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Season 9 Dev Blog #29 - Exploration Cluster Removal

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  • gofasternowgofasternow Member Posts: 1,390 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    venkou wrote: »
    Hypothetically speaking...

    If the clusters are being replaced by foundry missions, Cryptic is now obligated, by law, to pay foundry authors for content generation. Average hourly rate for content generation is $75 an hour. Since this particular service replaces an in-house employee, the foundry authors that are hired are now considered sub-contractors. United States laws states that sub-contractors are responsible for paying taxes; therefore, foundry authors will need to file quarterly tax returns. If Cryptic refuses to pay foundry authors, the players can now sue Cryptic for slave labor.

    As a result of Cryptic making these changes, the work players generate will no longer be done by an in-house employee. Instead of hiring one of the millions that are unemployed, people who need to put food on the table, Cryptic has decided to ask players to generate content for free. Other words, Cryptic should hire a few unemployed people, so they can help people feed their families.


    Do you now see why replacing clusters with foundry missions is a bad idea?

    Someone in the company usually gets paid to generate content. When Cryptic uses players to fill in the void, they are taking away the possibility of hiring a new employee. Its that simple.

    Since Cryptic will be using foundry missions to generate revenue, I suggest players do not give away their services without compensation.


    Hypothetically speaking...

    Are you kidding me?! Please tell me you're kidding me.

    You're not, are you?

    ...y'know, I was going to make a post rebutting that, but the logic that went into that post both confuses and infuriates me so much that I'm not.

    Seriously, you people are the most paranoid bunch I've ever met.
  • antzudanantzudan Member Posts: 231 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    They should pay people for missions that are deemed good enough to be spotlighted.

    Also they should hire some actual writers for the featured episodes and other new content they make whenever that happens next.
  • snoggymack22snoggymack22 Member Posts: 7,084 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    antzudan wrote: »
    They should pay people for missions that are deemed good enough to be spotlighted.

    They do. With quatloos.

    And the players can tip the authors with dilithium.

    Win Win!
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • vivenneanthonyvivenneanthony Member Posts: 1,278 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    They do. With quatloos.

    And the players can tip the authors with dilithium.

    Win Win!

    I so think players should now get compensation that match real life compensation. At minimum 64k dilthium.

    Then 10000 zen if spotlighted.
  • warpedcorewarpedcore Member Posts: 362 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Personally, I'd like to hope that the Exploration clusters will be reintroduced into the game at some point. Preferably once the engine has been tweaked and the possible stories available are adjusted. Star Trek is about exploration, and the Clusters were a half way decent attempt at recreating that atmosphere.

    Sure, how many times have we had to stop the Borg from tearing up a small colony because they're looking for artifacts from their fourth dynasty? The engine just needed minor tweaks and some of the possible options removed.

    Cluster exploration was great for Role Play groups, now we have to resort to digging through foundry missions to find something appropriate. Not ideal, but, okay.
  • avastanavastan Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    So who was the dev that had a bad case of missing brain ? :confused:

    How can something that is in the game "lowers its quality" ?

    The "quality" of the "good missions" is the same, the same awful ground combat and animations and the plot does not really improve, as for space combat its good to have a diffrent enemy once in a while.

    It was goo to log do a couple of cluster missions without strings attached "Bloddy go where no Klingon have made bleed before...

    The missions are all the same once you have played once, here at least you didnt know what to expect.


    Another expert move :(
  • starbase1114starbase1114 Member Posts: 33 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    thank You Cryptic, At Least You Made Foundry Doors....


    But You Better Restore Exploration Before The Hate Grows.
    Your To Late It Has Begun!!!
  • starbase1114starbase1114 Member Posts: 33 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    let's Be Even More Hypothetical.

    if I Am Cryptic And The Company Got Maybe 50 Players To Develop Content For The Game For Free. Why Not Lay-off Or Fire 10 Paid Salaried Developers? That Saves Probably A Good $650,000 A Year And The Company Gain $650,000 In Profit Or Above From Players Which Doesn't Have To Go Into Game Development.

