Someone must be using them as there seem to always be people asking for them.
I think you are suffering from the very common illness "forumitis", symptoms include: irritability, believing that your opinion is a representation of what the majority of people want, and thinking that a few vocal people on the forums in any way are a sample of what the general playerbase does. See your doctor about treatment options.
Seriously, though - the Cryptic people can very easily gather metrics about how many people actually use the interiors of the ships, and you can bet that they do so. If the demand was really that high, they would be devoting the month per interior that Taco says they need to build the whole thing and upselling it as a feature.
Given that all they are providing is a shortcut area that looks cool and offers all the features that a full interior does, I am willing to bet that their metrics are showing that the vast majority of players use the interiors the same way I do: select the Small option for the interior (or Belfast if they have it, since it's even smaller) and only use it to move from one Doff assignment area to another and to the shuttle switcher. In fact, since they have given us the option to go to the smaller shuttle bridge all the time, it's all I go to - it saves running around.
You need to remember that art time is the most expensive resource in a game. It's an entire man-week of time. Looking at the average art monkey's salary in Los Gatos CA via Salary.com, that's about $1200 worth of time (man, Taco, I hope you guys are paid above average for the quality of work you do), not counting facility resources or IT infrastructure resources. Let's say that the average art resource is about $1500 per week. That may not sound like a lot, but for a custom bridge that in all honesty from a system standpoint could just as well be a context menu that pops up, it's not a small investment. More importantly, it's art time that could be being allocated to something else, like the interiors for a new featured project. It's doesn't take much brain power to see that there is a LOT more demand for the other three weeks of time and $4500 worth of money to be spent on story content than on ship interiors. Even when suffering from acute forumitis, it's pretty clear that more people are clamoring for content than interiors - so you can bet that Cryptic knows it and puts the money where the requests are going.
So, bottom line: would it be nice to have them spend a month and give me a full interior for my lockbox/zen ships? Sure. However, if that means that we get one or two fewer episode missions per year, no - no thanks. As a matter of fact, if I could get one more episode mission per year, I would vote to drop custom bridges entirely - just my opinion, but there it is.
I agree, but like you mentioned the romulan interior, which is amazing, would work just fine on the scimitar. Simple add an option to move to romulan interior at one of the doors in the bridge or the thaloron room. same as on new romulus next to the embassy entrance gives roms an option to go to command center.
Speaking as someone who might, someday, be tempted to buy a Romulan Dreadnaught Warbird...
I have to agree with this part. One room bridges for Lockbox/Lobi ships, fine. Most of them are either specialized or smallish anyway and wouldn't be cost-efficient for Cryptic to put in. There's a convenience factor for players as well as for devs that I can appreciate, where all of the necessary functions are right there and you don't need to use a turbolift to get to them.
But C-Store ships, and in particular something the size of the Scimitar, ought to have a full interior. AFAIK, The Galaxy-X has it, the Odyssey has it, the Vesta has it, and the Bortasq has it. If there's a generic Romulan interior available, and there is, it should be hooked up somehow. I don't see why Cryptic can't graft a Scimitar bridge and Thalaron room to that.
That's my opinion.
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
Speaking as someone who might, someday, be tempted to buy a Romulan Dreadnaught Warbird...
I have to agree with this part. One room bridges for Lockbox/Lobi ships, fine. Most of them are either specialized or smallish anyway and wouldn't be cost-efficient for Cryptic to put in. There's a convenience factor for players as well as for devs that I can appreciate, where all of the necessary functions are right there and you don't need to use a turbolift to get to them.
But C-Store ships, and in particular something the size of the Scimitar, ought to have a full interior. AFAIK, The Galaxy-X has it, the Odyssey has it, the Vesta has it, and the Bortasq has it. If there's a generic Romulan interior available, and there is, it should be hooked up somehow. I don't see why Cryptic can't graft a Scimitar bridge and Thalaron room to that.
That's my opinion.
Neither Vesta nor the Gal-X have a custom bridge, let alone an interior. The other two have massive bridges, but the rest of the ship is the standard interiors tacked on to them.
And I believe you're suffering from "replyus stupidus". I never proclaimed anywhere that my opinion represented anyone other than myself, nor did I say forum posters represent the general playerbase. See your English teacher for reading comprehension skills.
