Cryptic's always had a stick up their butts about not releasing perks that are attached to Collector's Editions. Even after Cryptic sold City of Heroes they refused to let players get Power Slide outside of the CE and certain packs that were only available for a short time.
They made some of the collectors perks available in the store, like the TOS Consitiution, Enterprise NX-01,TNG and DS9 uniforms etc. plus the TNG shuttlecraft which was DelTaco thing as I recall. However we havent seent the steam runner escort yet, which I hear isnt all that good anyway. So sometimes they venture outside their little boxes lol I cant speak to City of Heroes content though.
If STO staff were a lot more direct with their estimated server down times, there would be a lot less bellyaching.
If they just said, "We're gonna take the servers down for about 7 hours to do maintenance" then no harm no foul...I think where people get frustrated is the constant backpeddling and revising of downtime estimates.
In this case, it helps to err on the side of caution and tell people the server will be down for a long stretch of time...and then if maintenance is done earlier, it's seen as a good thing.
In the tech world things just do not work that way, people want estimates, and you give them.... many times you can in fact finish within the estimated time, sometimes it can take longer, and on other cases can take MUCH longer.
in their defence there isn't an mmo game out there that hasn't had problems requiring stints of maintenance altho , that said most of the games ive played that have suffered these problems have given some form of compensation whether it was double xp, free in game purchase tokens. first rule in this business should be to keep the customer happy. unhappy people leave games or set up their own private servers
So I've played a fair amount of MMO's over the years and am regularly disappointed with the poor customer service provided by Cryptic/PWE. Maintenance problems occur in every MMO but the team here fails miserably in two areas: communication and compensation.
First, communications. Telling us the "warp core" is being worked on is not cute. It's not funny and it's certainly not informative. This lack of information is consistent around here and shows a real lack of professionalism and consumer respect. If you tried to pick up your vehicle from your mechanic and it wasn't done, you would be shocked if he sarcastically told you the gerbils under the hood were still being fed. Hey devs and "community relations" people, how about treating us with a little respect and giving us some actual details as to what the problem is and why it wasn't fixed during the last several maintenance extensions.
Second, why no compensation? Not all of us are free to play, some of us pay for our time here. Other MMO's that had extended down time provided some small compensation just to show that they understood the inconvenience. The compensation costs these companies nothing and is usually just a few freebies but it makes us feel a bit better. If my meal is really late at a restaurant, the waiter might throw in a free drink. In a different MMO, you might get a few free supplies.
Again, back end problems arise. I'm just stunned by how poorly they are handled by Cryptic/PWE. :mad:
1) Why do you need to know the details of what is wrong? Are you going to be able to offer some insight on how to fix it? And it's not sarcasm or lack of respect by stating that the "warp core is offline". It's an appropriate tongue-in-cheek comment that acknowledges that there's an issue, and yes, they know we want to play, but hey, things happen. Perhaps you shouldn't take things so personally.
2) Compensation for what? And what do you mean you pay for your time here? There's not even an option anywhere in this game to pay for access to it or time spent in it. I suppose other MMOs that are only accessible/playable through subscription services would offer compensation for unexpected/lengthy downtime, because in those instances the customer is actually paying for access. If the game is inaccessible, then you're not getting what you paid for. But STO is FREE TO PLAY, meaning you don't have to pay anything to access or play it.
Sorry, not really meaning to pick on you specifically, but the number of people who scream "COMPENSATION" every time there's an issue really boggles my mind.
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In the tech world things just do not work that way, people want estimates, and you give them.... many times you can in fact finish within the estimated time, sometimes it can take longer, and on other cases can take MUCH longer.
And in the tech world there are established best practices to deal with such situations and they are simply not following them. Not a world ending event but still, not cool either.
Considering that this IS their forum, and the fact that the launcher directs us to this lovely place...This is absolutely the first place information should be posted.
Agreed. The delay is...a delay, these things happen.
But if the launcher says information is at X, then information should be there. If they want to use twitter only on patch days, then the launcher should give a link to their twitter page.
