I like the sound of all the mediums that were posted on the op. However I would also like to be able to pm a dev via forums without having to file a ticket, and have a conversation. Like if I had an idea or something I could pm it to someone and they would read it and reply to it. I've done this a couple of times and tbh I couldn't even tell if the pms had been read.
If these new mediums are accepted as wrote, I would also like to see devs answer ALL the questions instead of hand picking ones. Even if that means saying a lot of nos, maybes, or I can't talk about its, it helps with the transparency issue.
I've noticed that in addition to questions on the ask Cryptic feature, people like to use it to lump suggestions in with questions. Like for example someone would ask if there was anything in the works for x, and say well if there isn't here's a good way to do it. You have an entire fan base of the IP at your disposal I for one have watched the shows multiple times each and I'm sure many others have done a lot more. You have smart people playing this game and I think you could capitalize on it by allowing players to post ideas (obviously there would need to introduce a rule saying you can't claim any idea as your own for legal purposes) and then if it is a good idea that goes along with something the dev team is currently working on and wouldn't require massive amounts of work, then add it to the to-do list.
That would also help players feel like their ideas don't fall on deaf ears, and could be done as easily as the ask Cryptic feature, simply make another thread after the ask Cryptic called "Submit Ideas to Cryptic". Then once people have submitted ideas, go through find out what ones coincide with what you are currently working on, and figure out if they're doable or not. Then after that's done make a new thread, called Results of "Submit Ideas to Cryptic" and list them e.g.:
Idea: I would like to see the Delta Quadrant in all of it's glory.
Cryptic's Response: Well unfortunately the development of the Delta Quadrant isn't something we're currently working on, but we'll keep this in mind for when we develop it.
Idea: I would like to see another JHAS Promotion in the near future.
Cryptic's Response: What a wonderful idea, since we are currently working on the biggest update for the DOFF system since it's release, we are considering running a few promotions in addition to it.
See how simple and easy that is? Even if the idea is a bad one or simply not feasible it allows players to know that their ideas have been heard.
Blog proposal:
Veteran Rewards for Romulan characters
Namely would include information on:
- Day 100 Costume Piece
- Day 200 Costume Piece
- Day 400 Vanity Ship "Commander's Gig"
- Day 500 Exclusive Costume piece (Romulan)
- Day 900 Exclusive Ship Material
- Day 900 Exclusive Uniform variant
- Day 1000 Exclusive Veteran Starship (Romulan Veteran Ship)
We were told these would be coming 'as soon as possible' during Beta and yet we've not had any concrete news on them nearly a month after the LoR launch. If anything, you might do well to make the release of such material granular. Concept art reveals is also fine.
Players should be able to submit questions into a queue system where other players can +1 them or -1 them. Any question over a certain threshold MUST be answered, and the top five or ten questions should be answered in high detail. This will allow you to cut through the junk and answer stuff people care most about.
Additional Suggestion: Have costumes and ships as a mini-ask-Cryptic that occurs separately from the main one.
To be fair, the ask cryptic for the last two years, has only ever really repeated stuff we already knew, and answering questions already answered.
This suggestion from Stararmy would solve a lot of those problems, so long as a list of previously answered questions can be viewed to stop the repetitiveness.
I don't have the time to read every suggestion submitted so far, so some of this may be redundant. Ideas:
1. Polls are a great idea. There should be some sort of post explaining options if they aren't self-explanatory. I would see this more as a supplementary feature rather than a substitute for "Ask Cryptic."
2. One of the biggest issues with Ask Cryptic was that the same questions would be selected each month (January - "When is X happening?"; February - "Any news on X?"; etc.) with the same answers ("We're working on it."; "It's coming soon."; "I've seen some designs."). A lot could be improved just by finding new questions to answer each month.
3. Love the idea of having an "Ask a Dev" blog. However, I think a switch to this would necessitate having to have blogs either weekly or bi-weekly. I know the devs are busy, but 1 blog from 1 dev a month would not cut it IMO.
4. Another issue with communication in general is the lack of centralization. The STO Twitter account, Facebook page, and Forums/Website all post the same big news (e.g. dev blogs, interviews, etc.), but often the devs post stuff on their own Twitter pages related to the game or answer questions on one of those aforementioned avenues but not in the others. There should be one set place to be able to see stuff that might be important (dev tracker helps). The website seems like a great place to do this. Maybe a new supplement could just be a weekly compilation of dev posts/tweets/etc. from the previous week. Even if it's just a quick copy/paste job from Twitter posts, it would be good for people who don't want to/can't check all three places.
a. This wouldn't need to be every little thing (e.g. "Branflakes said, "Check the forums" on Twitter) but something like "X posted Y in the forums, Gorgonzola replied ..." or "JamJamz tweeted this cool new preview of the Scimitar on Wednesday."
5. Instead of having 1 big "Ask Cryptic" on all topics once a month, break it down into weekly themes with smaller posts. Something like:
1st week of the month - blog on upcoming story content similar to the old engineering reports
2nd week of the month - blog on upcoming Foundry stuff
3rd week of the month - blog on upcoming ship/costume/Z-Store stuff
And then the last week of the month could be reserved for a themed Q&A post where the devs would supply a theme (e.g. development of the game, stories, costumes, etc.).
