Every game company makes their game the way THEY want to make it. Feedback is wonderful, and we absolutely do take it into consideration, and have altered things based on customer feedback more times than I can count. But at the end of the day, we are the ones being paid to make the game, and therefore, we are the ones who decide what game it is we're making. Ideally, our ideas, and your ideas line up, and everyone is happy. In reality, one person wants X, and the other person wants -X. There is no way to satisfy both, and we have to make choices. Someone will be upset.
That's not to say that your opinions are not important. If we suddenly decided that this was a My Little Pony game, you would all be very upset, (well, most of you would), and we would obviously pay the price. And we do listen to feedback, all the time. We simply don't act on every bit of it. (See X, -X above) Even when we agree on a particular piece of feedback, we can't necessarily act on it immediately. There are often broad ramifications to turning on a dime, and we want to figure as much of that out as we can before changing direction.
Show me a commercial game that is driven solely by customer feedback, and I'll show you a unicorn.
Every game company makes their game the way THEY want to make it. Feedback is wonderful, and we absolutely do take it into consideration, and have altered things based on customer feedback more times than I can count. But at the end of the day, we are the ones being paid to make the game, and therefore, we are the ones who decide what game it is we're making. Ideally, our ideas, and your ideas line up, and everyone is happy. In reality, one person wants X, and the other person wants -X. There is no way to satisfy both, and we have to make choices. Someone will be upset.
That's not to say that your opinions are not important. If we suddenly decided that this was a My Little Pony game, you would all be very upset, (well, most of you would), and we would obviously pay the price. And we do listen to feedback, all the time. We simply don't act on every bit of it. (See X, -X above) Even when we agree on a particular piece of feedback, we can't necessarily act on it immediately. There are often broad ramifications to turning on a dime, and we want to figure as much of that out as we can before changing direction.
Show me a commercial game that is driven solely by customer feedback, and I'll show you a unicorn.
Eve Online is driven largely by the community. Remember you work for us, the consumer.
If there is a 7 page+ thread on the reputation system and people are annoyed by it, yeah dude I think it should be changed. People don't have time to grind and grind and grind over and over again. It becomes boring.
Talking about grind - I do agree it becomes boring. Then again there has to be a certain amount of effort involved in obtaining the best stuff in a game.
It's either quantity or quality. Quality work, usually in the form of difficult tasks, like raids or whatever, often results in denying lots of players the content.
So they went with quantity, which in this case means lots of repetition, clicks and time.
The thing that annoys me to no end, however, is the lack of usability and the ridiculous number of clicks required to 'work' with the rep system and menus.
It's just very badly designed and tasks like filling a rep project could be so much less tedious.
Yet it's a horror of too small menus, too small stacks and lots of clicks and annoying sliders.
Please, Cryptic, if at all, at least make it easier to work with.
OP, you do realize that it is standard for most gaming companies that Dev's ignore posts like these. Typically when you type "Devs" or use a Dev's name in a thread title it gets auto ignored. I've never understood why people never get that and avoid using said terms.
Eve Online is driven largely by the community. Remember you work for us, the consumer.
In a critical mass of players, all opinions are held. As taco said, both X and -X will be held of some portion of the playerbase. Therefore, it is more accurate to say the EVE Online aligns itself with one portion of the playerbase or another at any given time. However, it is the designers and developers who are the ones actually choosing. If they find that their assumptions during the decision making process were wrong, they'll change course(this is where player feedback comes in...breaking/affirming their assumptions).
Therefore, your statement is correct only in the technical sense if you define driven by the community to mean aligned w/ a part of the community at any one time.
Ignoring the issues doesnt' help the issues go away. Neither does ignoring the players.
I'm not suggesting that you ignore the issues, or that Cryptic should ignore the players. I said that -I- choose to ignore some of the problems some of the time.
Like I said, I'm more than willing to leave that to the people who are dedicated bug-hunters and to file a bug report when I feel like it.
