Also, when you are a single foundry author, you are on your own, you can make all of your decisions by yourself, and you don't have to report to anyone.
Our tasks are split between several teams. So while a designer might have a great idea for the story/flow of of the mission, and can set up all of the contacts/mobs/etc. They aren't going to know how to light a map to make it look good. It's not their job, it's mine.
While working in a team of 40 people affords you many options you wouldn't have solo, it also slows down much of that process, as every step has to be cleared by a bunch of people, playtested, iterated on, etc. A full team will never be as nimble as a single individual.
Edit:
Also this. Even if we stuck a designer with the task to make missions using nothing but existing maps, and existing assets (trust me, that never works), it would still have to be run by Art to make sure that it didn't look like butt. And generally, when we're playing through something like that, we see opportunities to reinforce the story/improve the mission by the addition of a new asset or two. It would still take longer than a single person making a single foundry mission, and in the end, we'd get chided for reuse of assets (we already hear that sometimes).
Thats all weak excuses and you know it...
Wait...
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
In which case, you are not done with that mission in only a couple days, or a week, correct?
Hmm... not sure by what you mean by "done." I've had missions take weeks of playtesting, followed by constant maintenance because season updates tend to break them and require fixes and more playtesting.
Typically, my missions take about 80 hours from the start of building to the start of playtesting. So, yeah, that must seem fast compared to what you guys go through. Then it is a matter of constant maintenance. That is not counting the time it takes to promote the mission, because nobody can find it under the crappy listings.
Given that I only have about 1 or 2 hours a day to do this stuff on my free time, it takes 2-3 months, or less if I'm really pushing myself to compete in a challenge.
Hmm... not sure by what you mean by "done." I've had missions take weeks of playtesting, followed by constant maintenance because season updates tend to break them and require fixes and more playtesting.
Typically, my missions take about 80 hours from the start of building to the start of playtesting. So, yeah, that must seem fast compared to what you guys go through. Then it is a matter of constant maintenance.
Given that I only have about 1 or 2 hours a day to do this stuff on my free time, it takes 2-3 months, or less if I'm really pushing myself to compete in a challenge.
Paraphrasing an oft-repeated question, as per the OP:
"If a Foundry author can make a complete mission in a week, why does it take the Devs so long?"
Paraphrasing an oft-repeated question, as per the OP:
"If a Foundry author can make a complete mission in a week, why does it take the Devs so long?"
I could make a complete story in two weeks (prior to playtesting) if I went to work, sat down, and got paid to do it. I'm not sure what you're implying here, other than it takes many of us longer than a week because it's not a full time job. Therefore, the OP is incorrect? It actually takes us much longer, because it's a hobby. True.
One thing i would like, but may be unpopular with some
Is to break up new content over a staggered period rather than dumping it on us in one big load , much like what Spartan Ops has done with the halo series
It would still take as long to create the content, but the deliver being broken up into small parts might draw out the experience, giving us something new each week even if it is a small amount
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
I could make a complete story in two weeks (prior to playtesting) if I went to work, sat down, and got paid to do it. I'm not sure what you're implying here, other than it takes many of us longer than a week because it's not a full time job. Therefore, the OP is incorrect? It actually takes us much longer, because it's a hobby. True.
What I am trying to say, is that the idea that foundry authors can create quality content in a week is a fallacy on it's own, and thus, trying to show how slow developers are by comparison is specious at best.
It takes time to make quality content. Players will always run through it in a fraction of that time. Foundry or Dev, the result is the same.
You argue that you could make a complete mission in two weeks if you were paid for it.
I agree with some of that. A story, and it's mission, can be done in two weeks. However, the added delays that are simply part of doing work on a team, and, and requiring art for said mission, and playtesting, and QA, etc. all add up to a lot more than 2 weeks for that mission to be complete.
One thing i would like, but may be unpopular with some
Is to break up new content over a staggered period rather than dumping it on us in one big load , much like what Spartan Ops has done with the halo series
It would still take as long to create the content, but the deliver being broken up into small parts might draw out the experience, giving us something new each week even if it is a small amount
This was essentially the idea with Featured Series. Instead of larger updates every 6 months, we'd put out much smaller updates in a shorter amount of time. The problem is that any production difficulty causes a slip on the deadline, and we end up with pitchforks and torches. I think we all know that didn't work out so well. Doing larger, more periodic updates means there can be more wiggle room in the schedule for the eventualities. So while an individual mission may only take a couple of weeks for everyone to make, it's safer to group those together as one release.
But, what could also occur are more one off missions too, some of which can pull from the star trek playbook and reuse and repurpose old sets. Hell there is one mission in game that uses K-7 and you art guys didnt even bother to fix the signage
We dont really need arcs all the time. The friday the 13th mission is a great example of a 1 off that can be done (though it got art assist)
more like that though, even using canned sets already would be nifty. More research station closed door mysteries, fight a plague breaking out on a ship/station.
What I am trying to say, is that the idea that foundry authors can create quality content in a week is a fallacy on it's own, and thus, trying to show how slow developers are by comparison is specious at best.
Fair enough.
Foundry can be an incredibly slow process, particularly when we can't do the things you guys can do, like have a floor textured as a carpet or make a simple green screen for machinima (STO authors asked for that for ages so it got added to NW, but not STO).