6. Really, Ask Cryptic could be a great and viable avenue in its current form if there was 1 big thing that accompanied it - a "what we're working on"/engineering report (remember those). So many of the questions that are asked for Ask Cryptic are just "Are you working on X?" or "When will we see Y?" If players already had an idea of what was on the drawing board, they would be able to write narrower and better questions. If we don't know what you're doing it's always going to be "X is rumored to be in development. Is that true?" With the reports it could become "You are working on this. What sorts of things are you tweaking with it?"
The format of Ask Cryptic is, and probably always will remain, the "best" format for the primary purpose of the feature - get questions into Dev (DStahl) hands and give the players relatively short and succinct answers.
The implementation of said feature is sorely lacking. Answers like "soon (TM)", "planned for a future (unspecified) season" (and all variants thereof), and "please see our upcoming dev blog on the subject" are not telling us anything. All this is doing is pushing off the question to be asked either next month via the typical "you mentioned you are considering X for season Y. Any progress on whether we will see it?" question or it gets handled in the dev blog.
However, when 90% of an "Ask Cryptic" feature consists of these 3 very answers, I come away with a feeling of "boy, these questions were cherry-picked because they can be put off till the convenience of the Devs, instead of actually answering a player's question when it is asked"...
Therefore, random thoughts:
1. All "will be revealed in a Dev Blog" "answers" do not count to the typical 10-15 question limit of Ask Cryptic. Because the answer is in the mentioned dev blog, not the feature...
2. "Soon" and "future season" answers should come with a little meat to them. If the holdup is over coding (Need to code X before we can do Y), fine. If your plans call for feature X to be released in a theme pack of some sort (future mini-faction, lockbox, etc.) then tell us.
3. Remember the mantra: "You will never win on the Interwebs". No matter what you say, do, plan, disclaim, etc., there will be complaints, issues, calls of liar, etc. etc. So, post the disclaimers, give us straight answers, and let the trolls burn themselves out. Look for the rational posts in the middle of the conflagration, those are the ones that can help you steer the company "in accordance with player feedback"...
4. Farm out some of the answers. Stahl may not be the one best equipped to answer certain questions. Let it go to the appropriate Dev and get word back from them, even if Stahl is the one to type the answer up... Annotate appropriately...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
You've said it yourself, Ask Cryptic is just a repetitive, no answers list, which is unfortunate really. But in truth I don't think the solution has anything to do with re-branding it, as we could still end up with no answers under a different name.
All we need is some more transparency, tell us where things are at, if something doesn't work out then tell us why. I think you'd be surprised how many people would be interested in how stuff works behind the scenes. The reason people are irritated usually is because they can't understand the reasoning behind the few answers we get.
That's my small contribution, I hope it made sense enough :rolleyes: !
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
I quite like the idea of Ask Cryptic, I read them and the dev blogs religiously also I'd like to propose an adaptation of your suggestion of calling out devs to answer questions in an interview situation. How about if we could ask a specific dev to answer specific questions in the relevant forum section as this would make a lot of players (myself included) a lot happier as we could actually get our questions answered rather than arguing amongst ourselves over who is right or wrong which ultimately devolves into L2P and flaming all of which could be stemmed by a decisive dev response to questions and suggestions on balance issues.
I'd just like to see a one post/question limit per account in the Ask Cryptic thread. Or just state that if your post is chosen, we will only answer the first question. Would limit those posts that have 20 questions, 19 of which were already asked.
Polls are always a good thing. And Engineering Reports are certainly great. It's nice reading them and the Release Notes and seeing the progress.
If you're going to put up an ask a dev feature it would probably be good to start by making sure that everyone knows which Dev does what, an introduction feature. Also it might be worth keeping track of which dev gets the most responses.
While a poll may show people's concern over feature episodes, the dev responsible for clothes art (clipping issues, hairstyles, skirts) may actually have more business and people requesting their work.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I would actually prefer the traditional method to continue, though without the vague answers. If you guys aren't able / aren't willing to answer something, then you shouldn't. I'd rather have no answer from an Ask Cryptic Question than a vague answer.
I read this earlier, but layout the projects in priority and status of them.
It would help people to understand the levels of approvals and technical reviews that go into these things.
Basically have a status board from inactive, to concept building, pending legal/corporate/cbs approval, coding, testing internal/external, implementing. Have ETIC dates with error bars and don't be afraid to revise them. I am not sure what your process is, i tried to make generic titles for some of our benchmarks.
Most of the people here have never worked on a big project like this and those complain will likely complain anyways. It feels like GM/ticket support and dev updates are more geared to keeping out of the gripe beam from the trolls than the audience of players that would actually appreciate it.
Don't let the trolls claim the bridge, keep the information coming over the river for us common folk!
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
The dev tracker section of the forums has been empty for some time now. Could we us that some more, kind of for the interview a dev of the blog topic idea?
It speaks volumes that Cryptic wants to evolve the content that the Ask Cryptic features and I applaud this.
For far to long now the MMO industry as a whole has been more directed towards the theme park style of MMO then the sandbox style and things like Ask Cryptic could help to change this because more and more players are becoming bored to death of playing in an environment that they can not change anything in besides their character stats, their level, and their bank accounts.
