BTW, for all the people that ride Shatner for his acting ability, I think he really knocked it out of the park in that episode - he really acted like a disturbed, manipulative, and conniving woman. Then when he's back in his own body he's in control and stern, yet pitied her.
I was always more a fan of Picard than Kirk, and Shatner himself seems to have had quite an ego back in the day and was thusly not too easy to work alongside (but seems to have loosened up later on), but I always found the critique about his acting ability completely overdone. Sure it was hammy as hell - but that's just what you need in a low budget fantastic (Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy) series. Because when you have an episode as "Arena" with that Gorn costume, disbelief is already running rampant, suspension of the same is on holidays, so you need at least some overacting to keep the flow of the story going.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
You're moving the goal posts. I have worked on video games. I have an idea, what do you have?
He was not moving the goal posts, he was repeating his question, since the first time you answered with a background in "digital media", which may be programming games, but which also may be keeping the homepage of an online shop up and running (not that the latter is a lesser job, but it is a completely different one).
And during your work on video games, did you ever have to implement a new feature that changed a basic tenet of the program? It can be done, certainly. But the questions are: how complicated is it, how much will it therefore cost, and how high is the risk of a change having unwanted side effects in totally different areas of the game. And then compare the answers to "how much do I desire this change" - where the answer of the company does not really have to be the same as the one of the forums.
I completely agree that it could be as easy as you think, but your statement that it needs to be as easy without knowing the code of STO really makes me suspect that you are choosing your wording carefully and "worked on video games" is not "programming and changing the core code of a large system with interdependencies" which really is the question at hand here (I may be wrong here because I don't know you obviously).
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
You're moving the goal posts. I have worked on video games. I have an idea, what do you have?
He was not moving the goal posts, he was repeating his question, since the first time you answered with a background in "digital media", which may be programming games, but which also may be keeping the homepage of an online shop up and running (not that the latter is a lesser job, but it is a completely different one).
And during your work on video games, did you ever have to implement a new feature that changed a basic tenet of the program? It can be done, certainly. But the questions are: how complicated is it, how much will it therefore cost, and how high is the risk of a change having unwanted side effects in totally different areas of the game. And then compare the answers to "how much do I desire this change" - where the answer of the company does not really have to be the same as the one of the forums.
I completely agree that it could be as easy as you think, but your statement that it needs to be as easy without knowing the code of STO really makes me suspect that you are choosing your wording carefully and "worked on video games" is not "programming and changing the core code of a large system with interdependencies" which really is the question at hand here (I may be wrong here because I don't know you obviously).
Exactly. When I originally asked "have you ever worked on video games", I did not mean "have you ever gotten coffee for a dev" or "have you ever drawn the art for the cover of the game" or any number of other random things that could all be called "working on a game" in an extremely broad sense. My implied meaning was pretty clear: have you ever worked on the development side designing or implementing systems? Because if you haven't, then you have absolutely no basis for assuming your idea would be easy, and telling someone else they are wrong if they think otherwise. So if you have actually worked on games in the way I obviously meant, then feel free to explain how, and how that makes you think your idea would be easy to implement in this game.
You're moving the goal posts. I have worked on video games. I have an idea, what do you have?
He was not moving the goal posts, he was repeating his question, since the first time you answered with a background in "digital media", which may be programming games, but which also may be keeping the homepage of an online shop up and running (not that the latter is a lesser job, but it is a completely different one).
And during your work on video games, did you ever have to implement a new feature that changed a basic tenet of the program? It can be done, certainly. But the questions are: how complicated is it, how much will it therefore cost, and how high is the risk of a change having unwanted side effects in totally different areas of the game. And then compare the answers to "how much do I desire this change" - where the answer of the company does not really have to be the same as the one of the forums.
I completely agree that it could be as easy as you think, but your statement that it needs to be as easy without knowing the code of STO really makes me suspect that you are choosing your wording carefully and "worked on video games" is not "programming and changing the core code of a large system with interdependencies" which really is the question at hand here (I may be wrong here because I don't know you obviously).
This is what hypocrisy looks like. Someone tells you that it is hard to do and you believe them without asking for their history or qualifications. I tell you it is really very easy and you want to know my curriculum vitae...
Engineers always tell you things are more difficult to fix than they really are. Whether or not a particular company wants to invest the time/money is entirely irrelevant. It doesn't change the fact that the process is easier than you or anyone else is willing to believe.
