as a trend:
- He likes playing villains. He REALLY likes playing villains.
- The bulk of his commentary on Wesley boils down to his notions of a sombrero-wearing, evil, gets-the-girl, shoots-first anti-Wesley.
I REALLY think the way to go, as I've said for awhile, is a Mirror Wesley. The perks are too numerous. He gets to be evil. CBS would probably let players kill him. Killing Wesley already borders on being a running gag on the shows.
You might talk him into playing regular Wesley at the same time as the backend part of the pitch but Mirror Wesley is what would snag him.
I think cosmic Indigo child Wesley is the last thing you'd attract Wheaton with. (And he did reprise Wesley once already, as Chief Engineer aboard the Titan.)
The books skewed towards Wesley off traveling the unknown.
Whereas Nemesis and the Star Trek attraction where he played Wesley were both cases where he agreed to come back because he liked working with the actors and because he'd get to play a more grounded Wesley.
(As I recall, the Nemesis scene was supposed to establish that he'd abandoned the traveler and re-enrolled at the academy offscreen and was supposed to end with him hooking up with Ashley Judd. And the theme park bit established him as a mature officer.)
The books clung more towards the "cosmic destiny, quirky boy genius" mold and that's what you have to avoid to get him involved.
I mean, heck, if you had a grizzled 50 year old Wesley burst into a room and push aside Shon to fire weapons on an enemy because Shon was waiting too long to fire, that's more in the vein I think Wheaton would go.
Not necessarily a villain but he goes for parts that are visceral, arrogant, and aggressive, on the whole.
Now that I think about it, I think as much as classic Wes was a technical Mary Sue, Wheaton would be drawn to a new Wesley that was a Mary Sue at being a bigger jerk than the jerks in the room.
Like... Wesley Crusher, Drake's even more slimy boss at Section 31.
Comments
Enterprise-C: Yeah, if they left T'nae on the Enterprise-C, that would be a pretty major fubar situation, since you wasn't allowed to go back. "Oops, we missed one Captain".
Also, surprised while you picked up T'nae, you didn't ask about the Enterprise-C's crew. Where were they? Were they beamed up during the escape? Did they board after you? Were they already on board?
Jupiter and Typhoon: Al, you got the Jupiter shows up in the Starbase Events. :P
But be interesting they get reinvisioned. Since the Typhoon is so similar to the Sovereign, would've been better to have that as a ship skin than that awful Imperial skin.
Canonical Ships: You should add the remaining canonical ships, even the Kitbashes.
Maybe as a Lockbox ship (like the Mirror), maybe a regular store as an alternate, or Fleet Store ship (non-fleet).
Klingon Ships: Yes, you mentioned the VoD'leh (though can't use that since you used that for the Vo'Quv Varient).
Wheres the K'Vort!!!
With the Toron, there is the Canonical shuttlepod, and the 2409 Toron (now a runabout), why redesign than not make the Runabout as a new shuttle?
Ship Interior: Be nice if we could get more function. I made a proposal to you guys how its possible to make a playble bridge (though not the same as playing in space maps with other player ships).
Romulan Ships: I got some ideas of a nice Transition from the Romulan D7 into the D'Deridex that I got to draw up soon.
EDIT: Continued Listening
PvP: Honestly, I think PvP is dead in STO and nothing will bring it back. One of the major things is balance and balance where Veteran players over newbie players (the faster newbs die, the less likely they will endure to improve.)
Content: Yes there is lots to do, but some people can't do anything they want. For instance I told Branflakes its a literal job having to grind Fleet Marks so my little Fleet can progress. Which means I have no time to PvP, STFs, Accolade Grind (DSE and Exploration clusters), and no time to play missions on the Foundry. So working on Fleet Marks is a literal job and completely kills the fun of the game. But large fleets, people have this option because they can put in a little and move on to something else for the day, like Dilithum grinding.
Foundry: I understand people have their duties, but whats the point in promoting the Foundry if you don't have time to improve it?