I would much rather a ship system in STO where instead of getting a new ship every 10 levels I can put my existing ship into a "dry dock" and upgrade things like the rank of stations, console slots, weapon slots, etc. You can still charge ZEN to buy these upgrades and provide a revenue stream for the game that way, and you can provide a set number of free upgrades each time to reward the player in that process.
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
For me personally i would like to see a monthly content poll, something official that asks the player base what they would like to see next. Not only would it allow directed feedback into what the people want, but it could showcase a few ideas the team is kicking around and direct them on which to put the most energy into. Mayb there could be the top ten things being developed, big or small as well as allowing player suggestions could also be added to the forums, like the "ASK CRYPTIC" questions, where the more frequently requested things would make it onto the poll then into the game if there were enough votes behind it.
the best place to implement this of course is the forums, but it would also be great to have ingame in a few key places, A contact on the federation council in SanFran, A member of the Klingon High command on Qo'Nos, One of D'Tan's lackey's on New Romulus, The Temple of the profits on DS9, there are a million places you could put a contact for something like this. The diplomatic contact was a great idea that was never fully implemented, and this would be available at max rank rather than diplomatic max.
For the first one i would love to see something along the lines of what to add to the Character Creator to enhance customization.
1) Making selectable body skin options (i.e. infected, aged, neck scales or cardassian, Remen)
2) More hair (preferably with out the bald patches)
3) More known species (preferably as a free update((I personally want to play as a Jem'Hadar))
4) more unique clothing (dixon hill or fair haven maybe?)
5) Iconic uniform options (away team belt options)
6) EV suits ($7 is ridiculously too high)
7) Less than human models (More variety like Gorn females, Tholians, Edosian)
8) Revamp/asset pass (basically going back and updating a lot of the older assets to make them nicer((would be a great time to implement option 1))
9) MOAR BORG!!! (more options for liberated borg besides headpieces. This would include basic implant options for the rest of the body as well as full on borg tech that wasn't just on the head((SEE OPTION 1))
10) regular free additions (maybe bi-weekly or once a month, but one free item would be constantly added on a regular basis. It could be a shirt, a hair style, anything from above, a pair of boots, just any asset the devs wanted but free and every two or four weeks)
I'm still semi new to the game so I'm asuming that BOFF means Bridge officers... I don't know
what the other F stands for.. but what ever. I'm going to write this as if I'm writing a letter to cryptic. Hopfully I'm in the right forum for this... so here goes..
Dear Cryptic,
I've noticed around me that MANY people even within my own fleet are buying or saving up to buy, Talshiar ships, or other alien ships. Though they are part of the federation. Thats fine, but The federation isn't the Jem'Hadar or the dominion. (Sounding to trekkie here), But why not make the federation ships stronger. Yeah we could buy the retrofit ships, or tier 5 ships, which all take ALOT of time. And most peoples idea is "Why wait" when I can get a monster of a ship. I don't know if this is gonna get read by anyone important, or someone that can do nything about it.. But I hope it does. Here is my suggestion. And EVEN a way you could make money off of it, even though I wouldn't want to pay for it through the C-store.. I think I would definatly do it just so I could use some of my favorte federation cruisers.
1. (The way to make money off of this idea, idea) You know how you sell those ship moduals at an OVER PRICED 5$ a pop, well why don't you make Officer training mods, for ships that already exsist. This is how it would work. Just like buying ship mods, you would buy Station Mods. It would of course be your choice on how to work out, but I was thinking, more like, depending on the rank of the station. I have a Mirror Assult Cruiser. It has a Lut.Comannder station for tactical. SO I would buy 4 Station mods, or Station officer mods to upgrade the station to Commander. Of course you would have to buy a mod for each ship station. The only reason I bring this is up is because I have the TOS Enterprise ship.. But I can't fly the thing becuase it to damn weak. 2 shots and I'm dead. I hate it. I want to fly it, but can't becuase the stations can't be upgraded in ANY way.
2. ALSO different mods would be for sale or earned somehow to add and upgrade consols on ships. My TOS ship has one science, one Tactical, one engeneering consol place. I want to be able to add more to be able to have more then just one. A max on lgith cruisers could be something like 2 tactical 3 engeneering, and 3 Science. That way, there is no over doing it. But I'm getting tired of seeing people buy alien ships that ARE NOT federation ship, and the federation ships being some of the weakest in the game. I hate it. Plus for the fact that I spent GOOD money on the TOS ship. I would like to use it every once in a while, and not just say I have it.. What good is that???? Let me know what you think.
I read this earlier, but layout the projects in priority and status of them.
It would help people to understand the levels of approvals and technical reviews that go into these things.
Basically have a status board from inactive, to concept building, pending legal/corporate/cbs approval, coding, testing internal/external, implementing. Have ETIC dates with error bars and don't be afraid to revise them. I am not sure what your process is, i tried to make generic titles for some of our benchmarks.
Most of the people here have never worked on a big project like this and those complain will likely complain anyways. It feels like GM/ticket support and dev updates are more geared to keeping out of the gripe beam from the trolls than the audience of players that would actually appreciate it.
Don't let the trolls claim the bridge, keep the information coming over the river for us common folk!
A status board. Spectacular idea. As long as they kept it well updated it could squash many ongoing questions.
Set it up so that it looks like a Starbase or event project. It would also be a great place to put up concept art and the in development pics like they did when they were building the Odyssey.
