Must say I was a little confused at first, no statement from Dan. Agree that things might change with someone new at the top on a more permanent basis instead of a make do and mend. It may be case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" but time will tell.
Some advice for the Stephen, listen to your community, strive to improve the quality of the game and get those bugs squashed. Start with that and maybe we'll get somewhere .
Looking for a dedicated Star Trek community? Visit www.ufplanets.com for details.
Let me see if I can answer a few of the big questions posed on this thread...
Third, there are lots of requests for more communication.
Stephen D'Angelo
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
The issue (since correctly identifying the most important issue at any given juncture seems to be one of your great weaknesses) is not one of needing more communication, but better communication.
You failed to answer the biggest question...
Did you learn anything from your PR failures last time and what can you do to assure us that you will not make the same mistakes this time?
Judging from how you ignored and disregarded all of those who posed variations on this question or voiced their concerns over your past performance in the EP position by having dodged the biggest 'elephant in the room question' I can only surmise that you take no responsibility for past failures and have no intention to make any effort to improve in the level of respect that you give to concerns of the community.
Oh yeah, except you did mention how scared of you we all are.
As a case in point I take your patronizing and condescending "I know change is scary" type comments to be an accusation of cowardice leveled against those who question your vision and priorities for the game.
Your last stint as EP was an unmitigated PR debacle due mostly to your own statements and comments to the community about things that were going on more so than the actual things or changes themselves.
I concur with the assessment that your communication style is one of mealy mouthed weasel words. From the looks of this post, it would seem that nothing has changed.
Remember the times of boundless enthusiasm, and optimism! Back before the reality of what STO truly is, made you jaded, and gave you hard edges.
I'm trying desperately to forget those times. But to be honest, I got some of the enthusiasm back when the word came out that I was finally able to play a Romulan, (which I wanted to do from the start).
Then the realization that these are NOT the Romulans we came to know and love in the franchise and that you had to align yourself with one of the only two true factions this game will EVER have, But at least I can finally play a Romulan right?
Playing STO is like dating the prettiest girl in class, who's father just happens to be the chief of police. It's a great big tease and your constantly asking yourself if all that blueballs, tie wearing and family dinners are really worth it.
You lust for what's coming, then when new content finally gets here, you then realize all the half measures that were taken, all the inherent bugs and grind involved and you wonder why the hell you got all excited in the first place. But if you're lucky you get a brand new shiny toy or two. Then back to the grind, then the NEW GRIND..
Enthusiasm wanes...wavers...
But give it a few months and you can't help getting excited about what's coming all over again.
Hope Springs - and it is Star Trek right?
Hello Stephen. It's good to have you on board. Your dedication to the franchise leads me to believe you see your new position as more than just a 9 to 5. In the competitive world of MMOs, it takes a leader with passion to produce a thriving product. Now is your time to shine.
Request list:
1. Fix lots of bugs.
2. More challenging PVE.
3. Much more intuitive Exchange interface.
4. More borg STFs.
5. Surprise me.
Honest truth? Seriously? You make it sound like he was the Abe Lincoln of STO. I don't remember it that way at all. Slicker than an eel, squirming through lard, on a downward slope, coated with Teflon, is how I'd phrase him. I'm not sure what game you were playing.
Heh, our opinions of that person are rather the same except my wording isn't as nice.
Considering the last time the EPH was activated was during the f2p mess, I get the feeling this poor guy is the go to meatshield the afore mentioned eel uses when there's a massive avalanche of s*** barreling down the side of the mountain at us players. You know, the guy they send in when the other guy barricades himself in his office to cover his own TRIBBLE untill the giant ball of s*** passes by.
That said,
to Mr D'Angelo: I wish you luck
to our community: Bend over and grab your ankles boys and girls, this might hurt a little.
Well I'm quite happy and pleased to see D'Angelo back in the hot seat
(I guess they got the bugs out of his mobile holo emitter finally eh?)
Um.. D'Angelo is a tech guy.. I think we can expect something we saw with his previous tenure and that bug fixes happening big time... (A fix the KDF side costume slot bug? I may faint with joy! I'd really like to have all of my costumes slots availible..You don't even want to know what I've spent in the tailor shops changing costumes because only 4 of the 9 slots on my main are usable!)
And note that D'Angelo not only did NOT ingnore the KDF in his previous tenure.. he actually rationalized a bunch of things for the faction, and put some band aid/place filler in so the faction wouldn't be entirely marginalized. KDF didn't have a tutorial, and didn't have any sort of levelling progression. other then a handfull of missions, the exploration zones and some deep space encounter zones of their own along with the rapidly dying PvP zones...Klingon were kicking butt on fed faction over all)
With he f2p transition on his previous watch we got one.. now it did require giving new KDF toons a head start by essentially starting them at level 21.. And I think the new Quo'noS and Klingon academy were started/added while he had the hot seat (it's been a while, feel free to correct me on that)
No I don't even think Mr. D'Angelo is going to ignore the KDF faction at all. In fact I'd be un-surprised if he didn't punch for getting a few more KDF specific missions out so we don't have so many recycled FE's mission as part of out progression. He's a tech guy ya know... the current situation of the KDF faction though much improved is still an in-elegant solution. The sort of thing that would tend to ummm. you know.... "irritate" a tech guy. Just doesn't fit his MO.
But the team is now bigger, and has increased it's skills since he last had the job. SO I expect to see him grabbing gears, shot gunning some fixes out while keeping the pace up on other long term projects fro STO. Though I wouldn't be surprised to see an all but un-noticable slowing of part of the pace to ensure more polish and refinement. Witness the current trend with the announced changes. Further refinment and polishing of some of the original Fed side missions.
I think we can look forward to further refining and polishing across the board for all of the factions missions to come. I'd be unsurprised to see some story line gaps get their long awaited mission created and plugged into the story. Maybe some love given to the sub factions in the form of racial based missions within the factions.. not many mind you, but at least a nod in that direction.. more lore then anything else to give us a little more story and backround.
I suspect we're going to see more ".5" periods where we see refinement and polish added between the major "season" releases.
D'Angelo might well be "quieter" then Stahl, but when he had the hot seat before things got done. And the major difference this time is this isn't being thrown at him cold. He knows what the job is, it's demands. Most players really aren't going to notice the difference between Stahl and D'Angelo. But then, that because other then the obvious differences between the style of these two men the real differences will be behind the scenes.
Over all there wont be a lot of obvious change. They're going to follow the internal white board plans for STO seasons and content releases.
The main differnce is style though..
Stahl told you what he hoped to do.. then he and the team did it. And sometimes they couldn't manage to do it all... I remember those flames on the forums... Some of us got more then a little irritated over it.
D'Angelo how ever tended to provide not that much about what was being done or planned.. under him the team just did it first THEN he told you what had been done.
Out here on the gamer end of things.. it was much calmer.. might have been some disappointments, but those disappointments were not based on what D'Angelo had told us was to happen.
If Danial Stahl was our "Captain Kirk", the Steven D'Angelo is our "Captain Picard."
..and observation which I have stinking suspicion he'll get a kick out of.
Comments
Some advice for the Stephen, listen to your community, strive to improve the quality of the game and get those bugs squashed. Start with that and maybe we'll get somewhere
Looking for a dedicated Star Trek community? Visit www.ufplanets.com for details.
I hope it's a good change and not a foretelling of Doom.
I thought we were doing pretty good lately?
Maybe they will ditch the gambling boxes for more C-Store content.
The issue (since correctly identifying the most important issue at any given juncture seems to be one of your great weaknesses) is not one of needing more communication, but better communication.
You failed to answer the biggest question...
Did you learn anything from your PR failures last time and what can you do to assure us that you will not make the same mistakes this time?
Judging from how you ignored and disregarded all of those who posed variations on this question or voiced their concerns over your past performance in the EP position by having dodged the biggest 'elephant in the room question' I can only surmise that you take no responsibility for past failures and have no intention to make any effort to improve in the level of respect that you give to concerns of the community.
Oh yeah, except you did mention how scared of you we all are.
As a case in point I take your patronizing and condescending "I know change is scary" type comments to be an accusation of cowardice leveled against those who question your vision and priorities for the game.
Your last stint as EP was an unmitigated PR debacle due mostly to your own statements and comments to the community about things that were going on more so than the actual things or changes themselves.
I concur with the assessment that your communication style is one of mealy mouthed weasel words. From the looks of this post, it would seem that nothing has changed.
-S2
I'm trying desperately to forget those times. But to be honest, I got some of the enthusiasm back when the word came out that I was finally able to play a Romulan, (which I wanted to do from the start).
Then the realization that these are NOT the Romulans we came to know and love in the franchise and that you had to align yourself with one of the only two true factions this game will EVER have, But at least I can finally play a Romulan right?
Playing STO is like dating the prettiest girl in class, who's father just happens to be the chief of police. It's a great big tease and your constantly asking yourself if all that blueballs, tie wearing and family dinners are really worth it.
You lust for what's coming, then when new content finally gets here, you then realize all the half measures that were taken, all the inherent bugs and grind involved and you wonder why the hell you got all excited in the first place. But if you're lucky you get a brand new shiny toy or two. Then back to the grind, then the NEW GRIND..
Enthusiasm wanes...wavers...
But give it a few months and you can't help getting excited about what's coming all over again.
Hope Springs - and it is Star Trek right?
Request list:
1. Fix lots of bugs.
2. More challenging PVE.
3. Much more intuitive Exchange interface.
4. More borg STFs.
5. Surprise me.
Good luck!
Heh, our opinions of that person are rather the same except my wording isn't as nice.
Considering the last time the EPH was activated was during the f2p mess, I get the feeling this poor guy is the go to meatshield the afore mentioned eel uses when there's a massive avalanche of s*** barreling down the side of the mountain at us players. You know, the guy they send in when the other guy barricades himself in his office to cover his own TRIBBLE untill the giant ball of s*** passes by.
That said,
to Mr D'Angelo: I wish you luck
to our community: Bend over and grab your ankles boys and girls, this might hurt a little.
Galaxy ship with ordentlich Bums behind.
he would make a lot of friends.
system Lord Baal is dead
(I guess they got the bugs out of his mobile holo emitter finally eh?)
Um.. D'Angelo is a tech guy.. I think we can expect something we saw with his previous tenure and that bug fixes happening big time... (A fix the KDF side costume slot bug? I may faint with joy! I'd really like to have all of my costumes slots availible..You don't even want to know what I've spent in the tailor shops changing costumes because only 4 of the 9 slots on my main are usable!)
And note that D'Angelo not only did NOT ingnore the KDF in his previous tenure.. he actually rationalized a bunch of things for the faction, and put some band aid/place filler in so the faction wouldn't be entirely marginalized. KDF didn't have a tutorial, and didn't have any sort of levelling progression. other then a handfull of missions, the exploration zones and some deep space encounter zones of their own along with the rapidly dying PvP zones...Klingon were kicking butt on fed faction over all)
With he f2p transition on his previous watch we got one.. now it did require giving new KDF toons a head start by essentially starting them at level 21.. And I think the new Quo'noS and Klingon academy were started/added while he had the hot seat (it's been a while, feel free to correct me on that)
No I don't even think Mr. D'Angelo is going to ignore the KDF faction at all. In fact I'd be un-surprised if he didn't punch for getting a few more KDF specific missions out so we don't have so many recycled FE's mission as part of out progression. He's a tech guy ya know... the current situation of the KDF faction though much improved is still an in-elegant solution. The sort of thing that would tend to ummm. you know.... "irritate" a tech guy. Just doesn't fit his MO.
But the team is now bigger, and has increased it's skills since he last had the job. SO I expect to see him grabbing gears, shot gunning some fixes out while keeping the pace up on other long term projects fro STO. Though I wouldn't be surprised to see an all but un-noticable slowing of part of the pace to ensure more polish and refinement. Witness the current trend with the announced changes. Further refinment and polishing of some of the original Fed side missions.
I think we can look forward to further refining and polishing across the board for all of the factions missions to come. I'd be unsurprised to see some story line gaps get their long awaited mission created and plugged into the story. Maybe some love given to the sub factions in the form of racial based missions within the factions.. not many mind you, but at least a nod in that direction.. more lore then anything else to give us a little more story and backround.
I suspect we're going to see more ".5" periods where we see refinement and polish added between the major "season" releases.
D'Angelo might well be "quieter" then Stahl, but when he had the hot seat before things got done. And the major difference this time is this isn't being thrown at him cold. He knows what the job is, it's demands. Most players really aren't going to notice the difference between Stahl and D'Angelo. But then, that because other then the obvious differences between the style of these two men the real differences will be behind the scenes.
Over all there wont be a lot of obvious change. They're going to follow the internal white board plans for STO seasons and content releases.
The main differnce is style though..
Stahl told you what he hoped to do.. then he and the team did it. And sometimes they couldn't manage to do it all... I remember those flames on the forums... Some of us got more then a little irritated over it.
D'Angelo how ever tended to provide not that much about what was being done or planned.. under him the team just did it first THEN he told you what had been done.
Out here on the gamer end of things.. it was much calmer.. might have been some disappointments, but those disappointments were not based on what D'Angelo had told us was to happen.
If Danial Stahl was our "Captain Kirk", the Steven D'Angelo is our "Captain Picard."
..and observation which I have stinking suspicion he'll get a kick out of.
Make it so.
Bittena sends