I imagine you guys would find it frustrating to need to make a warp core, and then you have to hunt through 100 props to build something ugly out of barrels. We also take pride in our sets, but there only so much we can do to make a sickbay out of stone blocks.
I had to use like 125/475 details to make a floor that looked OK with TOS props. Here what Rellimtime has to do with those panels you added, since we don't have simple windows.
For the love of tacos, whatever you are working on, please put it in the Foundry. Or texture some flat primitives with carpet. Or add some light objects. Or give us a ceiling... any ceiling.
In your honor, we'll make a giant taco out of rocks, squirrels, and toy cars. It will be very ugly and it will take forever to build.
But, what could also occur are more one off missions too, some of which can pull from the star trek playbook and reuse and repurpose old sets. Hell there is one mission in game that uses K-7 and you art guys didnt even bother to fix the signage
We dont really need arcs all the time. The friday the 13th mission is a great example of a 1 off that can be done (though it got art assist)
more like that though, even using canned sets already would be nifty. More research station closed door mysteries, fight a plague breaking out on a ship/station.
things like that
I agree. I also think that too many chefs and tech innovations are unnecessary. I mean, look at the Legacy of Romulus. The story was going strong and then all of it culminated in mindless Elachi grindfest that barely gave us a reason why we are doing what we are doing. The story got buried.
The devs repurpose stuff all the time, which explains the carnage on Risa. Any new story content is welcome as long as there is a story that doesn't get buried by "look what we can do, now!"
Sorry but I feel an overwhelming need to add my armchair quarterbacking to this.
First off, I find it extremely disingenuous for a dev to say that because of the current way they do things it would be impossible for them to put out an episode every week. It is fairly obvious that it would require a restructuring of the development process to shift from creating 'chucks of content' to 'regular updates'. Just like the development process of a movie varies dramatically from that of a TV show. Or a short story to a trilogy of novels.
Secondly, the reasons for why the development process is the way it is has little to do with efficiency in some cases. You don't want to lay off the environment artist for that week you don't need him so you make sure he is always working on new ones even if you don't actually need any new ones at that particular time. Same with system teams and so on.
Thirdly, the FEs are really an excellent example of the wrong approach being used. Constantly trying to dramatically raise the bar. Brand new tech and art for nearly every episode, not to mention all the new items introduced. And then the stories primarily being 'galaxy altering major events' instead of focusing on character development and exploration. Sound alot more like a movie than a TV show doesn't it?
Put simply if you created the right development process and had the right small team Cryptic could put out a single episode each week, or bi-weekly at worst. The episodes would have self contained stories that focused on a specific character such as a single small colony world with a handful of VI NPCs that would all be explored and developed in the stories. A writer would story board out 'chunks' of episodes or a single season and already have a rough outline or series bible with the details of the setting and characters. A single level designer would work creating the episodes while the writer than filled in all the dialog details. Art would be done before the season started focusing heavily on creating reusable sets and then would move on to the next season or another task. The systems teams would be the same and focus itemization in a method similar to the reputation systems or the winter/summer event. If a single level designer and writer took too long one would simply create an extra team or two.
Now would the players want to play those types of missions? I don't think that question can be answered because no MMO to my knowledge has ever attempted such a thing. But you cannot say that because your current development process is poorly designed for such a thing that it cannot be done.
PS: This isn't intended to say that Cryptic has a poor development process in general.
Paraphrasing an oft-repeated question, as per the OP:
"If a Foundry author can make a complete mission in a week, why does it take the Devs so long?"
I personally would love to see daily missions for dilithium and fleet marks that were specific for each type of captain. When I played the Rom missions I was impressed that we had a (prevent the conference from being destroyed) (tactical), (Explore the life on the planet) (Science), (Repair the Facilities) (Engineer), style missions.
If the exploration missions could be changed to be just like these that would make them more appealing. If we had dailies like these that would make the game a bit more appealing on the grind side of things and would make the game less of a "blow everything up" bad copy of the ST universe as Cryptic has received criticism for by the playerbase.
What I don't understand is I can go and make any mission I want in the foundry, well within reason, and I don't need CBS approval, why is that?
That is because you won't make any money off of it.
Also, CBS already implemented their legal restrictions on the Foundry when it was first created (I. E. actor likenesses), and Cryptic undoubtedly had to ask CBS if it was okay to add the Foundry at all.
As far as Foundry content versus Dev content, Foundry authors:
-Create it for free,
-Create it in far greater quantity,
-And, most importantly, have done more with less since the very beginning.
So Devs, I ask you to look at the reliable flow of incredible stories from Foundry authors, using a tool that has at best a fraction of your capabilities (and is still in beta), and realize what a potential resource they could be to you.
I think you need to use that resource, and the best way to do it, in my opinion, is focus a little more time on improving the tool that authors use.;)
First off, I find it extremely disingenuous for a dev to say that because of the current way they do things it would be impossible for them to put out an episode every week. It is fairly obvious that it would require a restructuring of the development process to shift from creating 'chucks of content' to 'regular updates'. Just like the development process of a movie varies dramatically from that of a TV show. Or a short story to a trilogy of novels.