I'm still semi new to the game so I'm asuming that BOFF means Bridge officers... I don't know
what the other F stands for.. but what ever. I'm going to write this as if I'm writing a letter to cryptic. Hopfully I'm in the right forum for this... so here goes..
Dear Cryptic,
I've noticed around me that MANY people even within my own fleet are buying or saving up to buy, Talshiar ships, or other alien ships. Though they are part of the federation. Thats fine, but The federation isn't the Jem'Hadar or the dominion. (Sounding to trekkie here), But why not make the federation ships stronger. Yeah we could buy the retrofit ships, or tier 5 ships, which all take ALOT of time. And most peoples idea is "Why wait" when I can get a monster of a ship. I don't know if this is gonna get read by anyone important, or someone that can do nything about it.. But I hope it does. Here is my suggestion. And EVEN a way you could make money off of it, even though I wouldn't want to pay for it through the C-store.. I think I would definatly do it just so I could use some of my favorte federation cruisers.
1. (The way to make money off of this idea, idea) You know how you sell those ship moduals at an OVER PRICED 5$ a pop, well why don't you make Officer training mods, for ships that already exsist. This is how it would work. Just like buying ship mods, you would buy Station Mods. It would of course be your choice on how to work out, but I was thinking, more like, depending on the rank of the station. I have a Mirror Assult Cruiser. It has a Lut.Comannder station for tactical. SO I would buy 4 Station mods, or Station officer mods to upgrade the station to Commander. Of course you would have to buy a mod for each ship station. The only reason I bring this is up is because I have the TOS Enterprise ship.. But I can't fly the thing becuase it to damn weak. 2 shots and I'm dead. I hate it. I want to fly it, but can't becuase the stations can't be upgraded in ANY way.
2. ALSO different mods would be for sale or earned somehow to add and upgrade consols on ships. My TOS ship has one science, one Tactical, one engeneering consol place. I want to be able to add more to be able to have more then just one. A max on lgith cruisers could be something like 2 tactical 3 engeneering, and 3 Science. That way, there is no over doing it. But I'm getting tired of seeing people buy alien ships that ARE NOT federation ship, and the federation ships being some of the weakest in the game. I hate it. Plus for the fact that I spent GOOD money on the TOS ship. I would like to use it every once in a while, and not just say I have it.. What good is that???? Let me know what you think.
It's not a bad idea, but as far as I know, CBS has axed any plans to make Constitution class ships viable for end game. Cryptic isn't keeping it weak because they want to but because CBS says that it would egregiously violate canon. Which isn't inaccurate. You're ticked off that a Connie gets curbstomped, but imagine if you were in a Scimitar and a Constitution was actually able to put up a meaningful fight. It's absurd.
That said, the station mod idea is pretty damn cool and would enable people to reqork existing ships.
There would need to be a restriction because eventually everyone would simply by all the slots and have a ship full of commander stations.
@wraithshadow13
That's a great idea, and to sneak it in, seeing more of San Francisco would be great. Though I should point out that the Federation Council meets in Paris. Which is also a great idea, after all the Klingons have an academy and a city. KDF warriors feel free to brag about it. Though I don't Cryptic should feel obligated to include Eiffel Tower access.
A Federation Council contact would be great...especially if they were working against Section 31. Just sayin.
And I'll throw my vote in, more body details would be welcome. Borg pieces especially. When the Borg bridge officer is rocking her mid riff a stray implant would really drive the point home. Same for scaled humanoids. I'm hoping that it's already being worked on, it's definitely something the team considers, look at the Caitians/Ferasans.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
STO is a community, and it is as varied as the alien races seen in the game.:D
Everyone has a different opinion on what is important to them. Our community has multiple sections within it; KDF, Rom, Fed, Foundry, PVP, Fleets...etc etc.. the list goes on. Not only does each player have their own question they want asked and answered, but they have questions they want answered on the section of interest to them as well.
Somewhere mentioned above by stararmy: Players should be able to submit questions into a queue system where other players can +1 them or -1 them. Any question over a certain threshold MUST be answered, and the top five or ten questions should be answered in high detail. This will allow you to cut through the junk and answer stuff people care most about.
The idea of voting to see what the community wants answered, in my opinion, is fantastic. We saw what it did for the Romulan faction, HOWEVER this addresses the whole of the community and not its sections. It has been mentioned above in multiple posting that each section should have a voice, and that Ask Cryptic should be broken down via section. This is also a fantastic idea. Lets get a list of the separate sections, then each section can select the questions they like through a voting process like stararmy mentioned. The Ask Cryptic would be constructed of the BEST questions from each section.
I may not know a thing about the Foundry, but the Foundry folks Im sure can come up with stuff they want answered. PVP I may dabble in, but the PVP community deserves to be heard. Yeah, I want to know whats going on for KDF, its got my interest...so on an so forth.
On Cryptics end..
Set up stararmy's voting system. Agree upon the sections. Agree upon the set amount of questions for each section. Let the community ask them and then pick the BEST person to answer. If Gekko is the best guy, let him answer, If Dan Stahl has to, then hes the best one. Story plot question, Kestral. Let the expertise of the Cryptic staff shine.
Let the STO communtity and its sections ask the questions they want, and get the answers we all deserve.
I would like to see a species change token or sumthing to where i can change my human to a liberated borg human ive got so much work into my very first character and it was before i bought my lifetime and would like to change him to a liberated borg without completly starting over!!!