Big Bang Theory: Speaking of BBT with the City Of Heroes poster, I'm honestly surprised they haven't mentioned STO on their show, since they often reference Star Trek. But we seen then play WoW, ***, and TOR.
You ought to talk to CBS in doing a STO promo, maybe (if you can afford them), maybe have them voice a character in STO. I could easily imagine Jim Parsons being a EMH like the Picardo's Doctor.
Some really good info and thoughts from Geko, but honestly I gave up some time in the middle of the foundry discussion when I hadn't heard from him for what seemed like 10 full minutes.
Sorry to be so critical, but if you're going to have a guest, please make that cast about the guest and not about the casters.
Unfortunately it also means exactly that, rarely anything concrete is said or promised.
"We would like to..", "The team talked about...".
That along with the 1/1 chance of overly biased positive interviewers who never discuss anything remotely tied to what I see going on, on the forum, zone chat, team chat or fleet chat or anywhere else.
It just makes podcast superficial and disconnected from reality is all - and of course from the interviewers' perspective they feel their priority is to make sure they land another interview rather than protecting the quality of the what they are releasing.
All in all I can't really blame anyone for their position, it is what it is.
Aren't these the podcasters who gave up on reviewing foundry missions because it cut too much into the time that they used to talk about themselves?
4 Hours? Meh, no thanks. Anyone got the highlights?
Beers,
Jengoz =/
"PvP is too bursty", here is the smurf with 5 frontal weapons. WTF?!?
"Too much cannon to little glass" indeed. Maybe those insane healing and resist procs that are given away for free a part of that equation, hmmm... time to have another look at your spreadsheet.
Seriously Gecko, if you don't like PvP fine, but please relegate your pvp related duties to someone that has the will to at least pretend to try. With every patch you keep compiling the mess that pvp is in. That revamp you envision gets harder and more work intensive week by week. We need a new pvp czar, and systems should start listening to balance concerns of this csar.
Also if you are uncomfortable queuing up because of the iNsANe min-maxing of PvPers. Maybe give boot-camp a try. We would love to help, even incognito.
New PvP maps in 2014, heard that for 2012 in 2010, so yeah i believe it when i see it on holo.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
Yes please.
...Tho it might be easier to read the forums the following days as it always generates thousands of new threads that almost always say the same things.
BTW, don't the rest you 14 Y.O. PvP'ers also have degrees ? I can't feel insulted as I'd love to be 14 again.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I find the evolutions of pvp intriguing. It sounds fine to me if we get rid off the FPS elements for more tactical ones, like collecting resources and occasional skirmishes. I think it might be a step in the right direction.
The next Klingon ship, yet another cruiser, seriously? Don't we have more than enough cruisers in the store? Meh. Not waiting for that one.
I'm satisfied with the answer about cruisers and agree, they're balanced as they are. And yes I fly some of them.
Overally, interesting interview. I wish we could know more about the may update though.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Synopsis? SOmeone wants a synopsys (evil grin) Your j going to need to listen to it again to getust begging to get propagandized!
If you want the information in the podcast then you're just going to have to listen to it. I'm going to listen to it again today for a little dicussion planned for later to makes sure I get my facts strait.
What was most important in a lot of ways for we STO Gronyard types was that Geko went into some detail on the design, approval, and vetting process.
Nugget: CBS does not so much approve what goes into the game, but they do how ever definiatly disaprove of what they don't like. They recieve story and plot information, and artwork from the dev team constantly. The dev team usually doesn't hear anything back unless its something CBS doesn't like.
Nothing quite like dead silence when you really want to know if they like it, because you have some sort of nebulous long range plan that builds off a proposal. *sigh* I feel for them. I've delt with something very like that and no matter what there is always a constant fear in ones gut waiting for a shoe to drop, and what will need to be retconned, and adjusted when it happens.