Probably a wise way of looking at it. I wouldn't expect Cryptic to deliver anything that they haven't point-blank said is on the schedule. And even then, if the schedule slips I won't be terribly surprised.
The cardinal sins that Cryptic will probably never again get away with is the failure to deliver major releases every 6-8 months, to have something new to do (such as special events and promotions, C-Store releases, etc.) every month or two, and to have a list of squished bugs every two weeks. Maybe not the release we want, or the special event we want, or the bugs we most want squished, but something.
Legacy of Romulus was an impressive amount of delivery for STO. I don't expect to see anything on that scale again for awhile, but clearly they are capable of a more aggressive development schedule than they've ever been able to do before.
Atari had a lot to do with the state of the game before F2P launched. May they never get their claws in another game I like for as long as I live. I think we are now beginning to see what Cryptic can do when they have full support and I'm hopeful for STO's future.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
same - but maybe my Odyssey Purchase, the escort has grown to a ridiculous size. It has made me sad, and made me dis-like the ship. I hope they fix it soon, but that is very unlikely.
Hopefully I'll come back from my break; this break is fun; I play intellectual games.
Also, when STO tried to do an EVE-like player council, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative here in the forums.
It would seem the vast majority of players (at least the ones who post on the forums) are disappointed and frustrated with a great many things in the game. It seems logical, that if given the option to comment in an official manner, those same people would appear "negative" until those issues are resolved. Happy players make happy comments. Unless OFC you mean they were AGAINST the council idea in general?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
Eve Online is driven largely by the community. Remember you work for us, the consumer.
In the year I played EVE Online - I'd have to say, no, you are incorrect. If you use CCP as an example; Cryptic has listened to/made changes to STO based on player feedback with more frequency then CCP ever has.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
It would seem the vast majority of players (at least the ones who post on the forums) are disappointed and frustrated with a great many things in the game. It seems logical, that if given the option to comment in an official manner, those same people would appear "negative" until those issues are resolved. Happy players make happy comments. Unless OFC you mean they were AGAINST the council idea in general?
That was a while ago so my memory about that is a bit fuzzy...but I do remember some of it. Basically people objected to the fact that a few people in the community would be voicing the concerns of the playerbase as a whole. They felt that the forums served as a place to get proper feedback from everyone, be it positive or negative.
I also seem to remember the people on the council being large fleet leaders and maybe some popular podcasters? I can't remember exactly, but it there were some favoritism issues involved. The one I DO remember clearly was that one of the people they listed as being on the council was some girl who had never even played STO. They had put up a link to her personal blog/journal thingy (I think it was called USS Shut Up Wesley or something like that) and she had no idea what was going on. She had some rather, shall we say, questionable material posted on her blog and people started posting it in the council thread with replies like "Is THIS who you really want representing us?!" She then made a post on her blog wondering why she had so many views suddenly and what was going on.
Basically it was a huge mess and both she and her blog were eventually removed from the list. Shortly after that the player council was scrapped in its entirety.
Personally I'm not too hot on the idea of player councils. On one hand I can see the benefits of having players be in direct contact with the devs. On the other, I can see the same issues of favoritism in who is on the council being a problem. I'm more inclined to just keep the forums as is tbh.
There was a Star Trek Games "council" of sorts already being planned by Harry Lang, who was the former VP of products and merchandising for Paramount. This was being planned just before the announcement of the ORIGINAL Star Trek Online which was to have been made by Perpetual Entertainment.
Myself and Chessmess, two long time Star Trek game website leads and both of us former employees of game companies who made Trek games was on it.
The plan was to have a "core" of 3 people in the "council", one from the license holder (in this case Paramount), two folks from general gaming sites (me and chessmess but we would have been replaced by another two every 6 months) and ontop of these 3 core people a further 6 would have been added. 3 people from mixed clans (trek gaming groups wasnt called fleets back then... this was more than 10 years ago) and 3 people from the wider community made up of 1 podcaster/games magazine editor, 1 game dev (from Perpetual) and 1 random PC gamer who was non fleet affiliated.
The idea was this...