Sure, the production pipeline can change, just as movies and television shows have different approaches. The sticking point here is, I don't think anyone would be happy with the time it would take to not just shift gears, but swap out vehicles. A transition like you suggest would be a major change, and would require a lot of time/trial/error to get going in the right direction. I have a feeling STO players wouldn't stick around for whatever might come of that.
Secondly, the reasons for why the development process is the way it is has little to do with efficiency in some cases. You don't want to lay off the environment artist for that week you don't need him so you make sure he is always working on new ones even if you don't actually need any new ones at that particular time. Same with system teams and so on.
And I, for one, am glad for that. If I wanted to be laid off after every release, I'd go work for EA.
Now would the players want to play those types of missions? I don't think that question can be answered because no MMO to my knowledge has ever attempted such a thing. But you cannot say that because your current development process is poorly designed for such a thing that it cannot be done.
PS: This isn't intended to say that Cryptic has a poor development process in general.
I don't remember saying it was impossible. I said that we'd tried it before and found it very difficult, and found the results to be less than satisfactory. While the larger releases with longer spans between may not be what everyone wants in an ideal situation, I think that with LoR we've shown that they are at least worthwhile, and mostly satisfactory.
I personally would love to see daily missions for dilithium and fleet marks that were specific for each type of captain. When I played the Rom missions I was impressed that we had a (prevent the conference from being destroyed) (tactical), (Explore the life on the planet) (Science), (Repair the Facilities) (Engineer), style missions.
This is definitely something we're doing more of lately, and I agree, I think it's great when we can. We likely won't be retrofitting all of our old missions, but I think it's reasonable to expect more of this in the future.
What I don't understand is I can go and make any mission I want in the foundry, well within reason, and I don't need CBS approval, why is that?
Because User Generated missions are just that, user generated. It is not an official mission from the purveyors of the game (us). Just as you can write a fanfic about anything you want.
I would have assumed you guys had gotten some sort of blanket approval from CBS on the Foundry back when you were first making it to make sure they were happy with the EULA and such. Is that not the case?
And I, for one, am glad for that. If I wanted to be laid off after every release, I'd go work for EA.
^^^^
I am sooo tempted to use this as my sig (giving proper credit of course )
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..."
Sure, the production pipeline can change, just as movies and television shows have different approaches. The sticking point here is, I don't think anyone would be happy with the time it would take to not just shift gears, but swap out vehicles. A transition like you suggest would be a major change, and would require a lot of time/trial/error to get going in the right direction. I have a feeling STO players wouldn't stick around for whatever might come of that.
And I, for one, am glad for that. If I wanted to be laid off after every release, I'd go work for EA.
I don't remember saying it was impossible. I said that we'd tried it before and found it very difficult, and found the results to be less than satisfactory. While the larger releases with longer spans between may not be what everyone wants in an ideal situation, I think that with LoR we've shown that they are at least worthwhile, and mostly satisfactory.
Good good I think we both agree for the most part conceptually and I am also glad you do not get laid off.
With that said though I would not view regular episode content as a replacement for the current season releases but instead supplemental. Let us use this fictional proposal as a basis for what I mean.
Hire three people or retask them. A director/producer, a writer with strong character and dialog skills, and a level designer who can use existing things in interesting ways.
Do a month of pre-production. First you create the diary and a roughly outline for the story with the director and writer. We will make the setting a fresh new colony world just on the other side of the wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant, or alternately in Rolor Nebula. This colony will be mostly human with at least one bajorian family and a romulan refugee family, perhaps consisting of just a single parent. Also on this planet we have another group of settlers who were hidden in some way to be a soft antagonist such as rogue Jem'hadar, liberated borg, Kazon, whoever. Their will also be energy beings similar to the Devians but instead of evil just fey trickster childlike and also at the beginning unknown to be there and difficult to detect. Finally a single satellite in orbit that is used for deep space scanning and to scan the planet. Oh not finally, there will be the ruins of a humanoid race on the planet long since gone (or are they ?).
So the only new thing that would need to be built are the character models, the colony itself, and the satellite interior. Bajor, DS9, the wormhole, and possibly several other existing maps such as ship interiors and the like can be used and already exist or other existing maps can be quickly edited to fit the bill.
The episodes would be relatively short, a little longer than a mission on new Romulus for example, and would heavily focus on character development. How do the two groups co-exist especially when accusations of theft and sabotage are thrown about? Can the romulan be trusted or is he a tal shiar agent? Does Bob secretly work for section 31 or is that just a cover the romulan used to explain the rogue program that was mysteriously installed on the satellite? How does everyone react to the strange energy beings when discovered? Can the colony survive when a borg probe crashlands into a strange mass grave filled with radiation and the borg zombie army (mutated nanites) begins to form? Is that trader bringing supplies also trafficking contraband? Is he even human!
A single lobi can be the reward for playing these missions. The producer will not need to be babysat by the entirety of Cryptic management to ensure he does not ruin things because the stories will be self contained. Strong voice actors would really help make such an idea successful, as would a writer who can really flesh out and give life to a character.