"Warpcore", might refer to server issues... actually, i would bet my pixel hat on it
Maintenance, is a need in any aspect of life....
your car, your TV, your house, even your body, needs maintenance here and there...
Imagine the amount of time youll be spending to go for checkups, if you got a new hip implant O.O
It is no different with interweb games.... This "operation" theyre performing today, seems to have run into some complications... Happens... even happens easier for a game than for a car, thanks to all the tihngs that can go wrong by simply placing the wrong "," on the wrong spot on the screen...
Compensation... Yeah, sounds reasonable, and it WOULD send a message from Cryptic, that theyre saying "Hey folks, something went south, so it took longer to make it work propperly..."
Indeed, nobody asks for huge amounts of compensation that would have a gameplay-altering impact. However, to look good, sending the entire playerbase, 100 Dil, would be a really welcomed handout, and also be of little, if any, practical use.
Plus, it never hurts to go into "public relations" with the players who play the game, in a positive way
Do i personally need compensation ?
Nope, not really.
Do others need compensation ?
Maybe, i dont really care LOL
A huge long delay. cryptic we need updated communication.
Whats wrong with this game? A small patch taking forever and a day to deal with, and bugs i presume. Can we have answers please.
This must be your first mmo ever. Patch day delays are common and on some games I have seen the server down for days.
Also the launcher has been updated with new times and currently has 4:30 est as the completion time. May get pushed back more but that's life.
And I don't know if anyone noticed, but other Cryptic games were having issues at this time, too. So, the problem seems to be a bit more widespread than a STO patch/update.
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Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
How would you feel if you were told that you would have a 45 minute timeframe in which you could play, and made your plans based upon that information.... and the game was then down (on an unscheduled basis) during that 45 minutes, and that same commitment (in my case, work, but it boils down to the same thing - you have to be away from the computer) took up the remainder of the day?
Well I for one like most practical minded people am simply going to do something else, maybe I won't skip breakfast today, maybe I'll fire up a different game or organise my sock drawer.
Missing a day of playing STO is not going to weigh me down, it is after all, just a game.
Yup, extended again, this time to 9:30 at night my time... So yeah, my entire gaming day gone with maintenance...
BUT of course nobody from Europe plays this game.... #sarcasm.
Exactly my thoughts when I saw the extension on the extension ... Cryptic are one of the more incompetent companies when it comes to upkeep and balancing. It's always annoying but hardly expected after 5 years of TRIBBLE the Europeans because we're all second class to Americans.
I just hope they do their usual "Oh look, it's up earlier than expected, give us a cookie" .. Reminds me of LoR release .. man that truly was the "Year of hell" for server downtime.
Ever hopeful but off to do other things until bed-time for work. Realistically I doubt the game will be up tonight.
Dear Dev's, I do hope you take the time to read all of these posts, and not just to humor yourselves, but to get a feel for what is happening.
First of all, i love the game as evidence that I'm a lifetime subscriber. And I do like DR. However, you should note a couple of important points that have come up in this thread:
1) We do notice which bugs get fixed and which ones don't.
2) For the most part, we all understand maintenance windows and they need to be done. Take your time, get it right, we really are capable of waiting a few extra hours to get things done correctly...namely the discount for the Breen ships for the Winter Event.
3) You may want to consider the idea of compensation, not for the extra downtime per-se, but for the hassle that these bugs have caused for the past month. Something simple would go a long way, give everyone 1k of dilith or some extra EC. It costs you nothing and improves relations between the users and the company. that is always a good thing. i would venture that most of the people who play this game have paid something at some point, so this idea is a reasonable one. Plus, your competition is doing it.
4) A point was brought up that more things cost more dilith and dilith is getting harder to get. You have probably noticed that people are not getting the new gear (like Delta, Dyson, etc..). this is not because they are poor sets, but they cost too much for their return on investment. the full set costs 2250 marks, and 97k dilith. This represents about 2 weeks worth of work to get three items that may or may not have a marginal increase in abilities. You can see that many, many people are upset by this, not just a few complainers.