The two main players was the license holder (paramount) and the dev (in this case Perpetual). They would listen to everything that was brought to the table in a monthly meeting.
The 3 fleet members picked from random fleets who would be replaced every 6 months would obviously represent the broader spectrum, PVP and PVE...but lean more towards PVP.
The 2 Trek Game site or former dev positions in older Star Trek games for the PC (which was me and chessmess) had our ears to the ground with our old websites as to what the general public itself wanted.
The randomly picked gamer (which was to have been picked from what would have been perpetuals forum) would have been someone who was non fleet affiliated...this sorta of person would again have a broad range of suggestions ranging from PVP and PVE.
The podcaster/magazine editor was only there to observe.
The system was in place. Myself and Chessmess had already talked to Paramount and one of the old devs from Perpetual.
3 months later... perpetual filed for Bankruptcy and the council plan was shelved.
A general council idea could have worked, but it HAS to be well planned and have a balanced argument for the PVE and PVP sides.
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
There was a Star Trek Games "council" of sorts already being planned by Harry Lang, who was the former VP of products and merchandising for Paramount. This was being planned just before the announcement of the ORIGINAL Star Trek Online which was to have been made by Perpetual Entertainment.
Myself and Chessmess, two long time Star Trek game website leads and both of us former employees of game companies who made Trek games was on it.
The plan was to have a "core" of 3 people in the "council", one from the license holder (in this case Paramount), two folks from general gaming sites (me and chessmess but we would have been replaced by another two every 6 months) and ontop of these 3 core people a further 6 would have been added. 3 people from mixed clans (trek gaming groups wasnt called fleets back then... this was more than 10 years ago) and 3 people from the wider community made up of 1 podcaster/games magazine editor, 1 game dev (from Perpetual) and 1 random PC gamer who was non fleet affiliated.
The idea was this...
The two main players was the license holder (paramount) and the dev (in this case Perpetual). They would listen to everything that was brought to the table in a monthly meeting.
The 3 fleet members picked from random fleets who would be replaced every 6 months would obviously represent the broader spectrum, PVP and PVE...but lean more towards PVP.
The 2 Trek Game site or former dev positions in older Star Trek games for the PC (which was me and chessmess) had our ears to the ground with our old websites as to what the general public itself wanted.
The randomly picked gamer (which was to have been picked from what would have been perpetuals forum) would have been someone who was non fleet affiliated...this sorta of person would again have a broad range of suggestions ranging from PVP and PVE.
The podcaster/magazine editor was only there to observe.
The system was in place. Myself and Chessmess had already talked to Paramount and one of the old devs from Perpetual.
3 months later... perpetual filed for Bankruptcy and the council plan was shelved.
A general council idea could have worked, but it HAS to be well planned and have a balanced argument for the PVE and PVP sides.
Hmm. This is an actual GOOD idea. This is how ideas SHOULD be discussed. It seems like Cryptic throws darts at a dart board.
In the year I played EVE Online - I'd have to say, no, you are incorrect. If you use CCP as an example; Cryptic has listened to/made changes to STO based on player feedback with more frequency then CCP ever has.
That is not nearly enough time to play that game and make a blanket statement such as that. The tenure in that game and learning curve to get to where it REALLY starts to be involved, if thats your goal, is 2-3 years. Playing for over 5 I have seen a great many changes take place due to player feedback and input, much more than the 1.5 or so years(give or take) that I've played this game. WYSIWYG when it comes to STO, because no depth. It took me over a year and a half to really get involved in PvP(and good enough at it) which is what that game is all about, like it or not.
That being said, an Interstellar Council works for EVE but didn't work here for many reasons. Unfortunately, it lead to Cryptic likely shelving that idea as well once they took over and probably forever. The reasons behind that are much the reasons why the Devs do not comment or peruse these forums like they used to. Once they do, they are persecuted either because they 'should be coding or something' or 'why does the Fed Dread still suck?' and everything goes to Praxis. There is much scrutiny, frustration, and angst here that I've not seen many other places - I myself being a contributor admittedly. I complain hoping one day it might change in a way that it will be fun again, but hope is sometimes hopeless. A constructive way to do so would be great, but this is all we have.