STO is a community, and it is as varied as the alien races seen in the game.:D
Everyone has a different opinion on what is important to them. Our community has multiple sections within it; KDF, Rom, Fed, Foundry, PVP, Fleets...etc etc.. the list goes on. Not only does each player have their own question they want asked and answered, but they have questions they want answered on the section of interest to them as well.
Somewhere mentioned above by stararmy: Players should be able to submit questions into a queue system where other players can +1 them or -1 them. Any question over a certain threshold MUST be answered, and the top five or ten questions should be answered in high detail. This will allow you to cut through the junk and answer stuff people care most about.
The idea of voting to see what the community wants answered, in my opinion, is fantastic. We saw what it did for the Romulan faction, HOWEVER this addresses the whole of the community and not its sections. It has been mentioned above in multiple posting that each section should have a voice, and that Ask Cryptic should be broken down via section. This is also a fantastic idea. Lets get a list of the separate sections, then each section can select the questions they like through a voting process like stararmy mentioned. The Ask Cryptic would be constructed of the BEST questions from each section.
I may not know a thing about the Foundry, but the Foundry folks Im sure can come up with stuff they want answered. PVP I may dabble in, but the PVP community deserves to be heard. Yeah, I want to know whats going on for KDF, its got my interest...so on an so forth.
On Cryptics end..
Set up stararmy's voting system. Agree upon the sections. Agree upon the set amount of questions for each section. Let the community ask them and then pick the BEST person to answer. If Gekko is the best guy, let him answer, If Dan Stahl has to, then hes the best one. Story plot question, Kestral. Let the expertise of the Cryptic staff shine.
Let the STO communtity and its sections ask the questions they want, and get the answers we all deserve.
Thanks for reading.:)
I like the idea of a voting system for questions. This will, unfortunately, never happen because the powers that be would have to answer real questions instead of the propaganda we typically receive.
I could be proven wrong, but it's more likely I would win the lottery.
Hi. I have been a member of star trek online now for just over a year and a half, and I have a suggestion. as I traveled the hall of the different ships that i have own main engineering has always stayed the same. whether a large ship like the Odyssey class, or a small one like the nova class. would it be to much if a designer was able to make custom engineering sections to fit size specific ships? giant size for large cruisers, and medium for science ships and mini one for escorts. just a thought.
Any communication you do needs to have some accountability. It's not actually the type of communication you do, it's whether your words are worth a damn and quite frankly your track record on that point is abysmal so you got wise to that and just don't commit to anything.
And that is why "Ask Cryptic" completely sucks. It has nothing to do with the format.
You can replace these with Ask a Dev, Engineering Reports, whatever but unless and until you fix that, don't bother. You're just putting a new shade of lipstick on the same old pig.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
i love doing the first contact missions ,yet it seems not trek like meeting in space on a ship . couldnt it be turned into a daily were we fisit the planet disgused as on of themand recon there advancments and after 10 or 20 visits make first contact with them then ? or something goes wrong and they discover who we are like in thg with riker it would make that part of the game more interesting and fun to play . other then meet in space ?
The problem isn't the ask cryptic part...the problem is we ask cryptic daily in multiple areas of the forums and just sit unanswered for the unforeseeable future..
its not the questions or way of asking questions that need to be revised its cryptic's attitude toward responding to the player base that does.
want an example...go look at the art section of the forums...aside from the random dev trolling that occurs every 90 days there...nothing has been answered or even replied to in any fashion.
its time to stop doing interviews every other day and get back behind the computer, truly go through the forums and reply...EVERYWHERE!
I along with many others I know are tired of talking to a brick wall or having conversations amongst ourselves about an issue.
I find this post fascinating. This is how one might translate your question:
"People have complained about our cars. Some people say they don't work, they don't go fast enough and are horrible on gas. In order to keep the spirit of our cars, what do you want our cars to do?!?!?"
It seems that you answered your question in your own words. You stated that people feel a certain way about the "ask Cryptic" and you had a list. Armed with this knowledge, why don't you just fix Ask Cryptic??!?!?
Comments
If these new mediums are accepted as wrote, I would also like to see devs answer ALL the questions instead of hand picking ones. Even if that means saying a lot of nos, maybes, or I can't talk about its, it helps with the transparency issue.
I've noticed that in addition to questions on the ask Cryptic feature, people like to use it to lump suggestions in with questions. Like for example someone would ask if there was anything in the works for x, and say well if there isn't here's a good way to do it. You have an entire fan base of the IP at your disposal I for one have watched the shows multiple times each and I'm sure many others have done a lot more. You have smart people playing this game and I think you could capitalize on it by allowing players to post ideas (obviously there would need to introduce a rule saying you can't claim any idea as your own for legal purposes) and then if it is a good idea that goes along with something the dev team is currently working on and wouldn't require massive amounts of work, then add it to the to-do list.
That would also help players feel like their ideas don't fall on deaf ears, and could be done as easily as the ask Cryptic feature, simply make another thread after the ask Cryptic called "Submit Ideas to Cryptic". Then once people have submitted ideas, go through find out what ones coincide with what you are currently working on, and figure out if they're doable or not. Then after that's done make a new thread, called Results of "Submit Ideas to Cryptic" and list them e.g.:
Idea: I would like to see the Delta Quadrant in all of it's glory.