You are the one who posted this thread. You are the one claiming your idea would be easy to do. Once again, what experience with video game system development do you have that you are basing that claim on? Seriously, please explain what video game systems you have developed so we can learn at your feet.
Exactly. When I originally asked "have you ever worked on video games", I did not mean "have you ever gotten coffee for a dev" or "have you ever drawn the art for the cover of the game" or any number of other random things that could all be called "working on a game" in an extremely broad sense. My implied meaning was pretty clear: have you ever worked on the development side designing or implementing systems? Because if you haven't, then you have absolutely no basis for assuming your idea would be easy, and telling someone else they are wrong if they think otherwise. So if you have actually worked on games in the way I obviously meant, then feel free to explain how, and how that makes you think your idea would be easy to implement in this game.
Which was a non sequitur and you only asked it as a pejorative. If you haven't worked in exactly the same parameters as you've attempted to affix to me then you have no basis to assert your question nor your claim that failing to do so would invalidate my statements. It really is as easy as I've said, based on nothing more than the information you have available to you.
Here is the difference: you are making a claim; I am not. You are claiming your idea would be easy to implement. I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing. I am asking on what basis you are making that claim. What relevant experience in video game design do you have that makes you think your idea would be easy to implement? At this point, it is obvious you do not have any, or else you wouldn't keep avoiding the question. But I'm perfectly willing to be proven wrong as soon as you tell us what video game systems you have designed.
This is what hypocrisy looks like. Someone tells you that it is hard to do and you believe them without asking for their history or qualifications. I tell you it is really very easy and you want to know my curriculum vitae...
Engineers always tell you things are more difficult to fix than they really are. Whether or not a particular company wants to invest the time/money is entirely irrelevant. It doesn't change the fact that the process is easier than you or anyone else is willing to believe.
Well, we can straddle around the wording "easy". Running 1000 miles is "easy". It just requires a lot of effort.
Apart from that: when people who I know actually work with something (like the code here) give me an estimate about the effort that it takes, and a guy who never worked with the stuff at hand but may or may not have experiences in a similar field gives a different one, I'll go with the opinion of the former. They may be lying to me and I wouldn't know, true. But at least I can be certain that they have an idea what they are talking about and not just making general assumptions.
And I reject the hypocrisy accusation. I never claimed it would be hard. I always agreed that it could just be a variable set at your career start to a number between 1 and 3 and you could just change that number. I just question your assertion that it would be easy until you have at least some indication that I should believe you. Indeed I have no way of knowing how difficult it would be since I never worked on the code at hand.
I also never worked in programming video games. But I have had to do with rearranging software, especially with "old" software that needed major updates for something it was not designed to do at all when first written. And yes, the basic stuff usually is easy. That's not a given but it usually is. But then there are all kind of consequences deriving from changing that number while having assigned other variables to it when I never considered that number could ever change once set.
A few examples that may happen (or may not happen) if you changed career on STO, just of the top of my head, are innocuous things like trays and kits. So you change your career which means you cannot use your engineering kit anymore. Just automatically unequipping the kit is easy. But you may have set some of its abilities towards your tray. What will happen if you inadvertently click one of the abilities that no longer are available to you? Even if it isn't in the tray directly anymore, a multitude of things could happen, depending on implementation: it could fire as if you still had it. Nothing could happen because you don't have it. A corresponding (in variable setting) ability of the other career part could fire regardless of whether you have it or not. You could get a CTD because some internal references do not add up anymore. It could even be different results depending on other factors, since some abilities do take external effects into account. And these numbers may be sent by other modules of the program without caring that the numbers sent in the same position mean something else entirely now.
Yes, you could automatically empty all traits and trays. And strip all equipment from you and all your ships and maybe even your boffs. But there still can be more. And depending on the coding, it may not be as easy to find.
Yes, nothing of this is necessarily a problem if the code does not have these problems. And every issue can be resolved somehow. But sometimes bugs will not appear quite as obvious and tracking them down will cause problems. And maybe even other parts of the program may be affected. Your boffs appearances may become all buggy? Why? I don't know. Why did the program suddenly decide you didn't own races you did after an update that had nothing to do at all with character creation or the c-store? And yet it happened.