Originally Posted by valoreah Someone must be using them as there seem to always be people asking for them.
By stating that, you are implying your opinion is that of many others - that's why it was quoted above my post. Maybe it's just that you don't want to actually respond to the valid points that I made beneath the obviously-not-serious paragraph, and just are lashing out at random. I can see you are going to stick to your guns, even though they are only loaded with blanks - more power to you. You won't get anywhere with them, but hey, you can try.
These custom bridges take a couple of weeks to build by themselves. The lack of a ready room, or full interior for that matter, is due to schedule.
And yet you charge the same price for ships which you admit come with less because of scheduling. It should be reminded that deadlines are arbitrary dates your company chooses (there's no law dictating when DLC has to drop).
But C-Store ships, and in particular something the size of the Scimitar, ought to have a full interior. AFAIK, The Galaxy-X has it, the Odyssey has it, the Vesta has it, and the Bortasq has it. If there's a generic Romulan interior available, and there is, it should be hooked up somehow. I don't see why Cryptic can't graft a Scimitar bridge and Thalaron room to that.
That's my opinion.
This. Seriously, why is this even a point of contention and not in place?
These custom bridges take a couple of weeks to build by themselves. The lack of a ready room, or full interior for that matter, is due to schedule.
...
The Scimitar never showed a ready room, and the time that would have gone to that, went to the Thalaron room instead, as it was felt that it was more important.
...
LtCdr Miller, who built the Scimitar bridge, also worked a bunch on Risa. If he had been given more time for the bridge, then Risa would have lacked. Everything we do is a trade off. It's all about trying to find the right balance. Perhaps we missed our mark on the Scimitar, we'll try to do better in the future.
Yet you are charging $25 or $50 for a ship that you admit you did not have the full time and resources to work on. These ships are the cost of an entire pc title these days and deserve more attention for the price asked.
...
Full interiors, like the Romulan Interior that came out with LoR, take a couple of months, with a couple of artists working on it. As much as I would love to have full interiors for every ship, it is not feasible to do so.
The Romulans already have decks for their ships. Seriously, can't link a generic turbolift to go to them? Ready room, can't add a door and put the stock ready room there with the skin of the room changed? This takes months to do? I honestly respect the post from a dev, I know you do not make the money calls either, but I do not respect pushing out a product that admittedly had to sacrifice dev time with limited resources and yet still charge an incredible amount for.
No, I didn't. I'm just disagreeing with you. Where I work, quite a large portion of our products are a direct result of customer interaction/requests. It's not like they would be developing an interior for free. These are C-Store ships. The interiors they make could be used again in new content they make, added to the foundry etc.
your argument is that players want them because they have been requested. well there are hundreds of requests all the time. requests have to be prioritised and they have to make them money. simply saying people want them means nothing when there are millions of players all wanting different stuff.
if there is little to no indication that people spend much time in their interiors or that it does not make much money then there is little reason to add them. you say its not like they are free. well if people are buying the ships now and and extra interior adds little to no extra sales, then yes it becomes free because its time spent on one thing that is not helping the game. it may even impact the game if mission content is being affected.
the argument that the interiors can be used for content is not that simple either. making a map for an interior and then using it for a mission will take more time than just making a mission map because of how they have to set them up. you are also forcing the mission creators to be shoehorned into missions that take place on those interiors whether that is the story they want to tell or not. the extra time converting the maps around is more wasted time.
game development is a juggling act, with too little time and everything has to make sure it helps the game and not hinder it. we would all love interiors and for everything to be as detailed as possible but what you are asking would be hurt the game in exchange for a few extra rooms and corridors that most people who buy the ships (of which is a small quantity of players to begin with) wont spend much time in anyway.
But C-Store ships, and in particular something the size of the Scimitar, ought to have a full interior. AFAIK, The Galaxy-X has it, the Odyssey has it, the Vesta has it, and the Bortasq has it. If there's a generic Romulan interior available, and there is, it should be hooked up somehow. I don't see why Cryptic can't graft a Scimitar bridge and Thalaron room to that.
That's my opinion.
yeah they could hook up the romulan one up. still a bit jarring to go from one design scheme to the other. im not sure that helps and will just annoy a whole different group of people.
