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Per CaptainGeko, what we're currently seeing is in alpha
sethpc
Member Posts: 103 Arc User
So I'm listening to the newest episode of Priority One, and they're talking to Al Rivera about the crafting update. According to him, everything is still in flux: UI, costs, recipes, gear available to craft, you name it. And some features will be coming in Expansion 2. For example: the system is set up to allow players to specifically modify gear enhancements, but it won't be ready for 9.5. The reason or putting it up on Tribble so early on is to catch any big or egregious bugs and get very early feedback. The interview is definitely worth a listen and, at least in my case, has assuaged a lot of concerns about the system.
So let's try to keep that in mind when testing and providing feedback, okay?
So let's try to keep that in mind when testing and providing feedback, okay?
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But it should have been obvious to folks...
S9.5 scheduled to launch at the end of July.
S9.5 dropped out to Tribble on June 19th.
Redshirt opened to allow for patching of Holodeck while S9.5 is on Tribble.
S9.5 obviously incomplete on Tribble, based even on the scarce info provided to that point.
It's like, "No shizzle!" it's an incomplete/early look with it having over a month of testing/etc coming...lol...
...but folks crapped all over the place as if it were the completed work and it was going to drop this Thursday. This Thursday, btw, is only June 26th. But in a game where folks got up in arms about not having enough time to complete the Risa event...because you know, it was ending on the 17th after starting on the 5th (and all those folks completely ignored the July part)...
...the forums are going to be what they are.
Cryptic spent over two years turning the game into something that everybody that took the shortbus to the internet could play...they've got nobody to blame but themselves for some of the comments their playerbase makes.
Ehm, it's not like Cryptic usually changes things from Tribble before they go to Holodeck. The only bits of hope I got left are used to provide the most direct feedback as possible as soon as possible. Because even I understand changing stuff from the ground up can't be done a week prior to release.
I find it a necessity to force the Devs to react while they're maybe still considering any changes to their systems. A week or two later would be probably way too late (and a more hopeless part of me thinks anything put on Tribble is already beyond the point of no return...).
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
Anything posted to the Tribble server at this point is beta. Assuming software development methodologies are being followed, "final" code has been released for testing.
By now, imho, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) would have been (or should have been) conducted internally at Cryptic/PWE. No one is going to talk about that since it's an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) activity. Bugs are generally identified during this cycle.
We (the players/"customers") have been asked for feedback, which is a function of beta testing.
Once beta feedback is noted, then management makes determinations on what change(s) need to be implemented, if any. It doesn't mean all bugs are squashed; in fact, you can expect to find them.
If code is released as alpha, then features aren't finalized, nor is there a go-live date assigned. What you're suggesting is: Cryptic has not finalized the codebase or features.
Maybe Cryptic isn't willing to educate the testers about what we're testing (alpha or beta).
I think the testers (myself included) want to understand if this is an alpha OR beta test cycle.
Thanks in advance!
I think everyone whose given feedback on 9.5 knows it's in early testing, but given Cryptic's history, we know this is pretty much going to go live as is.
Given the overwhelming negative feedback of the UI, I'm sure at least that will change. But will the rest of the rest of the crafting system change with feedback? That remains to be seen. I for one, want to see Crafting seem more like Crafting and not an overblown DOFF Mission.
Note to community managers:
Sorry, guys... but could you please provide more clarity when soliciting for testing? (alpha, beta) Release management should be telling you what specifically is available for testing on Tribble.
That way, we aren't spinning up, reporting (and some arguing) about issues, etc.
Unless it's cheap entertainment. :P But somehow I doubt that...
When they drop out Redshirt, they tend to make changes on Tribble before it hits Holodeck. No Redshirt, then yeah - it's usually already finalized and Tribble's little more than a headstart on some bug reports that are going to go live. When they drop out Redshirt though, there's usually going to be some revisions along the way.
Unfortunately Cryptic has a habit of releasing half-done things with tons of bugs or badly set up things that have previously been pointed out. Just look at LoR for example. There were a lot of people complaining about major bugs that had been pointed out and that were ignored. I'm most happy to be proven wrong by Cryptic but until they do so I'll estimate the future by their past. And this means that what we see now is what we'll see going live.
But mean jokes aside, I simply have lost all trust in Cryptic. They've been saying stuff like that over the past years - that their stuff is still in testing, it's not finished, subject to change etc. They've said such things about new updates, seasons, ships, gear etc. But of course they've been releasing it regardless whether it was complete/balanced or not. They've got their deadlines and it's all a matter of "how much we can make this look complete on release date" rather than "what can we do to make this better, even if it means postponing the release".