So while I do think your idea of combining the possibility of a career change with Star Trek lore is great (and kudos without any irony attached whatsoever for that), you just don't know how it will work out. STO's programers will know better. Or even worse, they will not know as well, since none of them ever worked on that part, the guys doing that having long been gone only leaving some references in their trail on how to access certain stuff not on how it works. And if you are particularily unlucky, you will only find a string of uncommented spaghetti code when you look at it.
Again, none of this has to happen. I cannot say anything about it happening. But it can. And you cannot say it wouldn't.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
How about just a simple C store token? we don't really need a reason or explanation forced on us.
I am pretty sure judging from the amount of players that have asked for these things like re-career, re-gender and re-species that if cryptic could make a token they could sell you on the c-store to do these things they would have done so already.
unfortunately the only way to achieve this is to delete the character and start over loosing everything that character has that is not an account unlock in the process.
I am pretty sure that if players got a free token for this with the lifetime sub package and nowhere else then you would see 100s of players rushing to buy the sub but it is just not possible no matter how much money cryptic thought they might make from such a token.
not even possible to create a token that would allow you to transfer all a character has achieved to a new character so things like reputation, accolades, rank level, mission history and basically anything that cant be transferred to another already would all be lost.
that is why it is so important to make sure in the character creation process that you pick the things that cant be changed so carefully.
anyhoo, all the device on Camus II did was a simple reskin it didn't change the true nature of the character, so for example although they might appear male they were still female, although they might look like a science officer they were still a tactical officer and although they might look like a Klingon they were still human.
we have had temporary skins in some of the missions in the game but they don't change who the characters really are.
Post edited by bobbydazlers on
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
You're moving the goal posts. I have worked on video games. I have an idea, what do you have?
He was not moving the goal posts, he was repeating his question, since the first time you answered with a background in "digital media", which may be programming games, but which also may be keeping the homepage of an online shop up and running (not that the latter is a lesser job, but it is a completely different one).
And during your work on video games, did you ever have to implement a new feature that changed a basic tenet of the program? It can be done, certainly. But the questions are: how complicated is it, how much will it therefore cost, and how high is the risk of a change having unwanted side effects in totally different areas of the game. And then compare the answers to "how much do I desire this change" - where the answer of the company does not really have to be the same as the one of the forums.
I completely agree that it could be as easy as you think, but your statement that it needs to be as easy without knowing the code of STO really makes me suspect that you are choosing your wording carefully and "worked on video games" is not "programming and changing the core code of a large system with interdependencies" which really is the question at hand here (I may be wrong here because I don't know you obviously).
at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many games the OP has worked on, until he has worked on this game he has no concept of how easy or difficult or even down right impossible this would be.
but it always makes me chuckle when these kind of threads come up that there is always a posters who professes to be a game programmer and who thinks they know everything there is to know about the way every single game is programmed and how to change it, I would say why is this guy wasting his time playing sto or even posting on this forum when he could be working on creating sto v2.
I have seen it so many times where people have professed to be experts in certain fields such as this and then go on to spout off things that I know myself for a fact to be wrong and have even had times i have gone on to prove them wrong much to their annoyance.
like the IT guy at work when I asked him if there was a way to add extra internal ide ports to my desktop computer and he told me categorically that it was impossible and just could not be done, imagine his dismay and embarrassment when I showed him the pc card I had bought that did just that thing.
or the other IT guy who told a friend his laptop computer was broken beyond repair and there was no way it could be fixed only for me to find that all that was wrong was the fuse in the plug had blown.
Post edited by bobbydazlers on
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Because historically and statistically, they shy away from everything that isn't the most low budget coding possible.
Look at upgrading, crafting and admiralty systems, they are all 1D text windows with no models, no animations and the least possible work put in.
Where is exploration you think? PVP? Piloting from the bridge.
This game arguably early than that, but at least with DR, became entirely whale based. And it's good they make money to keep the game up but as far as the game's quality is a huge problem.
In a whale based game, no one listens to the customer; you don't have to.
There are games out there where the players can be heard, this isn't one of them. And that certainly applies to career respec - in fact it applies to everything you can think of, including your suggestions, minus the next singleplayer text window time gates they working on.
at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many games the OP has worked on, until he has worked on this game he has no concept of how easy or difficult or even down right impossible this would be.
