Why is there no dev blog about the new lock box?

pweistheworst · July 2014

We got "official" word in the forums yesterday that the next lock box (arriving after today's patch) will be the Xindi lock box, but where is the usual dev blog giving us details on what is inside the box?

I love STO, but it feels like the dev/management team is stretched too thin if they can't even post news blogs on the official site with details about a lock box ... on the day it shows up in the game.

anazonda · July 2014

That community rep said on his twitter that they didn have enough time to finish them, and keep an eye out once 9.5 has gone live, as it will be posted shortly after patch-time is over.

And yes... We need more and better Dev-blogs... need my fix.

nyxadrill · July 2014

pweistheworst wrote: »

We got "official" word in the forums yesterday that the next lock box (arriving after today's patch) will be the Xindi lock box, but where is the usual dev blog giving us details on what is inside the box?

I love STO, but it feels like the dev/management team is stretched too thin if they can't even post news blogs on the official site with details about a lock box ... on the day it shows up in the game.

Communications is a fundamental part of "Customer Service" and "Quality Assurance"....

Both seem to be lacking at Cryptic lately.

misterde3 · July 2014

anazonda wrote: »

That community rep said on his twitter that they didn have enough time to finish them, and keep an eye out once 9.5 has gone live, as it will be posted shortly after patch-time is over.

And yes... We need more and better Dev-blogs... need my fix.

Translation: they're too busy posting on twitter to make a blog entry.

azurianstar · July 2014

anazonda wrote: »

That community rep said on his twitter that they didn have enough time to finish them, and keep an eye out once 9.5 has gone live, as it will be posted shortly after patch-time is over.

And yes... We need more and better Dev-blogs... need my fix.

Kind of funny, after Branflakes left they hired two Community Managers for STO. So makes you wonder, was Brandon that good? Or is PWE's changes causing communication snafus? :rolleyes:

anazonda · July 2014

misterde3 wrote: »

Translation: they're too busy posting on twitter to make a blog entry.

Pretty much yes... Unless of cause we are getting 10'ish blogs... (yea... doubt that).

azurianstar wrote: »

Kind of funny, after Branflakes left they hired two Community Managers for STO. So makes you wonder, was Brandon that good? Or is PWE's changes causing communication snafus? :rolleyes:

PWE communicates?

tenkari · July 2014

nyxadrill wrote: »

Communications is a fundamental part of "Customer Service" and "Quality Assurance"....

Both seem to be lacking at Cryptic lately.

well, why should cryptic keep communicating on the forums if whenever they say something, they get blasted just because what cryptic says isnt what people want to hear?

In the world of video games, the saying "The customer is always right" Is not true. While, yes, on occassion the dev's have listened to the community, it doesnt mean they are required to do every change the community wants.

best recent example is Hawk Explaining why tovan khev will stay the way he is..... and immediately the community starts bashing him and saying cryptics lazy and stuff.

Why keep communicating every little thing when people will keep ******** and moaning until it's exactly how they want it?

anazonda · July 2014

tenkari wrote: »

In the world of Business, the saying "The customer is always right" Is not true. While, yes, on occassion the dev's have listened to the community, it doesnt mean they are required to do every change the community wants.

I think this is more correct.

http://blog.urbanbohemian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/20090313.jpg

tenkari · July 2014

anazonda wrote: »

I think this is more correct.

http://blog.urbanbohemian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/20090313.jpg

HA! CAD Ftw.

azurianstar · July 2014

anazonda wrote: »

PWE communicates?

Of course!

PWE to Cryptic: Make me money!
Cryptic to PWE: Yes, boss!

seriousdave · July 2014

Maybe they thought it's unnecessary since we all knew what was coming weeks before they "officially" announced it

nyxadrill · July 2014

tenkari wrote: »

well, why should cryptic keep communicating on the forums if whenever they say something, they get blasted just because what cryptic says isnt what people want to hear?

Errm I think you'll find that THIS time its that the customers were expecting to hear something official but didn't. Just a "cryptic" (pardon the pun) tweet from a community manager.