This would really help to soften the blow between season releases for some players. I think the shift in perspective would really help as well. You see video games tend to focus far too much on 'grand style storytelling' about empires and wars and huge changes to the existing landscape. They focus far too much on telling the story of the setting instead of the story of the characters. People do not consider the episode of DS9 where the romulans were brought into the war to be great because of the change it had on the setting. It was great because of the characters that were explored during the story. This tends to get lost in interactive media such as video games and it is a shame.
I agree that I'd love to see more character-driven interactions, side-plots, and minor storylines.
But I think you're oversimplifying what resources it would take to do "regular updates" within Cryptic.
They've already explained that various entities within Cryptic have to sign off on what they do, whether it's artwork, system, or storyline. Even a "dedicated team" would not be autonomous and would have to work within the whole.
And I think they would need more than three people on that team. Otherwise, they'd have to beg, borrow, and steal time from other departments and there goes the idea of a regular update.
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
I agree that I'd love to see more character-driven interactions, side-plots, and minor storylines.
But I think you're oversimplifying what resources it would take to do "regular updates" within Cryptic.
They've already explained that various entities within Cryptic have to sign off on what they do, whether it's artwork, system, or storyline. Even a "dedicated team" would not be autonomous and would have to work within the whole.
And I think they would need more than three people on that team. Otherwise, they'd have to beg, borrow, and steal time from other departments and there goes the idea of a regular update.
Why?
Don't get me wrong I'm sure they would still go to the big 'daily meeting' and Dan may have to sign off on both the original diary/outline and each final episode but beyond that why on earth do 5 bosses need to give approval?
As for the art beyond the original set piece or two, plus one each season, they would simply use existing art. That is why the level designer is on the team, he takes the stuff and mashes it into a map.
Look at it this way. If instead of Nimbus being released how it was if instead simply the 'main map' was released. Then the individual missions or episodes were created and released as they were completed weekly or bi weekly except they focused more on actual character development instead of just 'bad tal'shiar'.
It would become a living thing. It would generate interest each time a new ep was released. Instead it will now be just like New Romulas, Nukara, Defaria, etc etc. Simply a silly theme park with bare bones characters that you only visit for the lewts after awhile. Or bajor for that matter.
Why waste all that time and effort creating all those venues, creating all that rich setting story, only to let it rot as soon as the next shiny one is released?
Taco already explained how they roll. Could they do it differently? Sure, maybe.
But the stuff they would produce might conflict with things that the main team is doing and there might be less quality control than we have right now.
For instance, this theoretical team could not produce any plot or dialogue without passing it through Kestrel first. Why? Because how else is anyone going to know if there's a contradiction between the stuff the content team is churning out and what Kestrel's doing six months out?
They don't care when a Foundry author contradicts them, because those stories aren't necessarily STO "canon" anyway. So a Foundry author can get away with all kinds of storylines (or no story at all...).
Cryptic can't do that, or else they'll have a whole new batch of people complaining about why they can't keep their stories straight.
Likewise with art. Well, sure, they're going to just re-use assets, right? Not so fast. Among other things, they're going to have to try to make each new map and each new major NPC character visually distinctive somehow. Or, again, people will then complain that everything looks the same.
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
Taco already explained how they roll. Could they do it differently? Sure, maybe.
But the stuff they would produce might conflict with things that the main team is doing and there might be less quality control than we have right now.
Quality would be slightly lower this is true. As for conflicts that is why you keep it self contained about about the characters, not the setting. Not everything has to have far reaching consequences.
For instance, this theoretical team could not produce any plot or dialogue without passing it through Kestrel first. Why? Because how else is anyone going to know if there's a contradiction between the stuff the content team is churning out and what Kestrel's doing six months out?
They don't care when a Foundry author contradicts them, because those stories aren't necessarily STO "canon" anyway. So a Foundry author can get away with all kinds of storylines (or no story at all...).
And as I said make the story solely about the characters and the specific location.
Cryptic can't do that, or else they'll have a whole new batch of people complaining about why they can't keep their stories straight.
Likewise with art. Well, sure, they're going to just re-use assets, right? Not so fast. Among other things, they're going to have to try to make each new map and each new major NPC character visually distinctive somehow. Or, again, people will then complain that everything looks the same.
If it took longer than a week to create say the maps in the New Romulas ground missions once the assets themselves were created something is wrong. You can already create tons of various maps with the existing assets and just like they do in TV you create a few select 'sets' for the majority of the story to occur and re-use them. Using new romulas as an example again the first mission with the warehouse why wouldn't you create a followup mission using the same exact map but with slight decor changes with a new person in charge continuing the story?
Game development gets more expensive everyday. Things such as Farcry 3 BloodDragon are the natural response.
Like I said not everything needs to be like a Movie. Sometimes general TV shows are pretty darn good. And the one thing TV is good at would be reusing existing assets in new ways to continue creating content for a low 'cost' relatively speaking.
This was essentially the idea with Featured Series. Instead of larger updates every 6 months, we'd put out much smaller updates in a shorter amount of time. The problem is that any production difficulty causes a slip on the deadline, and we end up with pitchforks and torches. I think we all know that didn't work out so well. Doing larger, more periodic updates means there can be more wiggle room in the schedule for the eventualities. So while an individual mission may only take a couple of weeks for everyone to make, it's safer to group those together as one release.