Cryptic's Response: Well unfortunately the development of the Delta Quadrant isn't something we're currently working on, but we'll keep this in mind for when we develop it.
Idea: I would like to see another JHAS Promotion in the near future.
Cryptic's Response: What a wonderful idea, since we are currently working on the biggest update for the DOFF system since it's release, we are considering running a few promotions in addition to it.
See how simple and easy that is? Even if the idea is a bad one or simply not feasible it allows players to know that their ideas have been heard.
Veteran Rewards for Romulan characters
Namely would include information on:
- Day 100 Costume Piece
- Day 200 Costume Piece
- Day 400 Vanity Ship "Commander's Gig"
- Day 500 Exclusive Costume piece (Romulan)
- Day 900 Exclusive Ship Material
- Day 900 Exclusive Uniform variant
- Day 1000 Exclusive Veteran Starship (Romulan Veteran Ship)
We were told these would be coming 'as soon as possible' during Beta and yet we've not had any concrete news on them nearly a month after the LoR launch. If anything, you might do well to make the release of such material granular. Concept art reveals is also fine.
To be fair, the ask cryptic for the last two years, has only ever really repeated stuff we already knew, and answering questions already answered.
This suggestion from Stararmy would solve a lot of those problems, so long as a list of previously answered questions can be viewed to stop the repetitiveness.
1. Polls are a great idea. There should be some sort of post explaining options if they aren't self-explanatory. I would see this more as a supplementary feature rather than a substitute for "Ask Cryptic."
2. One of the biggest issues with Ask Cryptic was that the same questions would be selected each month (January - "When is X happening?"; February - "Any news on X?"; etc.) with the same answers ("We're working on it."; "It's coming soon."; "I've seen some designs."). A lot could be improved just by finding new questions to answer each month.
3. Love the idea of having an "Ask a Dev" blog. However, I think a switch to this would necessitate having to have blogs either weekly or bi-weekly. I know the devs are busy, but 1 blog from 1 dev a month would not cut it IMO.
4. Another issue with communication in general is the lack of centralization. The STO Twitter account, Facebook page, and Forums/Website all post the same big news (e.g. dev blogs, interviews, etc.), but often the devs post stuff on their own Twitter pages related to the game or answer questions on one of those aforementioned avenues but not in the others. There should be one set place to be able to see stuff that might be important (dev tracker helps). The website seems like a great place to do this. Maybe a new supplement could just be a weekly compilation of dev posts/tweets/etc. from the previous week. Even if it's just a quick copy/paste job from Twitter posts, it would be good for people who don't want to/can't check all three places.
a. This wouldn't need to be every little thing (e.g. "Branflakes said, "Check the forums" on Twitter) but something like "X posted Y in the forums, Gorgonzola replied ..." or "JamJamz tweeted this cool new preview of the Scimitar on Wednesday."
5. Instead of having 1 big "Ask Cryptic" on all topics once a month, break it down into weekly themes with smaller posts. Something like:
1st week of the month - blog on upcoming story content similar to the old engineering reports
2nd week of the month - blog on upcoming Foundry stuff
3rd week of the month - blog on upcoming ship/costume/Z-Store stuff
And then the last week of the month could be reserved for a themed Q&A post where the devs would supply a theme (e.g. development of the game, stories, costumes, etc.).
6. Really, Ask Cryptic could be a great and viable avenue in its current form if there was 1 big thing that accompanied it - a "what we're working on"/engineering report (remember those). So many of the questions that are asked for Ask Cryptic are just "Are you working on X?" or "When will we see Y?" If players already had an idea of what was on the drawing board, they would be able to write narrower and better questions. If we don't know what you're doing it's always going to be "X is rumored to be in development. Is that true?" With the reports it could become "You are working on this. What sorts of things are you tweaking with it?"
The format of Ask Cryptic is, and probably always will remain, the "best" format for the primary purpose of the feature - get questions into Dev (DStahl) hands and give the players relatively short and succinct answers.
The implementation of said feature is sorely lacking. Answers like "soon (TM)", "planned for a future (unspecified) season" (and all variants thereof), and "please see our upcoming dev blog on the subject" are not telling us anything. All this is doing is pushing off the question to be asked either next month via the typical "you mentioned you are considering X for season Y. Any progress on whether we will see it?" question or it gets handled in the dev blog.
However, when 90% of an "Ask Cryptic" feature consists of these 3 very answers, I come away with a feeling of "boy, these questions were cherry-picked because they can be put off till the convenience of the Devs, instead of actually answering a player's question when it is asked"...
Therefore, random thoughts:
1. All "will be revealed in a Dev Blog" "answers" do not count to the typical 10-15 question limit of Ask Cryptic. Because the answer is in the mentioned dev blog, not the feature...
2. "Soon" and "future season" answers should come with a little meat to them. If the holdup is over coding (Need to code X before we can do Y), fine. If your plans call for feature X to be released in a theme pack of some sort (future mini-faction, lockbox, etc.) then tell us.
3. Remember the mantra: "You will never win on the Interwebs". No matter what you say, do, plan, disclaim, etc., there will be complaints, issues, calls of liar, etc. etc. So, post the disclaimers, give us straight answers, and let the trolls burn themselves out. Look for the rational posts in the middle of the conflagration, those are the ones that can help you steer the company "in accordance with player feedback"...