And Geko of all people has beaten Stahl himself when it comes to undelivered promisses and utter lies. He's more of a businessman than a game developer at this point.
Ok, I realise what you want to say and it should be quite obvious - there's no point in crying over something that's not finished. Still, if Cryptic releases something for public testing then they should expect some criticism, especially if they're so silent about it and basically don't engage in forum discussions.
Not to mention, some changes are very much too drastic and - quite frankly - idiotic, like the removal of Exploration Clusters. And since Cryptic provided no justification or some other reply regarding this topic then I'm very much concerned.
this man speaks the truth.
My consumer confidence in Cryptic is pretty low right now because of their past history. Additionally many things on Tribble tend to make it live with minor tweaks at best unless their is a tremendous community outrage about it. EPtX cooldowns come to mind as a good example.
I am not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt that things are going to be expanded upon beyond what I can already see. Too often things they would like to add/change/etc fall victim to deadlines and don't see the light of the day.
For those reasons all my feedback so far as been on what is currently on tribble. If future patches to tribble cause my feedback to become, outdated so to speak, I will provide new feedback based upon that new state.
:rolleyes:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
And yeah, they rarely come back and redo things (exploration clusters, rebalancing, full romulan faction, ...).
This is the plan and this is what we'll get.
Many folks don't bother with Tribble. If they were to hit up Tribble and share their outrage there rather than acting surpised when things hit Holodeck, then perhaps certain things wouldn't hit Holodeck the way they do.
The EPtX thing was a major battle between several groups - there were folks involved in - they made a bunch of noise...but it was constructive noise, no? Even as folks were going at each other over it, they were still making constructive arguments for their sides - and - against what Cryptic had intended to do initially.
When players get involved...they can be negative as Hell, but as long as they're constructive while being as negative as they can be...Cryptic tends to notice. When you see so much of the whining taking place now - where folks are complaining about things that don't even exist - where they heard somebody say something and they jumped on the bandwagon to complain too...it just makes it that much tougher for anybody to get some actual constructive (both negative and positive) feedback to Cryptic. And if folks just sit idly by...just so they can blame Cryptic later...really?
I can drop out a single post and gets messages both from folks accusing me of being a Cryptic Lover and a Cryptic Hater. I don't think Cryptic is perfect...neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. They've got their good and their bad...what I see as good and bad isn't necessarily going to be the same as the next guy either, cause folks feel differently about things.
In the end, though...we can offer constructive feedback (even if it's negative, telling Cryptic exactly why we think they're a bunch of morons for doing something a certain way as opposed to something else) or we can just rant around having hissyfits. Cryptic might read the thing where they're being told they're doing it wrong where it's actually explained...they might not want to tune out the hissyfit, they know they should listen to that feedback, but it's pretty hard not to ignore it on the other hand.
Do I have consumer confidence, overall, in Cryptic? Nope...that's why I've been giving them both my positive and negative feedback - that's why I've been asking...okay, so uh - there's more right, cause this doesn't look like everything based on what's been said and the time you've given us to test it. I'm taking a proactive role in a game that I generally enjoy and hope to continue enjoying...I'm not going to sit back and play the victim like so many folks out there love to do.
The change to the screens, imho, reflects what they've been talking about for sometime...in trying to get DOFFing into Gateway.
requirements
analysis
design
development
qa
uat
These things don't take place in hours or days, but at least a week at a time if not more. If cryptic is agile, which they most likely need to be, then now is a period of incremental builds cycling between dev and qa. But can we seriously expect vast changes in design, which requires new requirements and redevelopment in 30 days? That's cutting it very close.
If they instead mentioned the crafting revamp was being setup for expansion 2 sometime later this year then thats fine. But if you look at the language and timing from Cryptic what is on tribble is what they wanted to move forward with and I'm guessing are completely taken aback by the community feedback. Believe me, noone goes to UAT without confidence their customer base will approve in the majority.
Expect a lot of backtracking and rewording, or more common to today's development strategies, just call it a loss and shove the poor design down our throats.
Well, hell, The Star Trek Las Vegas 2014 convention is approaching; and we all know Gekko has to concentrate on what's REALLY important; namely finding another old former TNG actor to officiate at his annual wedding vow renewal ceremony.:eek:;)
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..."
Nah, nah...he needs to go TOS and get Takei to do it!
"It doesn't do it now, but we have plans to add that to it in the future..."