But that's the point. You and the others are willing to accept without question just how "impossible" such a thing must be without meeting the qualifications you assert to anyone disagreeing with that position. That's hypocrisy, of course.
so you get in a car with a driver even though he showed you no proof he can drive and who you suspect has never driven before but you would distrust a driver who shows you his driving licence and shows he has been a driver for a good few years.
no I don't necessarily believe the devs when they say it cant be done but as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct, even though someone who's qualifications I have never seen and as far as I can tell has never had anything to do with sto and might not know the difference between a bit and a byte is telling me otherwise.
I don't need any qualifications to make that choice.
that's just called using your common sense of course.
Post edited by bobbydazlers on
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
But that's the point. You and the others are willing to accept without question just how "impossible" such a thing must be without meeting the qualifications you assert to anyone disagreeing with that position. That's hypocrisy, of course.
I have no idea about how a lot of chemicals work or react in certain conditions. But if I needed to know it, I would rather ask somebody who studied chemistry and worked with the chemicals at hand than some random guy on the internet who claims otherwise without even knowing what chemical we are talking about.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
It would be "appeal to authority" if I were sure that it would not happen if I were sure that the devs are right. I am not, and I repeatedly stated that. Yes, the random guy could be informed better. But your reasoning that I have to give both opinions the same weight when considering options is also faulty. Especially so when there is no evidence of any kind to support the contrasting view. There is still a statistically higher probability from the facts that are accessible to me that the devs are right and you are wrong. That it cannot be proven logically that the devs are right (without looking at and understanding the code myself) does not make authority invalid. It just means I cannot rule out other possibilities and need to stay open to new evidence. It does not mean authority does not exist.
Logic is mostly a binary thing. But other things aren't.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
no I don't necessarily believe the devs when they say it cant be done but as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct.
That's a choice you've based on an absence of evidence. And that is illogical.
having no evidence to the contrary other then hearsay I have to accept the evidence as it stands until I see proof to the contrary.
the evidence as it stands being they work for cryptic and you don't.
and that is just being logical.
show me some proof to your statement and I will admit you are correct.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many games the OP has worked on, until he has worked on this game he has no concept of how easy or difficult or even down right impossible this would be.
But that's the point. You and the others are willing to accept without question just how "impossible" such a thing must be without meeting the qualifications you assert to anyone disagreeing with that position. That's hypocrisy, of course.
so you get in a car with a driver even though he showed you no proof he can drive and who you suspect has never driven before but you would distrust a driver who shows you his driving licence and shows he has been a driver for a good few years.
no I don't necessarily believe the devs when they say it cant be done but as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct, even though someone who's qualifications I have never seen and as far as I can tell has never had anything to do with sto and might not know the difference between a bit and a byte is telling me otherwise.
I don't need any qualifications to make that choice.
that's just called using your common sense of course.
This is why good techs don't give you a flat definitive answer every time you ask them a question. While everything is black and white with computers, definitive answers require information you may or may not have. If you don't have enough info, you can't say that you know for sure.
at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many games the OP has worked on, until he has worked on this game he has no concept of how easy or difficult or even down right impossible this would be.
But that's the point. You and the others are willing to accept without question just how "impossible" such a thing must be without meeting the qualifications you assert to anyone disagreeing with that position. That's hypocrisy, of course.
so you get in a car with a driver even though he showed you no proof he can drive and who you suspect has never driven before but you would distrust a driver who shows you his driving licence and shows he has been a driver for a good few years.
no I don't necessarily believe the devs when they say it cant be done but as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct, even though someone who's qualifications I have never seen and as far as I can tell has never had anything to do with sto and might not know the difference between a bit and a byte is telling me otherwise.
I don't need any qualifications to make that choice.
that's just called using your common sense of course.
This is why good techs don't give you a flat definitive answer every time you ask them a question. While everything is black and white with computers, definitive answers require information you may or may not have. If you don't have enough info, you can't say that you know for sure.
so if a doctor was to tell you that you had a particular ailment would you trust the doctors judgement or would you expect to have a detailed explanation of the ailment even though you probably would not understand 99% of what the doctor was talking about.
or if a mechanic told you your car failed its mot for TRIBBLE reasons would you want to want a detailed explanation of the faults even though you don't know a torque wrench from a socket spanner.
or would you just take their word for it.
though I did quite plainly state in my comment "no I don't necessarily believe the devs" and "as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct", what further information could they give that anyone who hasn't seen the code involved would understand.