Yes that's very true, and yet people have asked for custom bridges/interior packs for the C-Store (as follow ups to the Belfast) as they are willing to spend the money on them. Surely those are something that would make money?
I won't guess how many people actually buy ships, although I imagine it's more than enough as ships keep making their way into the store. As far as people not using the interiors, this is kind of the chicken or the egg. Were there more to do there, it stands to reason more would use them.
I agree it is somewhat chicken an egg. there is no real purpose to them. if the game was more focused on our interiors then i would rate them as a much higher priority. and you cant go back in time and release the scimitar with a full in interior and check the sales results either.
The belfast was a bit of a bundle job. costumes, doffs. weapons etc. so even that is hard to judge but there has not been another since so im going to guess it was not a massive money spinner.
Actually it doesn't, not by a long shot, and yes I've seen that terrible movie called Star Trek Nemesis. ---> See link to pictorial review ---> Star Trek Nemesis Review
I may have been mistaken about the engine room part, but it's stupid placing a huge Tholaron Chamber right behind the bridge compartment. The whole design is utter tripe.
I rather have them build a new bridge from the ground up, ala Bortas bridge or Oddy Bridge.
Case in point, its TRIBBLE poor work, that has a last minute feel to it. It almost seems like the quality art work for ship bridges since the TOS Bridge, Defiant Bridge, Bortas and Oddy has taken a deep nose dive.
So, would that be a no on the purchase of the Scimitar?
The belfast was a bit of a bundle job. costumes, doffs. weapons etc. so even that is hard to judge but there has not been another since so im going to guess it was not a massive money spinner.
Yeah, the bundling is what puts me off. I probably would have bought it, but I don't need the Vedek robes, admiral's uniform, Bajoran phasers etc. It's similar with the ship bundles. I love my Aventine and have no interest at all in the stats or consoles of the Vesta and Rademaker. I would like a few additional costume options. But I'm not going to pay 2500 Zen for slightly different warp nacelles.
FKA K-Tar, grumpy Klingon/El-Aurian hybrid. Now assimilated by PWE.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
These custom bridges take a couple of weeks to build by themselves. The lack of a ready room, or full interior for that matter, is due to schedule.
On the Kumari, I used my time to focus on what was shown on screen. I built a ready room because it was shown. And that took me down to the wire. I didn't even get to build a goes no where turbolift for it like I had originally planned.
The Scimitar never showed a ready room, and the time that would have gone to that, went to the Thalaron room instead, as it was felt that it was more important.
Full interiors, like the Romulan Interior that came out with LoR, take a couple of months, with a couple of artists working on it. As much as I would love to have full interiors for every ship, it is not feasible to do so.
LtCdr Miller, who built the Scimitar bridge, also worked a bunch on Risa. If he had been given more time for the bridge, then Risa would have lacked. Everything we do is a trade off. It's all about trying to find the right balance. Perhaps we missed our mark on the Scimitar, we'll try to do better in the future.
^ This ^
Seriously dude, go watch the tail end of Nemesis. The Thalaron device is at the top of the stairs, RIGHT behind the bridge. It's on Netflix Streaming. Start from about 1:38. Watch Picard smash his phaser rifle over a Reman's head, glance to Shinzon, they both look up the stairs, and you can SEE the Thalaron device spinning up through the open doorway at the top of the stairs.
I'd put in a vote for ship interior adventure zones alternating with Nukara-style outdoor ones.
Iconian gates can lead all kinds of places including ship interiors.
Beyond that, I'd like to see existing interiors get hooked up whenever possible like the Keldon interior for the Galor.
A Galaxy class ship as an adventure zone would rock and could be offset by selling the interior.
I think it would be RELATIVELY easy to do the same with a Defiant.
I think the big trick is to figure out how to cram 30-75 people into spaces like that. The Galaxy might be workable if tasks were spread out.
Now apart from some very minor discrepancies, and the fact one is real life, one is a drawing and the other is a game, what part does not look like the bridge from the film?
I'd go with lighting, but honestly I don't see how they could reasonably improve that without making the bridge too dark for functionality. Although that may just be that shot too.