As i said, i love the game. all i wanted to do is point out a couple of things from this (way too long) thread that you might find helpful.
Sincerely,
Sparky
Captain USS Hornet and Kitty Hawk
Its not the Chell Grett, its the snowballs, one week left in the winter event and they have to make sure the snowball nerf is working properly.....DUH!
If STO staff were a lot more direct with their estimated server down times, there would be a lot less bellyaching.
If they just said, "We're gonna take the servers down for about 7 hours to do maintenance" then no harm no foul...I think where people get frustrated is the constant backpeddling and revising of downtime estimates.
In this case, it helps to err on the side of caution and tell people the server will be down for a long stretch of time...and then if maintenance is done earlier, it's seen as a good thing.
THIS!!!^^^^^^^^^^^^
Capt. Montgomery Scott admitted to Lt. Cmdr. Geordie LaForge that he always overestimated project times to Capt. Kirk, then when he always finished early he had gotten the reputation of being a "miracle worker".
The problem with them giving specific times is that this is quite obviously an unforeseen, thus unpredicted or estimated incident. They can't give specific times on something that broke and they're still figuring out how to fix it.
My only problem is that I was only half way through doing my daily Q race run to stockpile Q pics, and it's setting back the reset on my timers. Came into "work" a little late this morning.
So this isn't restricted to STO? Neverwinter still on standby too huh?
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
And I don't know if anyone noticed, but other Cryptic games were having issues at this time, too. So, the problem seems to be a bit more widespread than a STO patch/update.
Players who think their needs are more important then everyone else's.
Players who always want free stuff.
Players who call for Cryptic employees to be fired.
Players who call for the dealth or harm to others.
Huh, I don't seem to see any of those that relate even in the slightest bit to me, fancy that. Maybe your pompous attitude is better directed somewhere else other than someone who can refute it, otherwise you might come off looking foolish.
I personally would like to see some sort of update info from our community manager in this thread, not on twitter, facebook, Never Winter's forum or some random player who just happened to find an update somewhere; after all isn't that part of their job?
And in the tech world there are established best practices to deal with such situations and they are simply not following them. Not a world ending event but still, not cool either.
Best practice, in general, i working the issue till resolution and informing the customer.... that's really it.
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I personally would like to see some sort of update info from our community manager in this thread, not on twitter, facebook, Never Winter's forum or some random player who just happened to find an update somewhere; after all isn't that part of their job?
The Community Manager, however I don't think has direct access to the guys doing the fixing.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Comments
That's the ONLY thing I can think of that's making the downtime go long, considering how short the patch notes were...
They made some of the collectors perks available in the store, like the TOS Consitiution, Enterprise NX-01,TNG and DS9 uniforms etc. plus the TNG shuttlecraft which was DelTaco thing as I recall. However we havent seent the steam runner escort yet, which I hear isnt all that good anyway. So sometimes they venture outside their little boxes lol I cant speak to City of Heroes content though.
In the tech world things just do not work that way, people want estimates, and you give them.... many times you can in fact finish within the estimated time, sometimes it can take longer, and on other cases can take MUCH longer.
1) Why do you need to know the details of what is wrong? Are you going to be able to offer some insight on how to fix it? And it's not sarcasm or lack of respect by stating that the "warp core is offline". It's an appropriate tongue-in-cheek comment that acknowledges that there's an issue, and yes, they know we want to play, but hey, things happen. Perhaps you shouldn't take things so personally.
2) Compensation for what? And what do you mean you pay for your time here? There's not even an option anywhere in this game to pay for access to it or time spent in it. I suppose other MMOs that are only accessible/playable through subscription services would offer compensation for unexpected/lengthy downtime, because in those instances the customer is actually paying for access. If the game is inaccessible, then you're not getting what you paid for. But STO is FREE TO PLAY, meaning you don't have to pay anything to access or play it.