I wonder how many people would know what this tiny piece of computer code does.
*=$0801
.byte $0c, $08, $0a, $00, $9e, $20
.byte $34, $30, $39, $36, $00, $00
.byte $00
*=$1000
ldx #$000
loop lda message,x
and #$3f
sta $0400,x -> 1024
inx
cpx #$0c
bne loop
rts
answers on a postcard please.
Post edited by bobbydazlers on
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Nice Idea from OP - Would buy that token or do the travel to the location FOR SURE
Beware the bearers of FALSE gifts & their BROKEN PROMISES.Much PAIN but still time.BELIEVE.There is GOOD out there.We oPpose DECEPTION.COnduit CLOSING/
Hey OP, how about actually answering The Grand Nagus' question instead of skirting around the edges...
What exactly have you done in the past, in the Gaming Industry, that makes you so sure this idea of yours would be easy to pull off?
And what is the basis for your statement, since apparently you haven't actually worked on the Code for Star Trek Online?
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
It really is! You're over-thinking it. Your character is really nothing more than a BOff which you control. ALL those traits and specs and everything else already exist in the game in a fully realized form. You would simply use the Camus II device to compress all your data into a BOff, then swap in the other player's BOff and you're done. Then you can respec and reapply your traits (traits are earned and they reset automatically when you respec), and your skills. You can even change your appearance if you really need to, and we'll say Klingons can't swap with Ferengi because of brain-pattern differences.
Done and done.
The Camus II idea is a nifty one... but I think people are forgetting about the Lock Box Traits that people could buy. The Camus II idea would mean that people could easily obtain Lock Box Traits for little or no Energy Credits, or Real Cash simply by "swapping bodies" with someone who already has those traits and doesn't mind trading them for a fresh character. This would count as a rather large exploit, which is why I don't think such an idea is ever likely to be implemented.
On the other hand creating a Zen-Store item that lets you respec your character seems like a much more realistic way to implement this idea.
It really is! You're over-thinking it. Your character is really nothing more than a BOff which you control. ALL those traits and specs and everything else already exist in the game in a fully realized form. You would simply use the Camus II device to compress all your data into a BOff, then swap in the other player's BOff and you're done. Then you can respec and reapply your traits (traits are earned and they reset automatically when you respec), and your skills. You can even change your appearance if you really need to, and we'll say Klingons can't swap with Ferengi because of brain-pattern differences.
Done and done.
The Camus II idea is a nifty one... but I think people are forgetting about the Lock Box Traits that people could buy. The Camus II idea would mean that people could easily obtain Lock Box Traits for little or no Energy Credits, or Real Cash simply by "swapping bodies" with someone who already has those traits and doesn't mind trading them for a fresh character. This would count as a rather large exploit, which is why I don't think such an idea is ever likely to be implemented.
On the other hand creating a Zen-Store item that lets you respec your character seems like a much more realistic way to implement this idea.
I think the OP was referring to "swapping bodies" but without loosing things like traits, reputation, XP, specializations and all the other stuff that you cant just send to another character in your line up.
so basically he could create an alternative account create a new character with the species, sex, Career and maybe even faction that he would prefer then have this new character swap bodies with the character he wants to change on his "real" account.
basically using this method the OP could change every character he has on his "real" account and even the same character a multitude of times without losing anything he has gained on his characters.
currently the only way to do all of this at present is to delete and start over loosing anything that cant be transferred to another character in the process.
according to the devs all of these things cannot be changed any other way then deleting and starting over because of the way the data is stored when you first create them in the character creator.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Comments
I was always more a fan of Picard than Kirk, and Shatner himself seems to have had quite an ego back in the day and was thusly not too easy to work alongside (but seems to have loosened up later on), but I always found the critique about his acting ability completely overdone. Sure it was hammy as hell - but that's just what you need in a low budget fantastic (Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy) series. Because when you have an episode as "Arena" with that Gorn costume, disbelief is already running rampant, suspension of the same is on holidays, so you need at least some overacting to keep the flow of the story going.
He was not moving the goal posts, he was repeating his question, since the first time you answered with a background in "digital media", which may be programming games, but which also may be keeping the homepage of an online shop up and running (not that the latter is a lesser job, but it is a completely different one).