As someone who has followed this game from the beginning this is very disingenuous. The Featured Episodes where a huge hit, i remember the servers crashing form all the people logging in to try and play the missions on saturday mornings (this was in the pay to play days). I remember the massive praise on the forums (with a bit of complainers but they are always there) I remember stahl proclaiming them a success and talking about building a dedicated team just for them. Series 1: The Cold War premiered 8/2010 and ran thru 9/10 followed closely by Series 2: Spectres premiering 10/2010 and running thru 11/2010. Cryptic announced the next featured series would be after the new year (and most thought it makes sense). Series 3: Cloaked Intentions premiered 2/2011 and ran thru 3/2011 to the most praise yet. Then cryptic wanted to do season 4 then season 5... It ended up being a full year before any featured episodes would appear again with Series 4: the 2800 running 2/2012 thru 3/2012.
1 year, thats not a slip on a deadline thats not a difficulty in production that is changing your mind. Cryptic was keeping pace just fine. people where even fine if they slowed from the cadiace they themselves set with the first series runs. Cryptic created the content drought of 2011 not impatient players with pitchforks and torches.
If the wiggle room needed for making content is a full calendar year then maybe you should revisit the content creation pipeline your using.
And now its 8/2013 and featured episodes are dead and buried and it's being implied that its the players fault not cryptic whom chose to stop making them.
Even if you're JUST talking about characters and some specific location, all that story would still have to go through Kestrel. And so far, we're just talking art and design. What about Audio? What about QA? You're trying to segregate this hypothetical team from the rest of the devs, but that just doesn't function. We are one big mass of intertwined limbs, you can't chop one off and expect it to do anything but bleed.
It may have been popular, but that doesn't mean it was successful. Admittedly, I was not on the team in those days, but I am friends with people who were, and we talked about it at lunch and such. You say we were keeping pace just fine, I say you don't know what it was like behind the scenes. Each time something slipped, everyone had to run faster to catch up, then the next, then again, then the next. All of that was extremely difficult on the dev team. People burned out.
I said nothing about this being players' faults. What I'm saying, when someone suggests that we do this again, is that we tried it once, and it didn't work very well. I would certainly be willing to give it another go, but I think things would have to be handled much differently.
Even if you're JUST talking about characters and some specific location, all that story would still have to go through Kestrel. And so far, we're just talking art and design. What about Audio? What about QA? You're trying to segregate this hypothetical team from the rest of the devs, but that just doesn't function. We are one big mass of intertwined limbs, you can't chop one off and expect it to do anything but bleed.
It may have been popular, but that doesn't mean it was successful. Admittedly, I was not on the team in those days, but I am friends with people who were, and we talked about it at lunch and such. You say we were keeping pace just fine, I say you don't know what it was like behind the scenes. Each time something slipped, everyone had to run faster to catch up, then the next, then again, then the next. All of that was extremely difficult on the dev team. People burned out.
I said nothing about this being players' faults. What I'm saying, when someone suggests that we do this again, is that we tried it once, and it didn't work very well. I would certainly be willing to give it another go, but I think things would have to be handled much differently.
You're right i don't know what happens behind the scenes. All i know is what crpytic chooses to tell us, it was Stahl himself that said they where successful so i can only assume that he knows what he's talking about. My point about the pacing was that they came out when cryptic said they would and cryptic picked the times.
If the time frame was too fast like i said the community was open to slowing it down. i distinctly remember several threads about only 4 a year or 1 per season release this coming from the players cryptic chose the path of none. I'm sorry they picked a schedule that burned them out i'd rather have them at a pace they can keep up obviously a year break between is way too long but a few months was acceptable.
When you say that they can't do something because there will be pitchforks and torches whom do you suppose would be holding those items? It implies the player would be angry. I remember the exact opposite coming from the player base. I'd rather have featured episodes once every 3-4 months then none.
As far as if it was successful or not from the players perspective it was successful and it was represented to us from the developers to also be successful then, full stop.
It sound's to me the real failing that featured episodes had was that they where too close together to allow for proper development and that was unfortunate. I also realize this whole conversation is after the fact and nothing is really going to change. I just didn't enojy that it was being imparted that somehow our expectations were the problem. Cryptic set the schedule they planed the releases not us. If it was to fast paced and too hard that's not something we made its something cryptic chose.
Comments
Thats all weak excuses and you know it...
Wait...
Hmm... not sure by what you mean by "done." I've had missions take weeks of playtesting, followed by constant maintenance because season updates tend to break them and require fixes and more playtesting.
Typically, my missions take about 80 hours from the start of building to the start of playtesting. So, yeah, that must seem fast compared to what you guys go through. Then it is a matter of constant maintenance. That is not counting the time it takes to promote the mission, because nobody can find it under the crappy listings.
Given that I only have about 1 or 2 hours a day to do this stuff on my free time, it takes 2-3 months, or less if I'm really pushing myself to compete in a challenge.
Paraphrasing an oft-repeated question, as per the OP:
"If a Foundry author can make a complete mission in a week, why does it take the Devs so long?"
I could make a complete story in two weeks (prior to playtesting) if I went to work, sat down, and got paid to do it. I'm not sure what you're implying here, other than it takes many of us longer than a week because it's not a full time job. Therefore, the OP is incorrect? It actually takes us much longer, because it's a hobby. True.
they can't even handle regular DOFF content...
it is not the "content" that they have a problem with... it is the "regular" part.