The insights into the "process" Geko provided were enlightening.. And a nice indirect way of encouraging foundry authors!!! Yes, encouraging them! Foundry authors don't have to deal with any of that! Much smaller set of rules, and as long as they stay with the few rules there are for foundry content concerning IP properties, they're good. (of course he was encouraging foundry authors.. its Podcast UGC. It's what the show is all about..anything out for the rest of us players and fans really is strictly a lovely bonus!)
Ship design and approval process. Gave a few nuggets.. might see a few goodeis, and Geko, "I" happen to think the "New Orleans" class is a pretty ship, even if it is a kit bash..
but oh dear god please no Shelly! *shiver* there are kit bashes and there are kit bashes, some work, some don't.
The Fed NPC battlewagons. The more conventional one, meh.. the really ugly slab sided one.. yea, broadsider/bombardment ships. Toss it to art people for some refinement..
KDF. The enlarged Negvar (The intendents mirror universe ship?) Don't get married to it..
does the KDF need another really big ship unless its seriously got a substancial increase in fire power? Does it need another big ship? What I see in the forums is a re-envisioning wanted of the what the Raptor class ships are supposed to be doing. They're not very good as a counterpart to fed escort ships...best suggestion I have heard on the forums is turn them into KDF sci ships.. in Enterprise the Raptor was a scout ship. Lets get back to its roots. Current BOP Raiders are fine.. the scream are still that thier to weak, or need to be nerfed..*snicker* if everyone is complaining that way, they're just fine.
Keep the Klingon ship formula for anything you make for Klingon KDF ships..Manuverability, hard hitting (cannon cannons, and more cannons), but not quite as durable as federation ships. What STO is missing is the non-combat roles of starships. Even KDF ships need to be capable of non-combat missions. Its not something we see reflected a great deal in game systems of mission content.
PvP.. yep, get the KDF finished.. lets figure out a way to pump KDF numbers and get people to stay there and play that faction... needs carfull management of KDF toys ... and if you please...
Complaint to Dev's dept: Please no more giving KDF exclusives to the Fed faction.. if they want to play with KDF style toys then they need to come play KDF faction. They've gotten dual cannon cruisers.. dual cannon sci ships, universal BOFF's and the use of fighters and cloaks. So, why are there no KLINGON sci ships..
they get to use our stuff but klingon dummies.. no figure out shiny blinky science stuff ..uhg, beat with club, Kor fix!
................. Off subject but related......................
KDF could also use some good propaganda. Need missions where the KDF is clearly, and obviously the good guys in by Federation player standards. Needs missions where the Federation err's and the KDF comes in to save the day even though the two empires are at war.. Something to offset the historically recent knee jerk reactionaryism that seems to have overcome the Federation and starfleet leadership.
"Someday your Federation will understand the cost of honor, how to recognize it, and why that cost must be paid. Untill then, this war continues. May we meet again in glorious battle!"
Kuiama del Solima, Orion captain of the I.K.S. Dancer
(Just how was it that Starfleet managed to TRIBBLE up and allow a war to happen between the federation and the Klingon Empire anyway? Thats a story element that doesn't make a great deal of sense in retrospect..)
................. Back to it ...........................................
I know and understand that the Dev team doesn't want to do unoforms and cloathing for the KDF faction because its time intensive etc..
IMHO, too damd bad, do it anyway. Over due and then some, just like the KDF development. Needed to help make the faction more attractive,
to help bring up faction numbers, and eventually tie into long range plans for much better then current PvP... ie: The war between the factions that should have never happened, but we seem to have anyway, and when are we actually going to get to fight that war?
Over all an outstanding interview. Geko had much to say. All of it quite informative and well delivered even if the hosts..well, ya know, Were not talk'n Johnney Carson and the Tonight Show, Meet the Press, or All Things Considered here.
While many like me may not like the studio's justifications, or reasons for doing things a specific way (I'm KDF ok, very difficult to not sound negative or dissillusioned here. At least I AM aware of it!) the why of it is much much clearer then its been before which is a GOOD thing.