And during your work on video games, did you ever have to implement a new feature that changed a basic tenet of the program? It can be done, certainly. But the questions are: how complicated is it, how much will it therefore cost, and how high is the risk of a change having unwanted side effects in totally different areas of the game. And then compare the answers to "how much do I desire this change" - where the answer of the company does not really have to be the same as the one of the forums.
I completely agree that it could be as easy as you think, but your statement that it needs to be as easy without knowing the code of STO really makes me suspect that you are choosing your wording carefully and "worked on video games" is not "programming and changing the core code of a large system with interdependencies" which really is the question at hand here (I may be wrong here because I don't know you obviously).
Exactly. When I originally asked "have you ever worked on video games", I did not mean "have you ever gotten coffee for a dev" or "have you ever drawn the art for the cover of the game" or any number of other random things that could all be called "working on a game" in an extremely broad sense. My implied meaning was pretty clear: have you ever worked on the development side designing or implementing systems? Because if you haven't, then you have absolutely no basis for assuming your idea would be easy, and telling someone else they are wrong if they think otherwise. So if you have actually worked on games in the way I obviously meant, then feel free to explain how, and how that makes you think your idea would be easy to implement in this game.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
You are the one who posted this thread. You are the one claiming your idea would be easy to do. Once again, what experience with video game system development do you have that you are basing that claim on? Seriously, please explain what video game systems you have developed so we can learn at your feet.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Here is the difference: you are making a claim; I am not. You are claiming your idea would be easy to implement. I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing. I am asking on what basis you are making that claim. What relevant experience in video game design do you have that makes you think your idea would be easy to implement? At this point, it is obvious you do not have any, or else you wouldn't keep avoiding the question. But I'm perfectly willing to be proven wrong as soon as you tell us what video game systems you have designed.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Well, we can straddle around the wording "easy". Running 1000 miles is "easy". It just requires a lot of effort.
Apart from that: when people who I know actually work with something (like the code here) give me an estimate about the effort that it takes, and a guy who never worked with the stuff at hand but may or may not have experiences in a similar field gives a different one, I'll go with the opinion of the former. They may be lying to me and I wouldn't know, true. But at least I can be certain that they have an idea what they are talking about and not just making general assumptions.
And I reject the hypocrisy accusation. I never claimed it would be hard. I always agreed that it could just be a variable set at your career start to a number between 1 and 3 and you could just change that number. I just question your assertion that it would be easy until you have at least some indication that I should believe you. Indeed I have no way of knowing how difficult it would be since I never worked on the code at hand.
I also never worked in programming video games. But I have had to do with rearranging software, especially with "old" software that needed major updates for something it was not designed to do at all when first written. And yes, the basic stuff usually is easy. That's not a given but it usually is. But then there are all kind of consequences deriving from changing that number while having assigned other variables to it when I never considered that number could ever change once set.
A few examples that may happen (or may not happen) if you changed career on STO, just of the top of my head, are innocuous things like trays and kits. So you change your career which means you cannot use your engineering kit anymore. Just automatically unequipping the kit is easy. But you may have set some of its abilities towards your tray. What will happen if you inadvertently click one of the abilities that no longer are available to you? Even if it isn't in the tray directly anymore, a multitude of things could happen, depending on implementation: it could fire as if you still had it. Nothing could happen because you don't have it. A corresponding (in variable setting) ability of the other career part could fire regardless of whether you have it or not. You could get a CTD because some internal references do not add up anymore. It could even be different results depending on other factors, since some abilities do take external effects into account. And these numbers may be sent by other modules of the program without caring that the numbers sent in the same position mean something else entirely now.
Yes, you could automatically empty all traits and trays. And strip all equipment from you and all your ships and maybe even your boffs. But there still can be more. And depending on the coding, it may not be as easy to find.
Yes, nothing of this is necessarily a problem if the code does not have these problems. And every issue can be resolved somehow. But sometimes bugs will not appear quite as obvious and tracking them down will cause problems. And maybe even other parts of the program may be affected. Your boffs appearances may become all buggy? Why? I don't know. Why did the program suddenly decide you didn't own races you did after an update that had nothing to do at all with character creation or the c-store? And yet it happened.