Is to break up new content over a staggered period rather than dumping it on us in one big load , much like what Spartan Ops has done with the halo series
It would still take as long to create the content, but the deliver being broken up into small parts might draw out the experience, giving us something new each week even if it is a small amount
They can... And they will...
It may not be right now, but it will be eventually... After all, you used to be able to get stock ships for relatively few resources.
What I am trying to say, is that the idea that foundry authors can create quality content in a week is a fallacy on it's own, and thus, trying to show how slow developers are by comparison is specious at best.
It takes time to make quality content. Players will always run through it in a fraction of that time. Foundry or Dev, the result is the same.
You argue that you could make a complete mission in two weeks if you were paid for it.
I agree with some of that. A story, and it's mission, can be done in two weeks. However, the added delays that are simply part of doing work on a team, and, and requiring art for said mission, and playtesting, and QA, etc. all add up to a lot more than 2 weeks for that mission to be complete.
This was essentially the idea with Featured Series. Instead of larger updates every 6 months, we'd put out much smaller updates in a shorter amount of time. The problem is that any production difficulty causes a slip on the deadline, and we end up with pitchforks and torches. I think we all know that didn't work out so well. Doing larger, more periodic updates means there can be more wiggle room in the schedule for the eventualities. So while an individual mission may only take a couple of weeks for everyone to make, it's safer to group those together as one release.
We dont really need arcs all the time. The friday the 13th mission is a great example of a 1 off that can be done (though it got art assist)
more like that though, even using canned sets already would be nifty. More research station closed door mysteries, fight a plague breaking out on a ship/station.
things like that
Fair enough.
Foundry can be an incredibly slow process, particularly when we can't do the things you guys can do, like have a floor textured as a carpet or make a simple green screen for machinima (STO authors asked for that for ages so it got added to NW, but not STO).
I imagine you guys would find it frustrating to need to make a warp core, and then you have to hunt through 100 props to build something ugly out of barrels. We also take pride in our sets, but there only so much we can do to make a sickbay out of stone blocks.
I had to use like 125/475 details to make a floor that looked OK with TOS props. Here what Rellimtime has to do with those panels you added, since we don't have simple windows.
http://starbaseugc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/screenshot_2013-08-06-14-41-02.jpg
For the love of tacos, whatever you are working on, please put it in the Foundry. Or texture some flat primitives with carpet. Or add some light objects. Or give us a ceiling... any ceiling.
In your honor, we'll make a giant taco out of rocks, squirrels, and toy cars. It will be very ugly and it will take forever to build.
I agree. I also think that too many chefs and tech innovations are unnecessary. I mean, look at the Legacy of Romulus. The story was going strong and then all of it culminated in mindless Elachi grindfest that barely gave us a reason why we are doing what we are doing. The story got buried.
The devs repurpose stuff all the time, which explains the carnage on Risa. Any new story content is welcome as long as there is a story that doesn't get buried by "look what we can do, now!"
Alas, I've gotten to the stage where I've played so much foundry I'm sitting around waiting for new releases
First off, I find it extremely disingenuous for a dev to say that because of the current way they do things it would be impossible for them to put out an episode every week. It is fairly obvious that it would require a restructuring of the development process to shift from creating 'chucks of content' to 'regular updates'. Just like the development process of a movie varies dramatically from that of a TV show. Or a short story to a trilogy of novels.
Secondly, the reasons for why the development process is the way it is has little to do with efficiency in some cases. You don't want to lay off the environment artist for that week you don't need him so you make sure he is always working on new ones even if you don't actually need any new ones at that particular time. Same with system teams and so on.
Thirdly, the FEs are really an excellent example of the wrong approach being used. Constantly trying to dramatically raise the bar. Brand new tech and art for nearly every episode, not to mention all the new items introduced. And then the stories primarily being 'galaxy altering major events' instead of focusing on character development and exploration. Sound alot more like a movie than a TV show doesn't it?
Put simply if you created the right development process and had the right small team Cryptic could put out a single episode each week, or bi-weekly at worst. The episodes would have self contained stories that focused on a specific character such as a single small colony world with a handful of VI NPCs that would all be explored and developed in the stories. A writer would story board out 'chunks' of episodes or a single season and already have a rough outline or series bible with the details of the setting and characters. A single level designer would work creating the episodes while the writer than filled in all the dialog details. Art would be done before the season started focusing heavily on creating reusable sets and then would move on to the next season or another task. The systems teams would be the same and focus itemization in a method similar to the reputation systems or the winter/summer event. If a single level designer and writer took too long one would simply create an extra team or two.
Now would the players want to play those types of missions? I don't think that question can be answered because no MMO to my knowledge has ever attempted such a thing. But you cannot say that because your current development process is poorly designed for such a thing that it cannot be done.
PS: This isn't intended to say that Cryptic has a poor development process in general.
I personally would love to see daily missions for dilithium and fleet marks that were specific for each type of captain. When I played the Rom missions I was impressed that we had a (prevent the conference from being destroyed) (tactical), (Explore the life on the planet) (Science), (Repair the Facilities) (Engineer), style missions.