The bridges in this game are completely lacking overall. To be honest they should just monetize the ship interior system altogether by having theme unlocks for zen (i.e. belfast, tos, release some others), and then specific things unlocked through a quasi-reputation system (i.e. mail/bank/exchange and other things), plus having vanity unlocks through that rep system as well. Could make them require appropriate amounts of dilithium.
Or they could just make it all cost zen, either way is fine with me. I'd pay either way.
There's so much they could do with the ship interior system that they are missing out on.
To limit the amount of work done by actual employees they could host contests for foundry map builders to do most of the work for them. Just offer some prize that ultimately doesn't cost cryptic a thing and people would do it. This could create the bridge sets and then all cryptic would have to do is figure out all the cool stuff they could put on it (there's really so much it's not even funny...) and charge appropriately.
Wow what a great way to monetize the ship bridge / interior system.
If they couldn't make money off of that I don't know what they could make money off of.
Neither Vesta nor the Gal-X have a custom bridge, let alone an interior. The other two have massive bridges, but the rest of the ship is the standard interiors tacked on to them.
I never said they (Vesta, Gal-X, etc) had custom interiors.
The point was that there was a standard Romulan interior that could have been tacked onto the Scimitar just like the Oddy but they didn't.
The other ships I mentioned are not one-room wonders like the lockbox bridges, but those do have custom bridges.
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
Seriously, though - the Cryptic people can very easily gather metrics about how many people actually use the interiors of the ships, and you can bet that they do so. If the demand was really that high, they would be devoting the month per interior that Taco says they need to build the whole thing and upselling it as a feature.
Given that all they are providing is a shortcut area that looks cool and offers all the features that a full interior does, I am willing to bet that their metrics are showing that the vast majority of players use the interiors the same way I do: select the Small option for the interior (or Belfast if they have it, since it's even smaller) and only use it to move from one Doff assignment area to another and to the shuttle switcher. In fact, since they have given us the option to go to the smaller shuttle bridge all the time, it's all I go to - it saves running around.
You need to remember that art time is the most expensive resource in a game. It's an entire man-week of time. Looking at the average art monkey's salary in Los Gatos CA via Salary.com, that's about $1200 worth of time (man, Taco, I hope you guys are paid above average for the quality of work you do), not counting facility resources or IT infrastructure resources. Let's say that the average art resource is about $1500 per week. That may not sound like a lot, but for a custom bridge that in all honesty from a system standpoint could just as well be a context menu that pops up, it's not a small investment. More importantly, it's art time that could be being allocated to something else, like the interiors for a new featured project. It's doesn't take much brain power to see that there is a LOT more demand for the other three weeks of time and $4500 worth of money to be spent on story content than on ship interiors. Even when suffering from acute forumitis, it's pretty clear that more people are clamoring for content than interiors - so you can bet that Cryptic knows it and puts the money where the requests are going.
So, bottom line: would it be nice to have them spend a month and give me a full interior for my lockbox/zen ships? Sure. However, if that means that we get one or two fewer episode missions per year, no - no thanks. As a matter of fact, if I could get one more episode mission per year, I would vote to drop custom bridges entirely - just my opinion, but there it is.
Speaking as someone who might, someday, be tempted to buy a Romulan Dreadnaught Warbird...
I have to agree with this part. One room bridges for Lockbox/Lobi ships, fine. Most of them are either specialized or smallish anyway and wouldn't be cost-efficient for Cryptic to put in. There's a convenience factor for players as well as for devs that I can appreciate, where all of the necessary functions are right there and you don't need to use a turbolift to get to them.
But C-Store ships, and in particular something the size of the Scimitar, ought to have a full interior. AFAIK, The Galaxy-X has it, the Odyssey has it, the Vesta has it, and the Bortasq has it. If there's a generic Romulan interior available, and there is, it should be hooked up somehow. I don't see why Cryptic can't graft a Scimitar bridge and Thalaron room to that.
That's my opinion.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Neither Vesta nor the Gal-X have a custom bridge, let alone an interior. The other two have massive bridges, but the rest of the ship is the standard interiors tacked on to them.