Many people were absolutely opposed to the very idea, yes; others opposed every single individual named for it.
She had played. A lot. Grouped with her all the time in beta, and talked to her daily either via Vent, the official IRC channels, or both.
Contents of her blog were the problem.
Ah gotcha. Like I said, my memory about it is fuzzy. Maybe I remember people asking if she ever played STO or something. Anyways yeah, it just didn't work out.
The only thing a council does is provide the developers/publishers a better opportunity to ignore the chorus of feedback on the forum. Why listen to the unwashed masses, when you can stack a council full of hand-picked line towers who won't take tough positions?
The only thing a council does is provide the developers/publishers a better opportunity to ignore the chorus of feedback on the forum. Why listen to the unwashed masses, when you can stack a council full of hand-picked line towers who won't take tough positions?
While one possibility, it's far from the only potential outcome. A group of people who take their role as intermediaries seriously, and who have the capacity to distill down the various points of view on a given subject into succint and coherent feedback that a development team can actually use can, if utilized correctly, be an incredible asset.
The hard part is finding those people, and not getting swamped by others who want to use the role for self-aggrandizing.
That is not nearly enough time to play that game and make a blanket statement such as that. The tenure in that game and learning curve to get to where it REALLY starts to be involved, if thats your goal, is 2-3 years. Playing for over 5 I have seen a great many changes take place due to player feedback and input, much more than the 1.5 or so years(give or take) that I've played this game.
So 1.5 years of EvE makes one unqualified to speak, but 1.5 years of STO makes one an expert? Bit of a double standard there.
I have zero experience with EvE and won't contest that it may be a more complex game.
But I have been playing STO since year one and I have seen a lot of change come to this game along with player feedback that drove some of those changes.
Please bear in mind that EvE is an older and more mature MMO than STO is and that changes take time. Nor has EvE suffered through a rush to launch, management changes, and a shift to F2P.
STO got a bad start, but I think the Dev team is finally hitting their stride and I hope to see good things. That might be overly optimistic in some people's eyes and I admit that there are still areas in need of improvement, but I've never been more optimistic about STO's future than I am now.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Comments
I know Luke's technically not a dev, but still... it's something.
bahahahhahahah
system Lord Baal is dead
Go play EVE Online.... they have maintenance rounds every day, for an hour. :rolleyes:
Try 5-10 minutes once a day, though the last time I played which was late last year, they had gotten it down to an average of 4.5 minutes a day.
Sig by my better half.
That's not to say that your opinions are not important. If we suddenly decided that this was a My Little Pony game, you would all be very upset, (well, most of you would), and we would obviously pay the price. And we do listen to feedback, all the time. We simply don't act on every bit of it. (See X, -X above) Even when we agree on a particular piece of feedback, we can't necessarily act on it immediately. There are often broad ramifications to turning on a dime, and we want to figure as much of that out as we can before changing direction.
Show me a commercial game that is driven solely by customer feedback, and I'll show you a unicorn.
Eve Online is driven largely by the community. Remember you work for us, the consumer.
Unicorns Online?
Talking about grind - I do agree it becomes boring. Then again there has to be a certain amount of effort involved in obtaining the best stuff in a game.
It's either quantity or quality. Quality work, usually in the form of difficult tasks, like raids or whatever, often results in denying lots of players the content.
So they went with quantity, which in this case means lots of repetition, clicks and time.
The thing that annoys me to no end, however, is the lack of usability and the ridiculous number of clicks required to 'work' with the rep system and menus.
It's just very badly designed and tasks like filling a rep project could be so much less tedious.
Yet it's a horror of too small menus, too small stacks and lots of clicks and annoying sliders.
Please, Cryptic, if at all, at least make it easier to work with.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!
Hahahaha..... No.
Yes, the ingame events are driven by the community, but the game itself is very much not based upon consumer feedback. Not. At. All.