If the exploration missions could be changed to be just like these that would make them more appealing. If we had dailies like these that would make the game a bit more appealing on the grind side of things and would make the game less of a "blow everything up" bad copy of the ST universe as Cryptic has received criticism for by the playerbase.
That is because you won't make any money off of it.
Also, CBS already implemented their legal restrictions on the Foundry when it was first created (I. E. actor likenesses), and Cryptic undoubtedly had to ask CBS if it was okay to add the Foundry at all.
As far as Foundry content versus Dev content, Foundry authors:
-Create it for free,
-Create it in far greater quantity,
-And, most importantly, have done more with less since the very beginning.
So Devs, I ask you to look at the reliable flow of incredible stories from Foundry authors, using a tool that has at best a fraction of your capabilities (and is still in beta), and realize what a potential resource they could be to you.
I think you need to use that resource, and the best way to do it, in my opinion, is focus a little more time on improving the tool that authors use.;)
Sure, the production pipeline can change, just as movies and television shows have different approaches. The sticking point here is, I don't think anyone would be happy with the time it would take to not just shift gears, but swap out vehicles. A transition like you suggest would be a major change, and would require a lot of time/trial/error to get going in the right direction. I have a feeling STO players wouldn't stick around for whatever might come of that.
And I, for one, am glad for that. If I wanted to be laid off after every release, I'd go work for EA.
I don't remember saying it was impossible. I said that we'd tried it before and found it very difficult, and found the results to be less than satisfactory. While the larger releases with longer spans between may not be what everyone wants in an ideal situation, I think that with LoR we've shown that they are at least worthwhile, and mostly satisfactory.
This is definitely something we're doing more of lately, and I agree, I think it's great when we can. We likely won't be retrofitting all of our old missions, but I think it's reasonable to expect more of this in the future.
Because User Generated missions are just that, user generated. It is not an official mission from the purveyors of the game (us). Just as you can write a fanfic about anything you want.
^^^^
I am sooo tempted to use this as my sig (giving proper credit of course
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..."
Good good I think we both agree for the most part conceptually and I am also glad you do not get laid off.
With that said though I would not view regular episode content as a replacement for the current season releases but instead supplemental. Let us use this fictional proposal as a basis for what I mean.
Hire three people or retask them. A director/producer, a writer with strong character and dialog skills, and a level designer who can use existing things in interesting ways.
Do a month of pre-production. First you create the diary and a roughly outline for the story with the director and writer. We will make the setting a fresh new colony world just on the other side of the wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant, or alternately in Rolor Nebula. This colony will be mostly human with at least one bajorian family and a romulan refugee family, perhaps consisting of just a single parent. Also on this planet we have another group of settlers who were hidden in some way to be a soft antagonist such as rogue Jem'hadar, liberated borg, Kazon, whoever. Their will also be energy beings similar to the Devians but instead of evil just fey trickster childlike and also at the beginning unknown to be there and difficult to detect. Finally a single satellite in orbit that is used for deep space scanning and to scan the planet. Oh not finally, there will be the ruins of a humanoid race on the planet long since gone (or are they ?).
So the only new thing that would need to be built are the character models, the colony itself, and the satellite interior. Bajor, DS9, the wormhole, and possibly several other existing maps such as ship interiors and the like can be used and already exist or other existing maps can be quickly edited to fit the bill.
The episodes would be relatively short, a little longer than a mission on new Romulus for example, and would heavily focus on character development. How do the two groups co-exist especially when accusations of theft and sabotage are thrown about? Can the romulan be trusted or is he a tal shiar agent? Does Bob secretly work for section 31 or is that just a cover the romulan used to explain the rogue program that was mysteriously installed on the satellite? How does everyone react to the strange energy beings when discovered? Can the colony survive when a borg probe crashlands into a strange mass grave filled with radiation and the borg zombie army (mutated nanites) begins to form? Is that trader bringing supplies also trafficking contraband? Is he even human!
A single lobi can be the reward for playing these missions. The producer will not need to be babysat by the entirety of Cryptic management to ensure he does not ruin things because the stories will be self contained. Strong voice actors would really help make such an idea successful, as would a writer who can really flesh out and give life to a character.
This would really help to soften the blow between season releases for some players. I think the shift in perspective would really help as well. You see video games tend to focus far too much on 'grand style storytelling' about empires and wars and huge changes to the existing landscape. They focus far too much on telling the story of the setting instead of the story of the characters. People do not consider the episode of DS9 where the romulans were brought into the war to be great because of the change it had on the setting. It was great because of the characters that were explored during the story. This tends to get lost in interactive media such as video games and it is a shame.
I agree that I'd love to see more character-driven interactions, side-plots, and minor storylines.
But I think you're oversimplifying what resources it would take to do "regular updates" within Cryptic.
They've already explained that various entities within Cryptic have to sign off on what they do, whether it's artwork, system, or storyline. Even a "dedicated team" would not be autonomous and would have to work within the whole.
And I think they would need more than three people on that team. Otherwise, they'd have to beg, borrow, and steal time from other departments and there goes the idea of a regular update.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Why?