Sorry, but given that after Cryptic adds a new system/feature; no matter what they may have stated about "Well add more to it later..."; it USUALLY comes to pass that said new system gets effectively abandoned/locked into what it was at its launch, in favor of Cryptic moving on to the NEXT/LATEST greatest 'feature' in STO.
^^^
That's been Cryptic's Feature development pattern pretty much since STO's launch; so color me skeptical that anything will change, or be added to the Crafting system revamp once it's pushed .live to Holodeck (beyond any actual required bug fixing post Holodeck launch.)
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..."
The real test here on tribble isn't so much about bugs and such as it is about what Cryptic can get away with.
Member since December 2009
We have this UI and this system of crafting to give feedback on. Pointing out that there isn't anything worthwhile to craft is still a valid point, to let Cryptic know that yep, there's no reason to craft if it went live with the current offerings. But it's not the main points brought up by people. There's just one thread with 4 posts on the front page right now that's about the lack of stuff from crafting. So if there was a lot of nice stuff to craft right now, that would get rid of a handful of posts. Everything else would be unchanged.
Look at much of the feedback though...had nothing to do with what was there. Hell, most of the feedback appears to come from folks parroting things that never even bothered to head to Tribble. They heard somebody say X, they're rioting over X...whether X is there or not.
What that means is that the feedback on what is there...is likely to get lost, no?
You cannot blame the player base for being harsh with Cryptic Studios. Some of us have been with Cryptic from City of Heroes, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and Neverwinter. Some of us have been with Cryptic Studios longer than most of the employees that work there.
It is true that some of us are not an expert at designing a game from the ground up as a programmer or even an artist (heck, some of us have a difficult time spelling), but we do know fiction from non-fiction. It is a simple truth that the "customer is always right."
Here the customer is a player base which has a population of about 2 million or more players. I do not know how many of them are paying subscribers. So, determining what the customer will like is a tough job. However, one of the reasons the title "professional" is given to people is because no matter what happens with the customer the staff will get the job done.
It is not enough for the staff to set a goal and follow a schedule to complete a project on time. They have to meet the expectation of the customer.
Whether we are in Alpha, Beta, or Gamma (gamma is the third letter in the Greek Alphabet) testing, none of that matters. If the project is not leading to a place that satisfies the customer, then the employees have wasted their time and collected a free pay check.
With this Season patch, it is not too much to ask"
1. Why are we changing this system to begin with?
2. Is it better than what we have now?
3. Why is the crafting system related to the space exploration?
3. What will happen with all the things I have gathered so far in the game?
In the forum, the customer does not have to write in camera or align there discourse to avoid being fired from the job. So, we the customers will say what we think is true to us. For the people who loved crafting, they may love it. For the people who didn't care for exploration, they may love the change. We all hope that Cryptic Studios is not making these changes simply to increase their profit margin and decrease the players ability to use the service that they paid for.
In my experience with Cryptic Studios Since about 2004 or 2005 is that they tend to justify lazy programmers who do not fix anything in the game with some excuse because they have a deadline to meet. Well, after the deadline ended, why did you take on new task if you have not fix any of the old problems first?
I understand this is only the first four days of testing on Tribble with Season 9.5. I understand that there is more to the system then what is in now. However, the time to voice my disappointment is now. If I do not like what I see now, then how can Cryptic Studios be so confident that I will like it later? That seems illogical.
It is like with the Free To Play System update. People did not like it then, and they still do not like it. They tolerate it, but they have not accepted the change.
For me, I loved the exploration system. I could care less about any of the other systems in the game. For me, exploration was in the game before any of these gimmicks were even in the game. I was still exploring space. Why? Because that is what Star Trek is about. If they change it to another exploration system, will I like it? Maybe, but I doubt it. Unless the exploration system turns the game into how Guild Wars is where each planet is a social hub fix in space, and the area between each planet is a instance that only my friends and me have a say and how it changes, then I doubt it.
Now, about the acutal thing we are testing, the DOFF UI.
1. Is it better than what we have now? No
2. Does it make me more profitable in the game than I am with the current system? No
3. Has it improved my quality of life and Star Trek experience in the game? No.
I think of the following anology with space exploration being axed. Think of Galaxy Exploration as a dog. Here I had a cute dog. He wasn't the best, he wasn't the most exciting dog around. But, he got the job done. And now, Cryptic Studios has gone and shot the dog. They didn't think at all how it would affect me or how it would change my life. They just did it. And, now you want people to embrace something they loved (the dog) with something that is only going to remind them of what you destroyed.
That is why this all relates to Star Wars Galaxy. The developers shot the dog, in the case of SWG, the player economy and non-combat professions, and the uniqueness of play people had and replaced it with a inferior product that would only serve to remind people of what they loved and lost.