    To Bad! You Screwed Up Not Us No One Want This Foundry TRIBBLE Anyway So Now Your Claiming You Have To F-up The Whole Game Because Of It Well Just End The Foundry And Leave Are Clusters Alone! Besides Who Said The Foundry People Get Paid To Make Stuff Up? This Is A Major TRIBBLE Up And Now You Want To Tank The Game Because Of This TRIBBLE Fire The Person Responceible And Leave Are Clusters Alone !
  • starbase1114starbase1114 Member Posts: 33 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Wtf Is A Matter With You People? Of Course This A Stupid Idea! Most Of All The Bull****! You Mean Your Lawyers Didnt Look In To This Be Fore It Started! And What Law Are You Speaking From And It There Is A Law That Says You Need To Pay These Foundry Jerks I Would Like To See A Copy Of That Law Posted On The Site!!!! The Foundry Was To Allow Player To Make Something For The Game And Now You Want To Get Paid For It And **** Up The Game!! Just ****ing Nice!
  • venkouvenkou Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Are you kidding me?! Please tell me you're kidding me.

    You're not, are you?

    ...y'know, I was going to make a post rebutting that, but the logic that went into that post both confuses and infuriates me so much that I'm not.

    Seriously, you people are the most paranoid bunch I've ever met.
    It a hypothetical observation. Instead of having players create content for free, Cryptic could hire someone to build missions on a full-time basis. Do you know how many interns would love to get some experience? If money seems to be the problem, Cryptic could hire an intern to build the missions. Some recent graduate would jump at a chance to work on game content.
    Let's be even more hypothetical.

    If I am Cryptic and the company got maybe 50 players to develop content for the game for free. Why not lay-off or fire 10 paid salaried developers? That saves probably a good $650,000 a year and the company gain $650,000 in profit or above from players which doesn't have to go into game development.
    Cryptic could technically fire everyone in the office, so they can use low paying interns to flesh out the game. Since the developers have reduced creativity to 'cutting-and-pasting', the job requirements would be perfect for an entry-level position. Someone could learn the ins-and-outs of game development, environmental design, dialogue writing, etc...


    Recent college graduates would love to work on generating content.
  • aelfwin1aelfwin1 Member Posts: 2,896 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    They do. With quatloos.

    And the players can tip the authors with dilithium.

    Win Win!

    Not quite .
    There are a few missions that I tend to repeat once a day 4 dil .
    I get about 2400 dil from each .mission ... yet I can only tip the author once ... Not as many times as I play his missions .

    Thus I'm left to tip in Quatloos ... , despite my lack of desire to do so .
  • kintishokintisho Member Posts: 1,040 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    We do need some IN GAME (not player created) exploration, the old system was poor at best, but at least there was some (if a sorry excuse for) exploring, like the shows thus game is SUPPOSED to be mimicking.... pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew ... let us do something else. like "boldly going" not boldly blowing up, again and again and again without pause.
  • snoggymack22snoggymack22 Member Posts: 7,084 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    warpedcore wrote: »
    Personally, I'd like to hope that the Exploration clusters will be reintroduced into the game at some point. Preferably once the engine has been tweaked and the possible stories available are adjusted. Star Trek is about exploration, and the Clusters were a half way decent attempt at recreating that atmosphere.

    Sure, how many times have we had to stop the Borg from tearing up a small colony because they're looking for artifacts from their fourth dynasty? The engine just needed minor tweaks and some of the possible options removed.

    Cluster exploration was great for Role Play groups, now we have to resort to digging through foundry missions to find something appropriate. Not ideal, but, okay.

    The dev blog is pretty explicit. They're not touching the engine anytime soon. They're quarantining it with this move so that they don't have to touch it. There's no super secret exploration revamp coming.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • harbingerzeroharbingerzero Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    I enjoy these missions because, unlike Foundry missions, I can jump on for 20 minutes and have some fun, earn some rewards, and log back out. Its STO's version of casual dailies and enjoyable, more enjoyable than some of the other things they have in the game.