Now all I have to do is get my 18% of the player base to convince 40-50% or the rest of the total player base to let it be known that getting KDF goodies in is "do it now" important.. (hey, want to see close to over all 2/3rds of the players thinking and saying "its a good idea" the sort of numbers that leave a dev studio going.. ok, maybe so.)
The real trick is getting 'em to communicate it. Unlike the phenominally loud minority here on the forums (of which I am a loud, proud, and prickly member)
The vast majority of STO players are not only never going to post on these forums, they don't read them, and never will. Nor do they watch/listen to podcasts and fan based inititives to get the word out. They "might" respond to a cryptic initiated survey, But even cryptics surveys are going to be biased toward a certain point of view. It's happened before. I was there, I saw it, and more then once... survey numbers can be made to damd near justify any thing you want them to. Its all how they are presented..I learned that in corporate sales, and poly sci classes a long time ago. Demographic pols can be uses, and have been used as a tool to support any point of view the the group presenting the pool wants. When they're used as a propaganda tool though they become a political tool of control and become a self fulfilling prophecy which is WHY a good many of the KDF player types on these forums have always objected to having it revealed that KDF only amounted to 18% of the player base. KDF play is going to tend to draw an older age group..older and wiser isn't a given, but its a lot more likely to be!
I wonder how much the faction has grown as a percentage of the player base. That "18%" metric is somewhat dated. Seeing the cats out of the bag anyway could we get an update?
Khemaraa sends
Q: Many people flying ships armed with beam arrays feel that these weapons are somewhat lackluster, due to the way that beam arrays seem to drain a lot more power than cannons or turrets. These leads to beam heavy ships not coming anywhere close to their rate damage output because of the power drain issues. Is this something we can have looked at or are beam arrays performing at expected levels?
A: Ok, well, there are two answers to this.
One is, that it is working as designed because cannons are supposed to do more damage and escorts are supposed to be DPS ships. It's how we make sure that cannons, that have only a 45 degree arc, do more damage.
The second answer is, if that's not acceptable, the answer is not to decrease the power drain on beams, but increase the power drains on cannons. Right, cause when there's a lump in the floor, its easier to pound down that lump than to raise the height of the floor to that lump. I really don't think that beam boats are suffering. So I'm really having a hard time thinking that they are. And honestly, I would be more inclined to nerf cannons. The more people ask me, the more likely I'll be to nerf cannons than to make beams drain less. I really don't think they... they're performing more as I would expect them to than cannons are. Dual heavy cannons need to drain more, they really do. It's just something I haven't wanted to do as it TRIBBLE... (doesn't finish sentence due to 'don't nerf cannons' remarks). See, that's why its like that, cause cannons need to get that and beams don't. That's my feeling, I don't... is there any disagreement to that? (Responses are upon hearing what he would do, they're fine, don't touch them and if you're going to push out a constant beam then quick little bursts then that makes sense.) There's something a lot of people don't realize is that cannon damage drops off at range far faster than beams weapons do. You can always infest skill points in Power Insulators or, and there's Nadion Inversion, is it, will help you reduce that problem. So there's systems ingame to mitigate that.
My thoughts:
1) To me, it doesn't sound like the interviewers or Gecko deal with beam boats much (or at all).
2) I thought the higher DPS of cannons was due to the lower firing arc. Beam DPS, we were told was lower due to the wider firing arc. If the power drain on beams were adjusted for less drain, they still wouldn't outperform cannons (which I have no problem with).
3) Nerfing cannons is not the answer.
4) Cannon (except for Dual Heavy Cannons) shoot out a constant stream of bolts, so is that really all that different than a beam?
5) I tought it was common knowledge about the damage drop off. But at under 7km the so-called advantage that beams have, becomes moot.
6) Power Insulators by itself does nothing to help with Weapon Power drain. It does boost the drain resist, but only if you have Nadion Inversion; not by itself as he is implying.
Oh the mighty insulators of power, the secret min-maxing knowledge of the 14year olds once more defies the head of the systems team.