Well, except for Tacofangs.
Centurion maximus92
12th Legion, Romulan Republic
12th Fleet
=\/= ================================ =\/=
In a critical mass of players, all opinions are held. As taco said, both X and -X will be held of some portion of the playerbase. Therefore, it is more accurate to say the EVE Online aligns itself with one portion of the playerbase or another at any given time. However, it is the designers and developers who are the ones actually choosing. If they find that their assumptions during the decision making process were wrong, they'll change course(this is where player feedback comes in...breaking/affirming their assumptions).
Therefore, your statement is correct only in the technical sense if you define driven by the community to mean aligned w/ a part of the community at any one time.
I'm not suggesting that you ignore the issues, or that Cryptic should ignore the players. I said that -I- choose to ignore some of the problems some of the time.
Like I said, I'm more than willing to leave that to the people who are dedicated bug-hunters and to file a bug report when I feel like it.
Probably a wise way of looking at it. I wouldn't expect Cryptic to deliver anything that they haven't point-blank said is on the schedule. And even then, if the schedule slips I won't be terribly surprised.
The cardinal sins that Cryptic will probably never again get away with is the failure to deliver major releases every 6-8 months, to have something new to do (such as special events and promotions, C-Store releases, etc.) every month or two, and to have a list of squished bugs every two weeks. Maybe not the release we want, or the special event we want, or the bugs we most want squished, but something.
Legacy of Romulus was an impressive amount of delivery for STO. I don't expect to see anything on that scale again for awhile, but clearly they are capable of a more aggressive development schedule than they've ever been able to do before.
Atari had a lot to do with the state of the game before F2P launched. May they never get their claws in another game I like for as long as I live. I think we are now beginning to see what Cryptic can do when they have full support and I'm hopeful for STO's future.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
same - but maybe my Odyssey Purchase, the escort has grown to a ridiculous size. It has made me sad, and made me dis-like the ship. I hope they fix it soon, but that is very unlikely.
I hope STO get's better ...
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
In the year I played EVE Online - I'd have to say, no, you are incorrect. If you use CCP as an example; Cryptic has listened to/made changes to STO based on player feedback with more frequency then CCP ever has.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
one down 9 more to go !!!!
system Lord Baal is dead
No....
Donkey with a Plunger Stuck to it's Face Online
Sorry couldn't help myself
"Letting trolls troll" seems to be a very successful business plan for them indeed. But I don't want it here.
That was a while ago so my memory about that is a bit fuzzy...but I do remember some of it. Basically people objected to the fact that a few people in the community would be voicing the concerns of the playerbase as a whole. They felt that the forums served as a place to get proper feedback from everyone, be it positive or negative.
I also seem to remember the people on the council being large fleet leaders and maybe some popular podcasters? I can't remember exactly, but it there were some favoritism issues involved. The one I DO remember clearly was that one of the people they listed as being on the council was some girl who had never even played STO. They had put up a link to her personal blog/journal thingy (I think it was called USS Shut Up Wesley or something like that) and she had no idea what was going on. She had some rather, shall we say, questionable material posted on her blog and people started posting it in the council thread with replies like "Is THIS who you really want representing us?!" She then made a post on her blog wondering why she had so many views suddenly and what was going on.
Basically it was a huge mess and both she and her blog were eventually removed from the list. Shortly after that the player council was scrapped in its entirety.
Personally I'm not too hot on the idea of player councils. On one hand I can see the benefits of having players be in direct contact with the devs. On the other, I can see the same issues of favoritism in who is on the council being a problem. I'm more inclined to just keep the forums as is tbh.
Mine Trap Supporter
Myself and Chessmess, two long time Star Trek game website leads and both of us former employees of game companies who made Trek games was on it.