    You want to put in an alternative, I'm all ears. But removing content just to be removing content? For the reason that you might somehow offend the trickle of new players stopping by who may or may not utilize this content at all, since you already have them pointed to the storyline missions and group content?

    Beyond dumb.
  • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    While I appreciate the developers desire to remove substandard content, I feel that removing content like this forces players into repeating the same handful of queued missions, increasing player burnout, and only serves to make the game feel smaller and more linear. That's a terrible thing for an MMO.

    You're only making the game smaller and less an MMO.

    This ^^^!

    The last of the content that didn't feel like a grind was the Exploration Cluster missions. Having Dilithium earned from them was nice but not necessary.

    It's a good thing that all those Foundry missions are there for Cryptic to fall back on, otherwise what would they do?

    Seriously, not all Foundry missions are "exploration" missions and some are multi-mission story arc missions, some play for 20 minutes and some play for 3 hours, so I hope that Cryptic is going to be a little smart about which missions are used in place of the Exploration Cluster Missions.

    So, what is Star Trek without exploration? STFs and battlezones. Sounds more like Star Wars to me.

    Cryptic, I hope that Season 11 (to give you a little time) will be titled "To Boldly Go", be the start of a long run of "short episodes" that would be made without story arcs and expensive voice-overs and ship grinds. Christine should be able to come up with some nice short episodes that would be in the spirit of exploration.
    Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home'
    SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
  • angel54201angel54201 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Thank you cryptic, at least you made foundry doors....


    But you better restore exploration before the hate grows.

    Agreed Cryptic you're TRIBBLE yourself bad, I ENJOY the clusters and won't be purchases anything from you, until you return these missions
  • spacegoatcx#8996 spacegoatcx Member Posts: 175 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    65 pages of what has devolved into a load of irrational anger at some extremely dated and bugged missions that literally no one plays being removed.

    Why not sit back and give them time to develope and release a new "exploration" mechanic we can all have fun with instead of resorting to entitlement over unarguably weak content?

    Or maybe go learn about storyboarding, design, and lore to create foundry content we can all share enjoyment with?

    90% of the current foundry is either boring or has you hover around known systems, usually resolving yet another dull internal conspiracy that has been seen too many times or doing some dull romance flame/forced personality on boffs and your character nonsense, instead of living the Trek dream.

    Get out there and create something new, something we haven't seen, or go explore those "unanswered" little questions some of the missions or old episodes leave us with in a creative and coherent manner.

    If you want good examples, I recommend the "Bijor" foundry arc fed side or "Blood, bij and honor" KDF side.
    FvMLllF.jpg
  • tigerariestigeraries Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    this is being removed cause you can farm crafting materials in these clusters... they want to limit the amount of crafting materials to just the missions and task forces.

    they should just remove the nodes and leave the exploration in the clusters alone.

    just have an option when your at the new cluster point for "cluster exploration" and it'll give you a random mission like now. currently you zone into the cluster and then you need to travel to each exploration cluster for a chance to enter system or do the crafting mini game for materials.

    just right click for cluster exploration and remove all crafting nodes... everyone happy.

    if they ever do revamp "exploration" then they can update the system then.
  • snoggymack22snoggymack22 Member Posts: 7,084 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    65 pages of what has devolved into a load of irrational anger at some extremely dated and bugged missions that literally no one plays being removed.

    Literally no one?

    I play the content. So you're wrong.
    Why not sit back and give them time to develope and release a new "exploration" mechanic we can all have fun with instead of resorting to entitlement over unarguably weak content?

    Because they're not doing that. As stated in this blog, they are removing it and putting it into the foundry.

    There is no super secret exploration revamp in the works.
    90% of the current foundry is either boring or has you hover around known systems, usually resolving yet another dull internal conspiracy that has been seen too many times or doing some dull romance flame/forced personality on boffs and your character nonsense, instead of living the Trek dream.

    Which is why shoving this off on the Foundry will not do anything.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    65 pages of what has devolved into a load of irrational anger at some extremely dated and bugged missions that literally no one plays being removed.

    Why not sit back and give them time to develope and release a new "exploration" mechanic we can all have fun with instead of resorting to entitlement over unarguably weak content?

    Because they aren't planning to do that - for better or worse - they are dropping exploration from STO and taking the easy way out by using the Foundry, which most don't fit as "exploration" missions.
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    Or maybe go learn about storyboarding, design, and lore to create foundry content we can all share enjoyment with?

    90% of the current foundry is either boring or has you hover around known systems, usually resolving yet another dull internal conspiracy that has been seen too many times or doing some dull romance flame/forced personality on boffs and your character nonsense, instead of living the Trek dream.

    Get out there and create something new, something we haven't seen, or go explore those "unanswered" little questions some of the missions or old episodes leave us with in a creative and coherent manner.

    Go for it! Just don't make it boring. ;)
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    If you want good examples, I recommend the "Bijor" foundry arc fed side or "Blood, bij and honor" KDF side.

    There are a lot of great Foundry missions but these are not exploration missions. If anything, exploration missions should not be story arcs, IMO.
    Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home'
    SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
  • kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    sirokk wrote: »



    Go for it! Just don't make it boring. ;)


    It's going to be challenging making something more riveting than "Explore Unknown System," followed by investigating an abandoned Starfleet outpost by finding 5 of 5 consoles that tell a nonsensical story that doesn't fit the setting at all.

    I am up for that challenge, but you won't be able to find my missions, unless you do a custom search for my in game name, which doesn't match the forums due to forum revamps.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • vivenneanthonyvivenneanthony Member Posts: 1,278 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    65 pages of what has devolved into a load of irrational anger at some extremely dated and bugged missions that literally no one plays being removed.

    Why not sit back and give them time to develope and release a new "exploration" mechanic we can all have fun with instead of resorting to entitlement over unarguably weak content?

    Or maybe go learn about storyboarding, design, and lore to create foundry content we can all share enjoyment with?

    90% of the current foundry is either boring or has you hover around known systems, usually resolving yet another dull internal conspiracy that has been seen too many times or doing some dull romance flame/forced personality on boffs and your character nonsense, instead of living the Trek dream.

    Get out there and create something new, something we haven't seen, or go explore those "unanswered" little questions some of the missions or old episodes leave us with in a creative and coherent manner.

    If you want good examples, I recommend the "Bijor" foundry arc fed side or "Blood, bij and honor" KDF side.

    Huh? Cryptic is not considering or developing a exploration revamp. They are mandating players create content for them in known sector space using foundry doors. Free labor!

    They could simply keep exploration clusters then attach new clusters. So you can fly through unknown space more like Star Trek. Good example a sector space between gamma and alpha quadrant.

    Oh. Well. Cryptic just will make money fron players hard work in making content.
  • spacegoatcx#8996 spacegoatcx Member Posts: 175 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Literally no one?

    I play the content. So you're wrong.



    Because they're not doing that. As stated in this blog, they are removing it and putting it into the foundry.

    There is no super secret exploration revamp in the works.



    Which is why shoving this off on the Foundry will not do anything.

    So you have poor, or simply extremely obscure, taste in content. There are many far surperior and more enjoyable equivalents to it out there. Example given: Tau Dewa daily. Repeatable missions, yet not buggy or entirely outdated. Second example, Dyson ground zone, more dil (you can hit refine limit in less than 20 minutes), less time, repeatables, and actually quite fun. Same with the space Undine zone, Defera, so on.

    How do we know what Cryptic has planned in the future? For now yes, but who is to say what we will get later on? Wait and see. Something said in the now, or done in the now, speaks little for the future of things to come.

    Yes, the foundry is exactly that way right now, because no one is putting the time into making something better out of it. Help change that instead of being a bystander. SFD has several members who put a great deal of care and detail into their efforts while having the rest of us vigorously test the results and provide input.

    Now on to the whining over crafting materials.

    I usually sit in either the Sirius block or Sphere just half AFK doffing for the CXP to turn into fleet marks as I am lazy and utterly drown in stacks of those materials within no time at all to were I often discarded them in the past out of principle.