4. Farm out some of the answers. Stahl may not be the one best equipped to answer certain questions. Let it go to the appropriate Dev and get word back from them, even if Stahl is the one to type the answer up... Annotate appropriately...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
You've said it yourself, Ask Cryptic is just a repetitive, no answers list, which is unfortunate really. But in truth I don't think the solution has anything to do with re-branding it, as we could still end up with no answers under a different name.
All we need is some more transparency, tell us where things are at, if something doesn't work out then tell us why. I think you'd be surprised how many people would be interested in how stuff works behind the scenes. The reason people are irritated usually is because they can't understand the reasoning behind the few answers we get.
That's my small contribution, I hope it made sense enough :rolleyes: !
Just my suggestion.
Centurion maximus92
12th Legion, Romulan Republic
12th Fleet
=\/= ================================ =\/=
If you're going to put up an ask a dev feature it would probably be good to start by making sure that everyone knows which Dev does what, an introduction feature. Also it might be worth keeping track of which dev gets the most responses.
While a poll may show people's concern over feature episodes, the dev responsible for clothes art (clipping issues, hairstyles, skirts) may actually have more business and people requesting their work.
Vague answers actually annoy us more.
It would help people to understand the levels of approvals and technical reviews that go into these things.
Basically have a status board from inactive, to concept building, pending legal/corporate/cbs approval, coding, testing internal/external, implementing. Have ETIC dates with error bars and don't be afraid to revise them. I am not sure what your process is, i tried to make generic titles for some of our benchmarks.
Most of the people here have never worked on a big project like this and those complain will likely complain anyways. It feels like GM/ticket support and dev updates are more geared to keeping out of the gripe beam from the trolls than the audience of players that would actually appreciate it.
Don't let the trolls claim the bridge, keep the information coming over the river for us common folk!
For far to long now the MMO industry as a whole has been more directed towards the theme park style of MMO then the sandbox style and things like Ask Cryptic could help to change this because more and more players are becoming bored to death of playing in an environment that they can not change anything in besides their character stats, their level, and their bank accounts.
I would much rather a ship system in STO where instead of getting a new ship every 10 levels I can put my existing ship into a "dry dock" and upgrade things like the rank of stations, console slots, weapon slots, etc. You can still charge ZEN to buy these upgrades and provide a revenue stream for the game that way, and you can provide a set number of free upgrades each time to reward the player in that process.
I think that would be enlightening.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
the best place to implement this of course is the forums, but it would also be great to have ingame in a few key places, A contact on the federation council in SanFran, A member of the Klingon High command on Qo'Nos, One of D'Tan's lackey's on New Romulus, The Temple of the profits on DS9, there are a million places you could put a contact for something like this. The diplomatic contact was a great idea that was never fully implemented, and this would be available at max rank rather than diplomatic max.
For the first one i would love to see something along the lines of what to add to the Character Creator to enhance customization.
1) Making selectable body skin options (i.e. infected, aged, neck scales or cardassian, Remen)
2) More hair (preferably with out the bald patches)
3) More known species (preferably as a free update((I personally want to play as a Jem'Hadar))
4) more unique clothing (dixon hill or fair haven maybe?)
5) Iconic uniform options (away team belt options)
6) EV suits ($7 is ridiculously too high)
7) Less than human models (More variety like Gorn females, Tholians, Edosian)
8) Revamp/asset pass (basically going back and updating a lot of the older assets to make them nicer((would be a great time to implement option 1))
9) MOAR BORG!!! (more options for liberated borg besides headpieces. This would include basic implant options for the rest of the body as well as full on borg tech that wasn't just on the head((SEE OPTION 1))
10) regular free additions (maybe bi-weekly or once a month, but one free item would be constantly added on a regular basis. It could be a shirt, a hair style, anything from above, a pair of boots, just any asset the devs wanted but free and every two or four weeks)
what the other F stands for.. but what ever. I'm going to write this as if I'm writing a letter to cryptic. Hopfully I'm in the right forum for this... so here goes..
Dear Cryptic,
I've noticed around me that MANY people even within my own fleet are buying or saving up to buy, Talshiar ships, or other alien ships. Though they are part of the federation. Thats fine, but The federation isn't the Jem'Hadar or the dominion. (Sounding to trekkie here), But why not make the federation ships stronger. Yeah we could buy the retrofit ships, or tier 5 ships, which all take ALOT of time. And most peoples idea is "Why wait" when I can get a monster of a ship. I don't know if this is gonna get read by anyone important, or someone that can do nything about it.. But I hope it does. Here is my suggestion. And EVEN a way you could make money off of it, even though I wouldn't want to pay for it through the C-store.. I think I would definatly do it just so I could use some of my favorte federation cruisers.
1. (The way to make money off of this idea, idea) You know how you sell those ship moduals at an OVER PRICED 5$ a pop, well why don't you make Officer training mods, for ships that already exsist. This is how it would work. Just like buying ship mods, you would buy Station Mods. It would of course be your choice on how to work out, but I was thinking, more like, depending on the rank of the station. I have a Mirror Assult Cruiser. It has a Lut.Comannder station for tactical. SO I would buy 4 Station mods, or Station officer mods to upgrade the station to Commander. Of course you would have to buy a mod for each ship station. The only reason I bring this is up is because I have the TOS Enterprise ship.. But I can't fly the thing becuase it to damn weak. 2 shots and I'm dead. I hate it. I want to fly it, but can't becuase the stations can't be upgraded in ANY way.