WHile props to Gecko for being up front, and sitting through a 4h interview. there is some serious PR disasters in there. I don't even know what to say to the man, if all the video proofs, and repro steps (voldi anyone) in the world, are ignored, because that's just stuff for teenies with too much time on their hands
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
You do know that all cruisers should do is healing and possibly dealing with mine spam on a pvp map don't you?
And from a pve point of view, healing makes sense. People not enjoying themselves flying support ships because it's not glorious enough to help others can fly escorts if they want.
When I play my cruiser I barely hit the spacebar, especially in the toughest instances or pvp. I don't need to anyway, all I have time to do is making sure everyone else is alive and won't die in the next 15 seconds, that's my role when I log on Mr cruiser and it's pretty cool.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
This is the person who designed the loadout for the Nebula. Why did it take everyone else this long to understand he's not in touch with the players, doesn't have much of a handle on how the game plays, and really doesn't get Star Trek?
Why would anyone need to listen to a four hour interview to learn something CapnLogan told us all years ago when CBS nixed the initial design of the Nomad skin and its release was pushed back?
Two things...
First, where did I mention cruisers? I was responding to Gecko's opinion on Beam Weapon drain.
Second, while I do not PVP, I am well aware of a cruiser's role in it. And again, his comments about Beam Weapon drain were not solely for the PVP community.
I think you're even more right than that quote indicates. Considering his other comments about PVP, I'd say much of his commentary on design duties have absolutely nothing to do with PVP since he's pretty much abandoned it.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
A few things:
1) captain geko should be the only person that cryptic allows to be interviewed. I am not saying everyone else is bad but he is definetly the best because of his honesty and knowledge
2) tholian carrier and Jen hadar ships are awesome but lots of people won't play them because they completely destroy the ip (why would I drain out the lava in the tholian ship and enter in all my equipment just to fly in?) so it would be nice to pay for a more ip centric skin for them
3) kdf will not be getting fixed this may
If you pay attention to Wheaton's career and his twitter, you'd see two things as a trend:
- He likes playing villains. He REALLY likes playing villains.
- The bulk of his commentary on Wesley boils down to his notions of a sombrero-wearing, evil, gets-the-girl, shoots-first anti-Wesley.
I REALLY think the way to go, as I've said for awhile, is a Mirror Wesley. The perks are too numerous. He gets to be evil. CBS would probably let players kill him. Killing Wesley already borders on being a running gag on the shows.
You might talk him into playing regular Wesley at the same time as the backend part of the pitch but Mirror Wesley is what would snag him.
I still think the way to do this is to create a Portal type STF/encounter. (It could even be something like rep/FE progression where it's a soloable series delivered in chunks with challenges and collection aspects required to progress.) Evil Wesley taunts the player ala GladOS from Portal. This builds frustration. Killing evil Wesley resolves the frustration.
It's been awhile since we had any Mirror story progression anyway and it's not really an area where even the basic questions have been resolved. I'd say the same is true for the Cardassians and the Klingons.
But I feel like Cryptic has some influential Romulan fans who keep skewing us back that direction. And that would be fine... But I think we need a good 5-10 episodes that better cap off the other fronts and address the questions raised, such as:
- How did the Terrans rebuild their empire in 30 years?
- Will the Gorn rebel?
- Is J'mpok a traitor?
- Who are the Undine in Starfleet?
I'd be perfectly fine at this point with these kinds of things getting wrapped up in standalone FEs but I feel that leaving them all dangling feels sloppy. That doesn't mean perfect resolutions but my feeling right now is that the fronts and subplots in STO don't have any kind of arc to them.
Whereas most MMOs I've encountered, even if they don't totally close the door on a group or a question, semi-resolve plotlines before they ask you to focus elsewhere. STO needs semi-resolutions.
And I feel like you could probably get that in a place where people notice it by having Mirror Wesley turn up. Because that takes us beyond the "random Mirror incursions" to give us someone who can address and wrap up the dangling stuff beyond Smiley's death.
And I'd feel a lot more comfortable focusing on Romulans/Iconians if each of these plots wrapped up in some kind of endgame way that led us back to the Romulans/Iconians.