And I will continue to **** and moan as you say while they insist on releasing code that is not tested thoroughly. Shall I mention load outs?

Just lately there seems to have been a "get it out of the door regardless" attitude. That's just my personal opinion as one of the "moaners"

Oh and for the record I wasn't one of the Torvan Khev haters, I kinda like him.

anazonda · July 2014

nyxadrill wrote: »

Errm I think you'll find that THIS time its that the customers were expecting to hear something official but didn't. Just a "cryptic" (pardon the pun) tweet from a community manager.

And I will continue to **** and moan as you say while they insist on releasing code that is not tested thoroughly. Shall I mention load outs?

Just lately there seems to have been a "get it out of the door regardless" attitude. That's just my personal opinion as one of the "moaners"

Oh and for the record I wasn't one of the Torvan Khev haters, I kinda like him.

Seems that with the change in Community reps, We've moved from mostly forums and dev-blogs to tweets...

I would actually be ok with that, if they just included their twitter stream onto a single unified webpage.

nyxadrill · July 2014

anazonda wrote: »

Seems that with the change in Community reps, We've moved from mostly forums and dev-blogs to tweets...

I would actually be ok with that, if they just included their twitter stream onto a single unified webpage.

Yes, same here.

sethpc · July 2014

Just gonna repost these comments from Smirk for context:

Hey forum folks,

Just to clarify, neither myself nor Trendy decide the publication schedule.

In fact, I don't have any control over the content publications as of nearly 3 months ago now.

Trendy is tied to the publication schedule that is decided by the management teammates above her. So please don't take your frustrations out on poor Trendy, she is doing everything she is allowed to do in order to bring these blogs out on time.

After BranFlakes departure, Cryptic/PWE hired a new Product Manager to oversee publication and keep everything on schedule, and bring up to date info the the players.

As you are all aware, this transition has not been the smoothest transition ever (to put it mildly) but we are working very hard to highlight these issues, and the delay with the Xindi LockBox blogs as well as the lack of any major official announcement about S9.5 release dates are great examples for us to show the management that we need to plan better before we head into Season 10.

With the Las Vegas convention fast approaching, my time is being focused on planning the convention and making sure we have things ready to go. But with the launch tomorrow, I will be redoubling my efforts to bring the needed changes to the entire STO publication machine, including the Forums, Facebook and Twitter.

We will have plenty to share with you over the next few months, and we thank you all for your patience over the last several weeks as we built to 9.5, and we thank you in advance for your patience as we work to improve our team engine leading into post launch.

Enjoy Season 9.5 tomorrow everyone, and we will see you in game!

~CaptainSmirk

anazonda · July 2014

sethpc wrote: »

Just gonna repost these comments from Smirk:

I think the point is, that while yes, 3 months from now is not something they should put much effort into, 12 hours from now... You'd think that would be set more or less in stone.

mustrumridcully0 · July 2014

anazonda wrote: »

I think the point is, that while yes, 3 months from now is not something they should put much effort into, 12 hours from now... You'd think that would be set more or less in stone.

Well... the whole year my company has been gearing up to be ready for the photokina 2014... I can totally see an event a few months away needs to be handled now - and how "not smooth" that means it is working out for Season 9.5.

jarodroto123 · July 2014

nyxadrill wrote: »

Communications is a fundamental part of "Customer Service" and "Quality Assurance"....

Both seem to be lacking at Cryptic lately.

misterde3 wrote: »

Translation: they're too busy posting on twitter to make a blog entry.

azurianstar wrote: »

Kind of funny, after Branflakes left they hired two Community Managers for STO. So makes you wonder, was Brandon that good? Or is PWE's changes causing communication snafus? :rolleyes:

"Hey forum folks,

Just to clarify, neither myself nor Trendy decide the publication schedule.

In fact, I don't have any control over the content publications as of nearly 3 months ago now.