2. ALSO different mods would be for sale or earned somehow to add and upgrade consols on ships. My TOS ship has one science, one Tactical, one engeneering consol place. I want to be able to add more to be able to have more then just one. A max on lgith cruisers could be something like 2 tactical 3 engeneering, and 3 Science. That way, there is no over doing it. But I'm getting tired of seeing people buy alien ships that ARE NOT federation ship, and the federation ships being some of the weakest in the game. I hate it. Plus for the fact that I spent GOOD money on the TOS ship. I would like to use it every once in a while, and not just say I have it.. What good is that???? Let me know what you think.
Set it up so that it looks like a Starbase or event project. It would also be a great place to put up concept art and the in development pics like they did when they were building the Odyssey.
It's not a bad idea, but as far as I know, CBS has axed any plans to make Constitution class ships viable for end game. Cryptic isn't keeping it weak because they want to but because CBS says that it would egregiously violate canon. Which isn't inaccurate. You're ticked off that a Connie gets curbstomped, but imagine if you were in a Scimitar and a Constitution was actually able to put up a meaningful fight. It's absurd.
That said, the station mod idea is pretty damn cool and would enable people to reqork existing ships.
There would need to be a restriction because eventually everyone would simply by all the slots and have a ship full of commander stations.
@wraithshadow13
That's a great idea, and to sneak it in, seeing more of San Francisco would be great. Though I should point out that the Federation Council meets in Paris. Which is also a great idea, after all the Klingons have an academy and a city. KDF warriors feel free to brag about it. Though I don't Cryptic should feel obligated to include Eiffel Tower access.
A Federation Council contact would be great...especially if they were working against Section 31. Just sayin.
And I'll throw my vote in, more body details would be welcome. Borg pieces especially. When the Borg bridge officer is rocking her mid riff a stray implant would really drive the point home. Same for scaled humanoids. I'm hoping that it's already being worked on, it's definitely something the team considers, look at the Caitians/Ferasans.
STO is a community, and it is as varied as the alien races seen in the game.:D
Everyone has a different opinion on what is important to them. Our community has multiple sections within it; KDF, Rom, Fed, Foundry, PVP, Fleets...etc etc.. the list goes on. Not only does each player have their own question they want asked and answered, but they have questions they want answered on the section of interest to them as well.
Somewhere mentioned above by stararmy:
Players should be able to submit questions into a queue system where other players can +1 them or -1 them. Any question over a certain threshold MUST be answered, and the top five or ten questions should be answered in high detail. This will allow you to cut through the junk and answer stuff people care most about.
The idea of voting to see what the community wants answered, in my opinion, is fantastic. We saw what it did for the Romulan faction, HOWEVER this addresses the whole of the community and not its sections. It has been mentioned above in multiple posting that each section should have a voice, and that Ask Cryptic should be broken down via section. This is also a fantastic idea. Lets get a list of the separate sections, then each section can select the questions they like through a voting process like stararmy mentioned. The Ask Cryptic would be constructed of the BEST questions from each section.
I may not know a thing about the Foundry, but the Foundry folks Im sure can come up with stuff they want answered. PVP I may dabble in, but the PVP community deserves to be heard. Yeah, I want to know whats going on for KDF, its got my interest...so on an so forth.
On Cryptics end..
Set up stararmy's voting system. Agree upon the sections. Agree upon the set amount of questions for each section. Let the community ask them and then pick the BEST person to answer. If Gekko is the best guy, let him answer, If Dan Stahl has to, then hes the best one. Story plot question, Kestral. Let the expertise of the Cryptic staff shine.
Let the STO communtity and its sections ask the questions they want, and get the answers we all deserve.
Thanks for reading.:)
I like the idea of a voting system for questions. This will, unfortunately, never happen because the powers that be would have to answer real questions instead of the propaganda we typically receive.
I could be proven wrong, but it's more likely I would win the lottery.
And that is why "Ask Cryptic" completely sucks. It has nothing to do with the format.
You can replace these with Ask a Dev, Engineering Reports, whatever but unless and until you fix that, don't bother. You're just putting a new shade of lipstick on the same old pig.
I'm sorry to people who I, in the past, insulted, annoyed, etc.
I hope STO get's better ...
its not the questions or way of asking questions that need to be revised its cryptic's attitude toward responding to the player base that does.
want an example...go look at the art section of the forums...aside from the random dev trolling that occurs every 90 days there...nothing has been answered or even replied to in any fashion.
its time to stop doing interviews every other day and get back behind the computer, truly go through the forums and reply...EVERYWHERE!
I along with many others I know are tired of talking to a brick wall or having conversations amongst ourselves about an issue.
I find this post fascinating. This is how one might translate your question:
"People have complained about our cars. Some people say they don't work, they don't go fast enough and are horrible on gas. In order to keep the spirit of our cars, what do you want our cars to do?!?!?"
It seems that you answered your question in your own words. You stated that people feel a certain way about the "ask Cryptic" and you had a list. Armed with this knowledge, why don't you just fix Ask Cryptic??!?!?