    Generally doffing is a lower effort, higher "profit" method of getting your materials together and doesn't require flying around actively playing that dull scanning minigame hundreds of times over.

    That is also were most crafting materials come from really, so no, there is no insane conspiracy to do with the revamp.

    The only thing it might effect is that you now get to go do something enjoyable while passively reaping the same rewards vs doing the same mind-numbing task all day.

    There is literally nothing to complain about here, unless you have some obtuse emotional attachment to horrible missions and one of the world's dullest means to farm materials.
    FvMLllF.jpg
  • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    kirksplat wrote: »
    It's going to be challenging making something more riveting than "Explore Unknown System," followed by investigating an abandoned Starfleet outpost by finding 5 of 5 consoles that tell a nonsensical story that doesn't fit the setting at all.

    I am up for that challenge, but you won't be able to find my missions, unless you do a custom search for my in game name, which doesn't match the forums due to forum revamps.

    LOL, no offence was implied, I was commenting in reference to the "90% of the current foundry is either boring..." statement.
    Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home'
    SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
  • spacegoatcx#8996 spacegoatcx Member Posts: 175 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    kirksplat wrote: »
    It's going to be challenging making something more riveting than "Explore Unknown System," followed by investigating an abandoned Starfleet outpost by finding 5 of 5 consoles that tell a nonsensical story that doesn't fit the setting at all.

    I am up for that challenge, but you won't be able to find my missions, unless you do a custom search for my in game name, which doesn't match the forums due to forum revamps.

    Would you share some of your mission names with us (or me in a PM works too)?

    I'm always up to try something new out.

    Also happy to see someone rise to that challenge.

    People saying the foundry does not suit exploration purposes: The human imagination is a truely limitless frontier that we will likely never fully explore.
    FvMLllF.jpg
  • kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    Would you share some of your mission names with us (or me in a PM works too)?

    I'm always up to try something new out.

    Also happy to see someone rise to that challenge.

    People saying the foundry does not suit exploration purposes: The human imagination is a truely limitless frontier that we will likely never fully explore.

    Dental can trol.. I mean try any of my missions by doing a custom search for "kirkfat."
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • worffan101worffan101 Member Posts: 9,518 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lerpyderp wrote: »
    People saying the foundry does not suit exploration purposes: The human imagination is a truely limitless frontier that we will likely never fully explore.

    And Dental proves once again that they're not soulless demons, they're just intelligent and mildly sociopathic people with too much time on their hands.

    That said: Well said, lerpyderp. I agree wholeheartedly.

    Can't wait to see what the Foundry authors do with these assets. If anyone wants me to run and review one of their missions, just send me an in-game mail to @worffan101 and I'll make some time.
  • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lerpyderp wrote: »

    People saying the foundry does not suit exploration purposes: The human imagination is a truely limitless frontier that we will likely never fully explore.

    I'll bite.

    There is a large variety of missions in the Foundry, not all of them are exploration missions. I would just not want Cryptic to turn on a "random mission presenter" program and just present the player whatever it finds. It needs to fit as an "exploration" mission.

    IMO, missions that are about 30-45 minutes, not story arcs or refer to other Foundry story arc missions and basically needs to be about some sort of exploration that you would see in a Start Trek episode.

    Thanks, lerpyderp.
    Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home'
    SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
  • kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    worffan101 wrote: »
    And Dental proves once again that they're not soulless demons, they're just intelligent and mildly sociopathic people with too much time on their hands.

    Hey, even Dental is up for the challenge. I've played several of their foundry missions. Having to smell a pimp's crotch, put out invisible fires, and kill sexting npcs was an interesting change of pace.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • iconiansiconians Member Posts: 6,987 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    kirksplat wrote: »
    Hey, even Dental is up for the challenge. I've played several of their foundry missions. Having to smell a pimp's crotch, put out invisible fires, and kill sexting npcs was an interesting change of pace.

    It's nice to know that's up to Cryptic's Quality Standards for Exploration more than how it was before.
    ExtxpTp.jpg
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