Sorry, not really meaning to pick on you specifically, but the number of people who scream "COMPENSATION" every time there's an issue really boggles my mind.
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And in the tech world there are established best practices to deal with such situations and they are simply not following them. Not a world ending event but still, not cool either.
Agreed. The delay is...a delay, these things happen.
But if the launcher says information is at X, then information should be there. If they want to use twitter only on patch days, then the launcher should give a link to their twitter page.
I like your 2 cents! and well said:D
This must be your first mmo ever. Patch day delays are common and on some games I have seen the server down for days.
Also the launcher has been updated with new times and currently has 4:30 est as the completion time. May get pushed back more but that's life.
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Well I for one like most practical minded people am simply going to do something else, maybe I won't skip breakfast today, maybe I'll fire up a different game or organise my sock drawer.
Missing a day of playing STO is not going to weigh me down, it is after all, just a game.
Exactly my thoughts when I saw the extension on the extension ... Cryptic are one of the more incompetent companies when it comes to upkeep and balancing. It's always annoying but hardly expected after 5 years of TRIBBLE the Europeans because we're all second class to Americans.
I just hope they do their usual "Oh look, it's up earlier than expected, give us a cookie" .. Reminds me of LoR release .. man that truly was the "Year of hell" for server downtime.
Ever hopeful but off to do other things until bed-time for work. Realistically I doubt the game will be up tonight.
First of all, i love the game as evidence that I'm a lifetime subscriber. And I do like DR. However, you should note a couple of important points that have come up in this thread:
1) We do notice which bugs get fixed and which ones don't.
2) For the most part, we all understand maintenance windows and they need to be done. Take your time, get it right, we really are capable of waiting a few extra hours to get things done correctly...namely the discount for the Breen ships for the Winter Event.
3) You may want to consider the idea of compensation, not for the extra downtime per-se, but for the hassle that these bugs have caused for the past month. Something simple would go a long way, give everyone 1k of dilith or some extra EC. It costs you nothing and improves relations between the users and the company. that is always a good thing. i would venture that most of the people who play this game have paid something at some point, so this idea is a reasonable one. Plus, your competition is doing it.
4) A point was brought up that more things cost more dilith and dilith is getting harder to get. You have probably noticed that people are not getting the new gear (like Delta, Dyson, etc..). this is not because they are poor sets, but they cost too much for their return on investment. the full set costs 2250 marks, and 97k dilith. This represents about 2 weeks worth of work to get three items that may or may not have a marginal increase in abilities. You can see that many, many people are upset by this, not just a few complainers.
As i said, i love the game. all i wanted to do is point out a couple of things from this (way too long) thread that you might find helpful.
Sincerely,
Sparky
Captain USS Hornet and Kitty Hawk
THIS!!!^^^^^^^^^^^^
Capt. Montgomery Scott admitted to Lt. Cmdr. Geordie LaForge that he always overestimated project times to Capt. Kirk, then when he always finished early he had gotten the reputation of being a "miracle worker".
My only problem is that I was only half way through doing my daily Q race run to stockpile Q pics, and it's setting back the reset on my timers. Came into "work" a little late this morning.
So this isn't restricted to STO? Neverwinter still on standby too huh?
Never Winters's maintenance finished 6 mins ago
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
and you are sure they hired them and not just abduct them ?
Huh, I don't seem to see any of those that relate even in the slightest bit to me, fancy that. Maybe your pompous attitude is better directed somewhere else other than someone who can refute it, otherwise you might come off looking foolish.
Best practice, in general, i working the issue till resolution and informing the customer.... that's really it.
Is this a good example of what you mean by, "children"? :P
> <
> <
>
If you think this patch is going to fix anything, then I got some exclusive warp drive access rights in the Lantaru sector to sell you, hyoo-mon.
Trendy's last update was in the Scheduled Maintenance thread
She updated the extension at 2:56pm EST.
The Community Manager, however I don't think has direct access to the guys doing the fixing.