Y'Know, 5-10 standalone Featured Episodes and every one of them provides some kind of hard conclusion to a game plot that shifts our focus towards the Romulan/Iconian state of affairs.
That's probably how I'd handle an Anti-Iconian rep, actually. 1-2 missions per rep tier that systematically go through the various fronts/plotlines and divert them towards Romulans/Iconians. Expose J'mpok and the Orion Leader as agents of the Tal Shiar. BAM. Reveal the rogue Jem'Hadar as being corrupted by an Iconian virus. BAM.
Make everything feel like it's building in one direction instead of being scattershot.
I feel like WoW is generally good at doing that by ultimately making almost everything ultimately boil down to the Dreadlords or the Old Gods or the Titans, with everything boiling down to some combination of those three groups interacting, even if it's sometimes a distant chain of events. But you can Kevin Bacon those three groups to any plotline, even the teenagers sending love letters to one another on the farm or the runaway pig or the TRIBBLE collection quests. They've probably hammed it up a bit too much there. But I think we need some dots connected. And it doesn't matter if they were initially planned as connected. If an unresolved plotline is distracting people (particularly if Cryptic didn't think it was unresolved), then I think we're approaching a point where a lot of dot connecting needs to start happening.
Re: Wheaton
It would be easy to turn Wesley into a villain. Absolute power corrupts. He would probably love to play an evil and sadistic version of himself.
And we'd get to shoot at Wesley. We'd love that.
Well if he's asking Foundry folks about weapons ... , maybe he should ask the PvP folks about the Foundry and STF-ers about RP (and vice versa) .
That way he'll be properly informed ... and get his ideas properly challenged by the right ppl .
so what action will be taken over geckos derogatory remarks towrds players ? please do enlighten us mr flakes !
Hopefully he gets a raise.
"We are smart." - Grebnedlog
Member of Alliance Central Command/boq botlhra'ghom
It's seriously stretching things to suggest that he's calling PvPers all 14 year-olds with too much free time.
What he's saying is that 14 year olds with too much free time will naturally be better at PvP and he wants to make PvP more accessible to less sophisticated players.
I've been hyper-sensitive about Geko in the past and I REALLY have trouble seeing anything he said as an insult.
Wil doesn't always play villians. Many of his Voice Acting roles were heroes. And his roles on Big Bang Theory and Eureka weren't really antagonistic, more like the arrogant type.
But I could get behind a Mirror Wesley, that has potential to being like an STO version of Khan.
Have you not heard of Sparks McGee or something?
I blanked on the name.
But, yeah. Ironic reimagining of Wesley.
I think cosmic Indigo child Wesley is the last thing you'd attract Wheaton with. (And he did reprise Wesley once already, as Chief Engineer aboard the Titan.)
The books skewed towards Wesley off traveling the unknown.
Whereas Nemesis and the Star Trek attraction where he played Wesley were both cases where he agreed to come back because he liked working with the actors and because he'd get to play a more grounded Wesley.
(As I recall, the Nemesis scene was supposed to establish that he'd abandoned the traveler and re-enrolled at the academy offscreen and was supposed to end with him hooking up with Ashley Judd. And the theme park bit established him as a mature officer.)
The books clung more towards the "cosmic destiny, quirky boy genius" mold and that's what you have to avoid to get him involved.
I mean, heck, if you had a grizzled 50 year old Wesley burst into a room and push aside Shon to fire weapons on an enemy because Shon was waiting too long to fire, that's more in the vein I think Wheaton would go.
Not necessarily a villain but he goes for parts that are visceral, arrogant, and aggressive, on the whole.
Now that I think about it, I think as much as classic Wes was a technical Mary Sue, Wheaton would be drawn to a new Wesley that was a Mary Sue at being a bigger jerk than the jerks in the room.
Like... Wesley Crusher, Drake's even more slimy boss at Section 31.
In the words of Don Corleone:
YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN! WHAT'S A MATTER WITH YOU?