By stating that, you are implying your opinion is that of many others - that's why it was quoted above my post. Maybe it's just that you don't want to actually respond to the valid points that I made beneath the obviously-not-serious paragraph, and just are lashing out at random. I can see you are going to stick to your guns, even though they are only loaded with blanks - more power to you. You won't get anywhere with them, but hey, you can try.
And yet you charge the same price for ships which you admit come with less because of scheduling. It should be reminded that deadlines are arbitrary dates your company chooses (there's no law dictating when DLC has to drop).
How do you all justify this? Do you?
This. Seriously, why is this even a point of contention and not in place?
Yet you are charging $25 or $50 for a ship that you admit you did not have the full time and resources to work on. These ships are the cost of an entire pc title these days and deserve more attention for the price asked.
The Romulans already have decks for their ships. Seriously, can't link a generic turbolift to go to them? Ready room, can't add a door and put the stock ready room there with the skin of the room changed? This takes months to do? I honestly respect the post from a dev, I know you do not make the money calls either, but I do not respect pushing out a product that admittedly had to sacrifice dev time with limited resources and yet still charge an incredible amount for.
I thought they wanted to go back & fix all the old TRIBBLE. Why are they starting out with TRIBBLE on the new things? for $25.. geez..
your argument is that players want them because they have been requested. well there are hundreds of requests all the time. requests have to be prioritised and they have to make them money. simply saying people want them means nothing when there are millions of players all wanting different stuff.
if there is little to no indication that people spend much time in their interiors or that it does not make much money then there is little reason to add them. you say its not like they are free. well if people are buying the ships now and and extra interior adds little to no extra sales, then yes it becomes free because its time spent on one thing that is not helping the game. it may even impact the game if mission content is being affected.
the argument that the interiors can be used for content is not that simple either. making a map for an interior and then using it for a mission will take more time than just making a mission map because of how they have to set them up. you are also forcing the mission creators to be shoehorned into missions that take place on those interiors whether that is the story they want to tell or not. the extra time converting the maps around is more wasted time.
game development is a juggling act, with too little time and everything has to make sure it helps the game and not hinder it. we would all love interiors and for everything to be as detailed as possible but what you are asking would be hurt the game in exchange for a few extra rooms and corridors that most people who buy the ships (of which is a small quantity of players to begin with) wont spend much time in anyway.
yeah they could hook up the romulan one up. still a bit jarring to go from one design scheme to the other. im not sure that helps and will just annoy a whole different group of people.
I agree it is somewhat chicken an egg. there is no real purpose to them. if the game was more focused on our interiors then i would rate them as a much higher priority. and you cant go back in time and release the scimitar with a full in interior and check the sales results either.
The belfast was a bit of a bundle job. costumes, doffs. weapons etc. so even that is hard to judge but there has not been another since so im going to guess it was not a massive money spinner.
So, would that be a no on the purchase of the Scimitar?
Yeah, the bundling is what puts me off. I probably would have bought it, but I don't need the Vedek robes, admiral's uniform, Bajoran phasers etc. It's similar with the ship bundles. I love my Aventine and have no interest at all in the stats or consoles of the Vesta and Rademaker. I would like a few additional costume options. But I'm not going to pay 2500 Zen for slightly different warp nacelles.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
I'd put in a vote for ship interior adventure zones alternating with Nukara-style outdoor ones.
Iconian gates can lead all kinds of places including ship interiors.
Beyond that, I'd like to see existing interiors get hooked up whenever possible like the Keldon interior for the Galor.
A Galaxy class ship as an adventure zone would rock and could be offset by selling the interior.
I think it would be RELATIVELY easy to do the same with a Defiant.
I think the big trick is to figure out how to cram 30-75 people into spaces like that. The Galaxy might be workable if tasks were spread out.
I'd go with lighting, but honestly I don't see how they could reasonably improve that without making the bridge too dark for functionality. Although that may just be that shot too.
Wow what a great way to monetize the ship bridge / interior system.
If they couldn't make money off of that I don't know what they could make money off of.
I never said they (Vesta, Gal-X, etc) had custom interiors.
The point was that there was a standard Romulan interior that could have been tacked onto the Scimitar just like the Oddy but they didn't.
The other ships I mentioned are not one-room wonders like the lockbox bridges, but those do have custom bridges.
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