Don't get me wrong I'm sure they would still go to the big 'daily meeting' and Dan may have to sign off on both the original diary/outline and each final episode but beyond that why on earth do 5 bosses need to give approval?
As for the art beyond the original set piece or two, plus one each season, they would simply use existing art. That is why the level designer is on the team, he takes the stuff and mashes it into a map.
Look at it this way. If instead of Nimbus being released how it was if instead simply the 'main map' was released. Then the individual missions or episodes were created and released as they were completed weekly or bi weekly except they focused more on actual character development instead of just 'bad tal'shiar'.
It would become a living thing. It would generate interest each time a new ep was released. Instead it will now be just like New Romulas, Nukara, Defaria, etc etc. Simply a silly theme park with bare bones characters that you only visit for the lewts after awhile. Or bajor for that matter.
Why waste all that time and effort creating all those venues, creating all that rich setting story, only to let it rot as soon as the next shiny one is released?
Taco already explained how they roll. Could they do it differently? Sure, maybe.
But the stuff they would produce might conflict with things that the main team is doing and there might be less quality control than we have right now.
For instance, this theoretical team could not produce any plot or dialogue without passing it through Kestrel first. Why? Because how else is anyone going to know if there's a contradiction between the stuff the content team is churning out and what Kestrel's doing six months out?
They don't care when a Foundry author contradicts them, because those stories aren't necessarily STO "canon" anyway. So a Foundry author can get away with all kinds of storylines (or no story at all...).
Cryptic can't do that, or else they'll have a whole new batch of people complaining about why they can't keep their stories straight.
Likewise with art. Well, sure, they're going to just re-use assets, right? Not so fast. Among other things, they're going to have to try to make each new map and each new major NPC character visually distinctive somehow. Or, again, people will then complain that everything looks the same.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Game development gets more expensive everyday. Things such as Farcry 3 BloodDragon are the natural response.
Like I said not everything needs to be like a Movie. Sometimes general TV shows are pretty darn good. And the one thing TV is good at would be reusing existing assets in new ways to continue creating content for a low 'cost' relatively speaking.
As someone who has followed this game from the beginning this is very disingenuous. The Featured Episodes where a huge hit, i remember the servers crashing form all the people logging in to try and play the missions on saturday mornings (this was in the pay to play days). I remember the massive praise on the forums (with a bit of complainers but they are always there) I remember stahl proclaiming them a success and talking about building a dedicated team just for them. Series 1: The Cold War premiered 8/2010 and ran thru 9/10 followed closely by Series 2: Spectres premiering 10/2010 and running thru 11/2010. Cryptic announced the next featured series would be after the new year (and most thought it makes sense). Series 3: Cloaked Intentions premiered 2/2011 and ran thru 3/2011 to the most praise yet. Then cryptic wanted to do season 4 then season 5... It ended up being a full year before any featured episodes would appear again with Series 4: the 2800 running 2/2012 thru 3/2012.
1 year, thats not a slip on a deadline thats not a difficulty in production that is changing your mind. Cryptic was keeping pace just fine. people where even fine if they slowed from the cadiace they themselves set with the first series runs. Cryptic created the content drought of 2011 not impatient players with pitchforks and torches.
If the wiggle room needed for making content is a full calendar year then maybe you should revisit the content creation pipeline your using.
And now its 8/2013 and featured episodes are dead and buried and it's being implied that its the players fault not cryptic whom chose to stop making them.
It may have been popular, but that doesn't mean it was successful. Admittedly, I was not on the team in those days, but I am friends with people who were, and we talked about it at lunch and such. You say we were keeping pace just fine, I say you don't know what it was like behind the scenes. Each time something slipped, everyone had to run faster to catch up, then the next, then again, then the next. All of that was extremely difficult on the dev team. People burned out.
I said nothing about this being players' faults. What I'm saying, when someone suggests that we do this again, is that we tried it once, and it didn't work very well. I would certainly be willing to give it another go, but I think things would have to be handled much differently.
wait what now ? , people at swearing at cryptic and I get a warning .
well if that is the case I am off
DELTA PRICE RISING
You're right i don't know what happens behind the scenes. All i know is what crpytic chooses to tell us, it was Stahl himself that said they where successful so i can only assume that he knows what he's talking about. My point about the pacing was that they came out when cryptic said they would and cryptic picked the times.
If the time frame was too fast like i said the community was open to slowing it down. i distinctly remember several threads about only 4 a year or 1 per season release this coming from the players cryptic chose the path of none. I'm sorry they picked a schedule that burned them out i'd rather have them at a pace they can keep up obviously a year break between is way too long but a few months was acceptable.
When you say that they can't do something because there will be pitchforks and torches whom do you suppose would be holding those items? It implies the player would be angry. I remember the exact opposite coming from the player base. I'd rather have featured episodes once every 3-4 months then none.
As far as if it was successful or not from the players perspective it was successful and it was represented to us from the developers to also be successful then, full stop.
It sound's to me the real failing that featured episodes had was that they where too close together to allow for proper development and that was unfortunate. I also realize this whole conversation is after the fact and nothing is really going to change. I just didn't enojy that it was being imparted that somehow our expectations were the problem. Cryptic set the schedule they planed the releases not us. If it was to fast paced and too hard that's not something we made its something cryptic chose.