The plan was to have a "core" of 3 people in the "council", one from the license holder (in this case Paramount), two folks from general gaming sites (me and chessmess but we would have been replaced by another two every 6 months) and ontop of these 3 core people a further 6 would have been added. 3 people from mixed clans (trek gaming groups wasnt called fleets back then... this was more than 10 years ago) and 3 people from the wider community made up of 1 podcaster/games magazine editor, 1 game dev (from Perpetual) and 1 random PC gamer who was non fleet affiliated.
The idea was this...
The two main players was the license holder (paramount) and the dev (in this case Perpetual). They would listen to everything that was brought to the table in a monthly meeting.
The 3 fleet members picked from random fleets who would be replaced every 6 months would obviously represent the broader spectrum, PVP and PVE...but lean more towards PVP.
The 2 Trek Game site or former dev positions in older Star Trek games for the PC (which was me and chessmess) had our ears to the ground with our old websites as to what the general public itself wanted.
The randomly picked gamer (which was to have been picked from what would have been perpetuals forum) would have been someone who was non fleet affiliated...this sorta of person would again have a broad range of suggestions ranging from PVP and PVE.
The podcaster/magazine editor was only there to observe.
The system was in place. Myself and Chessmess had already talked to Paramount and one of the old devs from Perpetual.
3 months later... perpetual filed for Bankruptcy and the council plan was shelved.
A general council idea could have worked, but it HAS to be well planned and have a balanced argument for the PVE and PVP sides.
Hmm. This is an actual GOOD idea. This is how ideas SHOULD be discussed. It seems like Cryptic throws darts at a dart board.
That is not nearly enough time to play that game and make a blanket statement such as that. The tenure in that game and learning curve to get to where it REALLY starts to be involved, if thats your goal, is 2-3 years. Playing for over 5 I have seen a great many changes take place due to player feedback and input, much more than the 1.5 or so years(give or take) that I've played this game. WYSIWYG when it comes to STO, because no depth. It took me over a year and a half to really get involved in PvP(and good enough at it) which is what that game is all about, like it or not.
That being said, an Interstellar Council works for EVE but didn't work here for many reasons. Unfortunately, it lead to Cryptic likely shelving that idea as well once they took over and probably forever. The reasons behind that are much the reasons why the Devs do not comment or peruse these forums like they used to. Once they do, they are persecuted either because they 'should be coding or something' or 'why does the Fed Dread still suck?' and everything goes to Praxis. There is much scrutiny, frustration, and angst here that I've not seen many other places - I myself being a contributor admittedly. I complain hoping one day it might change in a way that it will be fun again, but hope is sometimes hopeless. A constructive way to do so would be great, but this is all we have.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
Can we get a Unicorn avatar?
...
um, ok, I'll go away now... .. .
-- Smoov
Many people were absolutely opposed to the very idea, yes; others opposed every single individual named for it.
She had played. A lot. Grouped with her all the time in beta, and talked to her daily either via Vent, the official IRC channels, or both.
Contents of her blog were the problem.
Ah gotcha. Like I said, my memory about it is fuzzy. Maybe I remember people asking if she ever played STO or something. Anyways yeah, it just didn't work out.
Mine Trap Supporter
While one possibility, it's far from the only potential outcome. A group of people who take their role as intermediaries seriously, and who have the capacity to distill down the various points of view on a given subject into succint and coherent feedback that a development team can actually use can, if utilized correctly, be an incredible asset.
The hard part is finding those people, and not getting swamped by others who want to use the role for self-aggrandizing.
So 1.5 years of EvE makes one unqualified to speak, but 1.5 years of STO makes one an expert? Bit of a double standard there.
I have zero experience with EvE and won't contest that it may be a more complex game.
But I have been playing STO since year one and I have seen a lot of change come to this game along with player feedback that drove some of those changes.
Please bear in mind that EvE is an older and more mature MMO than STO is and that changes take time. Nor has EvE suffered through a rush to launch, management changes, and a shift to F2P.
STO got a bad start, but I think the Dev team is finally hitting their stride and I hope to see good things. That might be overly optimistic in some people's eyes and I admit that there are still areas in need of improvement, but I've never been more optimistic about STO's future than I am now.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek