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Priority One Podcast Episode 158 -- Season 8.5 with Al Rivera
kraft4406
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Greetings, Captains! You're listening to Episode 158 of Priority One Podcast, the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded live on TrekRadio.net on Thursday, January 23rd, 2014 and published for download on Monday, January 27th at PriorityOnePodcast.com!
Elijah, James and Tony, our intrepid trio return this week to bring you a monster of a show! In fact, we've got so much content this week that we've had to skip Trek It Out this week and dive straight into STO News as we cover Season 8, Dev Blogs 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41 (Undine Space Combat Experience Revamp, Ship Management, Load-Outs, and Quick Equip Systems, Small Craft Arena PvP Mode, Spire Featured Project #6 and the Events System Revamp) before we are joined by our very special guest, Al "Captain Geko" Rivera, Star Trek Online's Lead Systems Developer as he gives us the low-down on all of the fantastic new features coming with Season 8.5 including Stephen D'Angelo's role as the Executive Producer of STO, Bug Squashing (including Fire At Will), social zone remastering, more content on ESD and DS9, changes to the event calendar, Mirror Universe event changes, Double XP Weekends, double-deflectors on science ships, the new Anniversary science/destroyer, power load outs, ship swapping and much, much more! Of course as always, we?ll open hailing frequencies and see what?s incoming from YOU -- our listeners. It's going to be a fantastic show that you're not going to want to miss!
Topics Discussed
This Week's Community Questions
STREAM WHILE YOU PLAY & DOWNLOAD FOR LATER (iTUNES AND MP3):
Web: http://priorityonepodcast.com
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OUR RSS FEED
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STOPriorityONE
CATCH US LIVE ON TREKRADIO, Thursdays 7 PM PT/10 PM ET:
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Elijah, James and Tony, our intrepid trio return this week to bring you a monster of a show! In fact, we've got so much content this week that we've had to skip Trek It Out this week and dive straight into STO News as we cover Season 8, Dev Blogs 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41 (Undine Space Combat Experience Revamp, Ship Management, Load-Outs, and Quick Equip Systems, Small Craft Arena PvP Mode, Spire Featured Project #6 and the Events System Revamp) before we are joined by our very special guest, Al "Captain Geko" Rivera, Star Trek Online's Lead Systems Developer as he gives us the low-down on all of the fantastic new features coming with Season 8.5 including Stephen D'Angelo's role as the Executive Producer of STO, Bug Squashing (including Fire At Will), social zone remastering, more content on ESD and DS9, changes to the event calendar, Mirror Universe event changes, Double XP Weekends, double-deflectors on science ships, the new Anniversary science/destroyer, power load outs, ship swapping and much, much more! Of course as always, we?ll open hailing frequencies and see what?s incoming from YOU -- our listeners. It's going to be a fantastic show that you're not going to want to miss!
Topics Discussed
- Season 8 Dev Blog #37
- Season 8 Dev Blog #38
- Season 8 Dev Blog #39
- Season 8 Dev Blog #40
- Season 8 Dev Blog #41
This Week's Community Questions
- Are features like hot-swappable ships, access to exchanges and banks in personal ships, and other conveniences killing Social Zones? If so, what ideas do YOU have to attract players back to Earth Spacedock, Qu?onos -- anywhere else!
- What do you think of the in-game event revamp? Did you make an effort to get in and play through an event? Was it any more worth it than the usual hourly events? What changes, if any, would you like to see from these events to make them more enticing?
We are Live on TrekRadio.net every Thursday at 5:30pm Pacific Time! If you'd like to join us live, during the show, Trek Radio has a built in IRC Chat client. Just click on the Community menu tab and select IRC Chat - input your desired screen name and enter!
The Priority One Network is always looking for new team members that have a passion for Star Trek. incoming@priorityonepodcast.com Please know that all of our positions are volunteer, but we do offer a well known outlet for your work. If you have a particular skill that you believe could enhance our content, then send your contact information and experience along with a few writing samples to incoming@priorityonepodcast.com
Did you miss any of our great Blogs last week? Stop by this link and see for yourself! How about our latest Video Release? You can also follow us on the social media sites! We're on Facebook! Head over to www.facebook.com/PriorityOnePodcast and say hi! Or, Check us out on Twitter via @stopriorityone for show times and other cool stuff.
Liked this episode? Totally hated it? Leave a comment below, Contact Us using our handy web form or leave your comments on the episode's page at Priority One Podcast.com
Enjoy the show!
STREAM WHILE YOU PLAY & DOWNLOAD FOR LATER (iTUNES AND MP3):
Web: http://priorityonepodcast.com
SUBSCRIBE:
OUR RSS FEED
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER:
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CATCH US LIVE ON TREKRADIO, Thursdays 7 PM PT/10 PM ET:
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Post edited by kraft4406 on
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-Bars that you could sit at and an activateable animation for your character depending on which food or drink item you bought. Sit, use a food or drink item and it'll appear in front of your character and bring up a mini-window. Click the button on the mini window to sip your drink or eat some of your meal. Entering text while this animation is playing scrambles your character's text, simulating muffling sounds someone makes when they have food in their mouths or when drinking something.
-Add secret missions that can only be obtainable through frequenting social zones. Interact with NPCs, perform the functions they provide, and build hidden relationship meters. When the meters fill after a few dozen visits, a new mission is unlocked in the NPC's menu. IMO, the rewards should be functional, rather than just trophies or other vanity items. New dance styles or additional off-duty costume unlocks would be swell.
-3D chess! Have it as a buyable or earnable item, but only activateable when you're sitting at a diner booth. It could be a full minigame where other players could sit on the opposite table from you and play against you. 3D chess games could even be started at new NPCs when you aren't using your own set. The 3D chess set could also be one of the items you can earn from hidden NPC missions.
This is just off the top of my head, but they'd be hella fun.
Keep up the good work guys!
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Also, from the interview. I'm glad people enjoy getting the Mk XII gear from the start, but I personally have a distaste of waiting till t5 to complete a set, give me the option to make the set at Mk X and XI respectively and as I progress upgrade them for lower resources in exchange of the lower level of that piece of gear. That way I don't have 3 copies of the same set.
1:01:04 - 1:00:20
"we want to put those engineering resources first to pvp"
Maybe I'm naive, but it sounds like they actually mean it this time. It feels different then the usual pvp soon(tm), it sounds like actual conversations are taking place...
*Thumbs UP* it's about time.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I totally get from an RP reason why you'd want to go to a starbase for things like, repairing your ship; getting more items like replenishing your devices (or let's use a hypothetical and say that you had to restock your torpedoes periodically, you could only do so at a starbase). But why do I need to visit a tailor to do anything related to my appearance? Don't I... have a wardrobe on my ship? Why do I need to visit a doctor at a starbase to get healed? Don't I have a sickbay?
It's interesting that Geko brought up the inherent contradiction of convenience vs immersion, but I'd argue that there are many things in the game that are on the convenience side that ruins immersion. And there are many things that would count as both that aren't in the game at all, and many other things that aren't convenient AND ruin immersion that are in the game (like with the examples above with the tailor and the sickbay).
Sitting in chairs, while nice, isn't going to drive anyone to a social zone. If they happen to be there, they might use it, but that's about it. What would actually DRAW people into social spaces? Same with eating animations.
Missions are a good way to get people to a zone, except you can almost always hail the person from space. Making hidden/secret missions isn't really our style, and there would be complaints if we forced people to do something to uncover a mission.
I agree with 3D Chess, I still want to see that. Though if it happened, and we kept it only to social zones, I can already hear the cries to "Let me play 3D Chess on my Ship/Starbase!"
Overall, we don't want to FORCE players to be social. We want to ENCOURAGE them to be social. There's a big difference here.
I don't think there's any need to force people to go to social zones because we are going to do it anyway. However, I would not mind having more things to do on social zones, especially some of the unused or under-used ones like Andoria, Vulcan, etc. In essence, I'll go to social zones anyway, but if I have interesting stuff to do there, so much the better.
Agreed,
Missions are a great way to bring people to social zones. Look at some of the feature episodes you guys did that, that did exactly this. Such as the Dominion feature episodes. Still recall how busy Bajor was those few early days. But yes the key thing is after the fact. To bring people back to that location over and over again.
Good way would to have unique items specifically only given out at that location. Or games. There's so many games out there that have unique events and what not that play out in there social zones which brings a great atmosphere to these zones. Something like this is needed for STO. You guys do great artwork especially Bajor.. we need to see more of it especially the planetary time cycle (night and day) but you have to draw us into it.
Games are a great way, 3d chess, poker ect. Just make it unique to that location.
Not sure what to say about your responses to my other ideas though. So what if people do complain about needing to unlock missions? They complain about everything else you guys do. All the awesome stuff you give us is drowned out by an annoyingly vocal and ungrateful minority. IMHO... you shouldn't withold interesting content just because of some whiners. Buuuuut it's your guys' game. :<
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I do not believe they are killing social zones. Players are.
Face it, if you have to set your privacy settings to whitelist - have to turn off zone - and generally find yourself wanting to close your eyes or reach for a weapon...the issue with social zones is other players.
Cryptic has done a nifty job, imho, of trying to create private social zones where folks can get together without all of that nonsense. They can't police the public areas - they've even encouraged some of the garbage that takes place...
But what they have done is created private social zones for those that want to socialize while also providing a means for those that do not wish to do so to still be able to access systems they require.
In essence, they're doing something for everybody...the socialite, the troll, and the just want to get X done...
Could they add more holdings or projects of a social nature? Sure - there are likely folks out there that would love the opportunity to run such a thing if they could build it - where they have some control over the nonsense that would or would not take place.
Public zones...imho...are a lost cause. Perhaps if Cryptic were to sell private instances of said zones, eh? Large fleets could buy a Risa instance, for example - where they'd only have to deal with those from their fleet or those they invited...etc, etc, etc.
If you for example put Tuvok once a week to ESD where we could talk to him about newest discoveries Voyager made I would run to be there. He would appear for one day and have some good stories and maybe even more. Same could be with captain Shon, I would like to hear what is Enterprise doing. Just a small thing but putting things like that could be fun. You could do the same with Worf at Qo'nos or Obisek on New Romulus
Oh, you mean the map people who got any lockbox ship can't get access to? Geez, I almost forgot about them.
No, that'd be a problem. I suggest we instead allow mini-games in the ready room toOh wait!
Seriously, though, that keeps bothering me:
Will we ever get access to all the ship interior of alien ships? Even if it doesn't respect the design of the ship (which not even the "normal" ship interiors do), could we at least have access to Fed/Rom/Klink interiors and ready rooms, please?
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How about poker for social zones say you can play in tournaments only in social zones. If people want to play on there ship or starbase its only local games. Make it bigger prizes for playing in tournament. If you build/add that people will come.
You would run there...to talk to read what he has to say.
How is that encouraging you to be social?
In the end, to encourage socialization - there needs to be something that requires interaction between players and in an environment that's conducive to socialization (as opposed to conducive to turning off chat channels, filling ignore lists, instance hopping, or just saying 'eff it and leaving the area completely)...
Social Gaming Interactions, Part One: A History of Form
http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_136.phtml
Social Gaming Interactions, Part Two: Competition
http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_/TTnT_137.phtml
Social Gaming Interactions, Part Three: Cooperation & Freeform
http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_/TTnT_138.phtml
That's back from 2003...and...they're issues that are still around today.
Hrmm, there were a few articles from MMORPG.com back in Sep 2012 talking about the decline of socialization in MMORPGs. As bad as it was a decade ago, it's gotten worse in the decade since...
One could pull up over 15 years worth of studies, commentary, etc, etc, etc on socialization in MMOs...one could go back further with just multiplayer socialization both online and offline...
...and it wouldn't matter.
Cause in the end - it's about the players. And in over 16 years of playing MMOs, I've never disliked players more...and I know I'm not alone.
Add in the sheer amount of "work" that STO has - well, there's neither the patience nor prerogative to deal with the garbage from other players to start with...set that against a backdrop of the miasma of efficiency that oozes from the game of needing to keep up with umpteen zillion things...and yeah, who could actually be bothered?
Sure, there are folks out there that would be - could be - if Cryptic were to throw some games at folks, little mini-games. Would Cryptic support it though? Would they also police it so that it was in a friendly environment?
Which goes back to the private environments...do they try to support public socialization or do they support private socialization where folks can do the policing to keep the trolls out that the Cryptic simply can't...?
1. Functional Social zones
2. Easy navigation
3. Access to services
I can think of several violations of the above, to many of the social areas in STO. Unless you're at ESD or in First City, the access to services is fairly non-existent/inconsistent at other social hubs (other starbases being the most notable example). This is easily rectified by the following:
Add the following services to ALL social hubs (starbases and major outposts)
- Skill Trainer (Respec)
- Bridge Officer Trainer
- Bridge Officer Recruitment
- Ship Requisitions
- Energy Credit Vendors
- Dilithium Vendors
- Tailor (including Ship Tailor)
- Fleet Registrator (create Fleets)
- Exchange Access
- Bank Access
- Mail Access
All of the above NEED to be in EVERY social hub. As it is, you end up having a packed house at both ESD and First City, causing tremendous lag for players with lower hardware specs. As a result, players tend to avoid the zones unless absolutely necessary.
I'd also suggest adding Bank and Mail Access to our SHIPS. Currently only accessable to "Account Bank", we should be able to access our entire Bank. "Fleet Bank" could still be limited to Social hubs.