Trendy is tied to the publication schedule that is decided by the management teammates above her. So please don't take your frustrations out on poor Trendy, she is doing everything she is allowed to do in order to bring these blogs out on time.

After BranFlakes departure, Cryptic/PWE hired a new Product Manager to oversee publication and keep everything on schedule, and bring up to date info the the players.

As you are all aware, this transition has not been the smoothest transition ever (to put it mildly) but we are working very hard to highlight these issues, and the delay with the Xindi LockBox blogs as well as the lack of any major official announcement about S9.5 release dates are great examples for us to show the management that we need to plan better before we head into Season 10.

With the Las Vegas convention fast approaching, my time is being focused on planning the convention and making sure we have things ready to go. But with the launch tomorrow, I will be redoubling my efforts to bring the needed changes to the entire STO publication machine, including the Forums, Facebook and Twitter.

We will have plenty to share with you over the next few months, and we thank you all for your patience over the last several weeks as we built to 9.5, and we thank you in advance for your patience as we work to improve our team engine leading into post launch.

Enjoy Season 9.5 tomorrow everyone, and we will see you in game!"

~CaptainSmirk

^^Posted last night in the Maintanence Thread

EDIT: Ninja'd

xiaoping88 · July 2014

azurianstar wrote: »

Of course!

PWE to Cryptic: Make me money!
Cryptic to PWE: Yes, boss!

I welcome our Chinese overlords.
Look at my forum name.

nyxadrill · July 2014

jarodroto123 wrote: »

"Hey forum folks,

Just to clarify, ..<snip>

yeah I read that, and to be fair to Trendy and Smirk I'm not leveling my criticism at them but to the layer above them.

EDIT: At least we know a certain hamster will be ready

jarodroto123 · July 2014

nyxadrill wrote: »

yeah I read that, and to be fair to Trendy and Smirk I'm not leveling my criticism at them but to the layer above them.

EDIT: At least we know a certain hamster will be ready

Heheh, that new wheel should keep em amped up :eek:

xiaoping88 · July 2014

nyxadrill wrote: »

yeah I read that, and to be fair to Trendy and Smirk I'm not leveling my criticism at them but to the layer above them.

EDIT: At least we know a certain hamster will be ready

Well, Smirk did let Xindi and the release date slip on Twitter before he said anything here, didn't he? I doubt that was a direct command from management, so I dunno... he strikes me just as accountable for the current PR disaster as the layers above him. I miss professionalism.
I guess it was lost between all the bacon jokes.

anazonda · July 2014

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

Well... the whole year my company has been gearing up to be ready for the photokina 2014... I can totally see an event a few months away needs to be handled now - and how "not smooth" that means it is working out for Season 9.5.

Well I suppose you have to agree that an Event is slightly different than "What are we going to add to a game", since you need to do some press so that people can make time for the event...
It's not like we have a choice in regards to STO if we want to keep playing.

That said, the thread is about the Lockboxes... Not Season 9.5... There have been plenty of threads and blogs about the new part-season.

dracounguis · July 2014

Maybe Cryptic thinks they'll get more people to open lockboxes that are 'mystery' boxes since there's no blog about them. :rolleyes:

rickeyredshirt · July 2014

OP: because your forum handle. lol

raulblanco7 · July 2014

dracounguis wrote: »

Maybe Cryptic thinks they'll get more people to open lockboxes that are 'mystery' boxes since there's no blog about them. :rolleyes:

Right click, info, than you will find the exact list about what can be inside a lockbox.

Well, yes, they could remove this option, than somebody immediately would go to tribble and open 1000 or more than publicate the results.

iconians · July 2014

I'm not saying it's the native sentient species of Iconia, but it's the native sentient species of Iconia.

centaurianalpha · July 2014

Why no blog? LaughingTrendy would have you believe that it's because the new "season" has soooo many features, they just didn't have time to list them all before release. 11 pages of drivel is still drivel; I think they know what a steaming pile it is, and are not at all proud of it. Who would willingly tout such a mess voluntarily?

Why is there no dev blog about the new lock box?

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