It does not even really matter, if Cryptic Studio has decided to change the exploration to a better system. Or it doesn't matter that they made a decision because they know best. The problem is it was not a decision for them to make. it is a decision only the customer can make. Cryptic Studio is not even aware of what they lost or destoryed. What is to come is only a reminder to the veteran player base of what they lost.
They have killed our dog, and showed no remorse doing it. And, that is just evil.
It's entirely their decision to make. They have to deal with any consequences of any decision they make, but the decisions are entirely their decisions to make.
Well said.
Thats probably the biggest potential draw for me, New items would be something worth delving into the system for
Then again I have the ( perhaps controversial ) idea that functioning items should not be dropping from enemy ships, I would much rather get some salvaged components under this new system that can be used to craft a variety of types of item, than a random energy type I will hardly ever use
Personally I would have vendor trash from enemies completely removed, and Crafting made premium currency free So that crafting would be more neccessary, or players get standard issue gear from the Faction Quartermasters
They have internal testing then redshirt(alpha) then tribble (beta) then holodeck(live).
If the community likes what they see, not much would have changed. I wonder if they'll push back a few months, scrap the system or rework it entirely.
Who knows really, they really need a consultant...seems that they don't have any people that have a working understanding of mmos.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
So, both the devlopers and the player testers are venturing a new methodology. That is fine. Mr. Rivera discussed that they still need to build more functionality into the tool and that is why the tool is basic now. He later pointed out that part of the catalyst of the revision to the Duty Officer user Interface or DOFF UI was that to make it work was a very complicated and robust set of tools that offered the programmers few methods to expand on.
So for example, if they wanted to build some functionality of the system to work with the Gateway tool than it could not be done with the current architecture of the system. That is understandable. He further explained that the reason for closing Memory Alpha was because they have plans to expand that area west of that zone for places like the Ferengi homeworld and Betazoid.
However, I got the impression from the interview that the decision to close the exploration zones was because the developer did not see the value of the assets. Which, for me, explains how it could be removed so coldly.
I would point out to the developers that, why it is important to build new functionality to the system and game, it is equally important to point out that players love the game and certain aspects of the game. And. just because you do not comprehend the value of one aspect of the game, does not mean it is not valued by the player.
Do I think removing the current exploration system for a even better system is important? Yes, I do, but I am not convinved that the exploration cluster had to be shut down now. If the exploration is not even going to be put on the live server until expansion two later this year, then why not leave the older system up and running. Not every player plays in groups or does queue missions. The exploration clusters is the only method players have to play the game as a solo effort.
I would point out that when they added other map zones to the game, they did not close off the adjacent sections of the map for eight months until the new zone was ready for release. From a psychological aspect, it may be wiser to leave the exploration clusters in the game while the other one is being rolled out.
From a non-developer perspective, it comes across to the player base that "Cryptic is ripping the players off by forcing them to only grind using the DOFF System and severally reducing the amount of energy credits and dilithium a player can generate in the game." It comes across to the common player that Cryptic only wants to insure the companies profits are high at the expense of the paying player base all to make the non paying customer have another method of using the C-Store.
For me, I can generate 5 million energy credits a day and 20,000 dilithium ore a day doing exploration alone. This change as it is reduces that to only about 30,000 energy credits a day and about 500 dilithium ore a day. That is a significant hit in energy credits and dilithium. That does not even include the 60 or 70 units of anomaly resources I would make and convert to other products. You can see how easily it may come across to the player that Cryptic is "ripping me off." Also, it comes across as shock to the player because they view the game through the prism of the real economics of the game.
On top of all that, then you see in the Crafting tool that some items require 25,000 dilithium to construct. So, for me, it comes across as "first you rip me off by severally reducing my ability to make dilithium and energy credits in the game," but then you gank me with outrages dilithium cost on constructing Fleet Holding projects, Crafting Products, and Reputation Gear."
While Mr. Rivera is correct in pointing out that it is a Alpha stage release and we the player base testers need to look at the build as a developer does, it is equally important for the developers to look at the build through the perspective of the players. For me, I sort of start with Star Trek. How does this affect my experience of Star Trek?
Many of the players are Star Trek fans. We want to make sure what is being added to the game does not abandoned Star Trek. And, for me removal of the exploration clusters seems counterproductive to Star Trek. Since, no other part of the game offers Space Exploration.
I came away from the interview with a better understanding of where the build is going and why we are at the point we are. I still feel like Cryptic Studio shot my dog without remorse.
Thank you.