Second: Link the "Zone Chat" from any of the Social Hubs, regardless of if you are currently on ESD, Starbase 39, K-7 etc. Might need a rename on the whole "Zone" thing, possibly renamed as "Social".
Captain Kurland could give a briefing about the current state of affairs in Dominion, Bajoran, and Cardassian space.
The NPC's on New Romulus can tell what the current progress is on building their new Homeworld.
On DS9, you could play a game of Darts with Morn, (complete with ALL his stories!!)
And, the list goes on...
The Armada
Original join date: Feb 5, 2010
Twitter: @davejl_99, & @STO_BBArmada
I remember when all ships had mail/bank access.... Social zones weren't dead then....
The issue isn't a flaw in the game. It's that the players don't really want to use the zones. A large section of the player base is generally anti-social, and loathe social interaction...
Want proof? Look at the rage threads about disco balls and Party poppers...
My character Tsin'xing
Yep, if not for all those anti-social players spamming party amps, party poppers, and generally making any public zone a pita to visit...one might see an increase in social activities from players.
Being a nuisance isn't being social - it's being a nuisance.
I think you're on to something here.
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My character Tsin'xing
1) More NPCs. Cause well, the more you're interacting with a NPC - the less you're interacting with another player.
2) More locations for said NPCs. Cause well, the less likely you are to see another player - the harder it will be to interact with another player.
What exactly does socialization mean to folks then?
Well, glad I could fix that for you then...
What about giving expertise for time spent in a social zones, similar to the system in Star Wars: The Old Republic (and one of the few good things they have).
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Is there something wrong with your subspace com array? When you rank up, you should be able to "Hail" Admiral Quinn from anywhere, get your new rank (and all the privileges it bestows), without having to fly all the way home to chat with him.
Remember 'Best of Both Worlds' ? Riker was given a field promotion to Captain by Admiral Hansen. Without having to fly to Earth to talk to him :P
Even when I'm right in front of him, it's forcing me to physically walk through his doorway after he tells me to.
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Great example right there.
Bajor, Spring Ball ? Add it!
ESD/SFA, 3D Chess and Poker? Add it!
DS9, Darts? Add it!
All of the above should be capable of rewarding Gold Pressed Latinum. Give us more things to do to earn Latinum, as well as more things to do WITH Latinum.
My idea is to increase content on social zones. Thing I mentioned will make me stay longer on ESD for example (and I came to this game because of star trek). You see, I would not be forced to be there but would be encouraged to stay. But they should not stop with that, other more social suggestions would be implemented so there would be more people there. I would not come to ESD just for mini games.
If they made more social zones in this game, they should make missions that take place in them. For instance if they ever created Ferenginar, they should make an entire arc that goes with it to add some reason to be there. As is, there are far too many dead zones that has to utility and even worse, no instant way to get there. Unique things that players want to participate in/benefit from are required to bring players to these zones. Even then once they get there, I think they would have no desire to be social, but more of a desire to get their stuff and leave.
Spend 15 minutes reading ESD zone chat as a new player, and you think about uninstalling this game.
There might be more people...but would they be socializing? More individual content is just more individual content...
Along the lines of...
So much of the game is toward convenience...and...not having to deal with folks. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am - whether it's a queue, a "social" zone, or what have you.
Cryptic's done a stellar job of not only not requiring any social interaction...but in most cases, discouraging it.
edit: That last bit's not quite fair. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, they've created many areas where folks can actively pursue socialization...just not public...if folks so desire. There are all sorts of things there - folks need to put some effort into it, so perhaps that is where there's some drop off with it, eh?
In Champs and City Of, there were player run costume contests pretty much constantly going on. It doesn't make a lot of sense in the ST universe where everyone is wearing uniforms, but I'd love to figure out a ST themed equivalent that players could initiate themselves.
Well, if the point of putting in chess, is to draw people to social zones, putting chess into people's bridges and fleet bases essentially negates that. The point is that anything we would do, specifically within a social zone to draw people in, would HAVE to be limited to only the social zone, otherwise it's pointless.
If the primary problem with social zones is the annoyances people have to deal with when there, how can we lessen those? I'm not sure if/what we could do about Zone Chat. But maybe party poppers/disco balls are only usable within the club. That would eliminate them from the rest of ESD say, but would that also mean that those who might normally be griefing, wouldn't bother staying around? Or would they cluster in the Club?
Okay, so... and correct me if I'm wrong here... you're afraid that people will play 3D chess in their ships to avoid socializing.
Here's a simple solution: Don't include opponent NPCs there. It's as simple as that. That narrows their playing in ships down to private matches between friends. And IMO, that's perfectly reasonable to allow. And there's hardly anything functional in bridges outside of ready room stuff.
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