So while I do think your idea of combining the possibility of a career change with Star Trek lore is great (and kudos without any irony attached whatsoever for that), you just don't know how it will work out. STO's programers will know better. Or even worse, they will not know as well, since none of them ever worked on that part, the guys doing that having long been gone only leaving some references in their trail on how to access certain stuff not on how it works. And if you are particularily unlucky, you will only find a string of uncommented spaghetti code when you look at it.
Again, none of this has to happen. I cannot say anything about it happening. But it can. And you cannot say it wouldn't.
I am pretty sure judging from the amount of players that have asked for these things like re-career, re-gender and re-species that if cryptic could make a token they could sell you on the c-store to do these things they would have done so already.
unfortunately the only way to achieve this is to delete the character and start over loosing everything that character has that is not an account unlock in the process.
I am pretty sure that if players got a free token for this with the lifetime sub package and nowhere else then you would see 100s of players rushing to buy the sub but it is just not possible no matter how much money cryptic thought they might make from such a token.
not even possible to create a token that would allow you to transfer all a character has achieved to a new character so things like reputation, accolades, rank level, mission history and basically anything that cant be transferred to another already would all be lost.
that is why it is so important to make sure in the character creation process that you pick the things that cant be changed so carefully.
anyhoo, all the device on Camus II did was a simple reskin it didn't change the true nature of the character, so for example although they might appear male they were still female, although they might look like a science officer they were still a tactical officer and although they might look like a Klingon they were still human.
we have had temporary skins in some of the missions in the game but they don't change who the characters really are.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many games the OP has worked on, until he has worked on this game he has no concept of how easy or difficult or even down right impossible this would be.
but it always makes me chuckle when these kind of threads come up that there is always a posters who professes to be a game programmer and who thinks they know everything there is to know about the way every single game is programmed and how to change it, I would say why is this guy wasting his time playing sto or even posting on this forum when he could be working on creating sto v2.
I have seen it so many times where people have professed to be experts in certain fields such as this and then go on to spout off things that I know myself for a fact to be wrong and have even had times i have gone on to prove them wrong much to their annoyance.
like the IT guy at work when I asked him if there was a way to add extra internal ide ports to my desktop computer and he told me categorically that it was impossible and just could not be done, imagine his dismay and embarrassment when I showed him the pc card I had bought that did just that thing.
or the other IT guy who told a friend his laptop computer was broken beyond repair and there was no way it could be fixed only for me to find that all that was wrong was the fuse in the plug had blown.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Look at upgrading, crafting and admiralty systems, they are all 1D text windows with no models, no animations and the least possible work put in.
Where is exploration you think? PVP? Piloting from the bridge.
This game arguably early than that, but at least with DR, became entirely whale based. And it's good they make money to keep the game up but as far as the game's quality is a huge problem.
In a whale based game, no one listens to the customer; you don't have to.
There are games out there where the players can be heard, this isn't one of them. And that certainly applies to career respec - in fact it applies to everything you can think of, including your suggestions, minus the next singleplayer text window time gates they working on.
so you get in a car with a driver even though he showed you no proof he can drive and who you suspect has never driven before but you would distrust a driver who shows you his driving licence and shows he has been a driver for a good few years.
no I don't necessarily believe the devs when they say it cant be done but as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct, even though someone who's qualifications I have never seen and as far as I can tell has never had anything to do with sto and might not know the difference between a bit and a byte is telling me otherwise.
I don't need any qualifications to make that choice.
that's just called using your common sense of course.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I have no idea about how a lot of chemicals work or react in certain conditions. But if I needed to know it, I would rather ask somebody who studied chemistry and worked with the chemicals at hand than some random guy on the internet who claims otherwise without even knowing what chemical we are talking about.
Logic is mostly a binary thing. But other things aren't.
It leads me to believe that:
1) It's too difficult to pull off
2) They don't wish to do it for monetary reasons.
Could even be both 1 & 2 if it was something they considered long ago...who knows. Either way, I don't see one coming.
having no evidence to the contrary other then hearsay I have to accept the evidence as it stands until I see proof to the contrary.
the evidence as it stands being they work for cryptic and you don't.
and that is just being logical.
show me some proof to your statement and I will admit you are correct.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
My character Tsin'xing
so if a doctor was to tell you that you had a particular ailment would you trust the doctors judgement or would you expect to have a detailed explanation of the ailment even though you probably would not understand 99% of what the doctor was talking about.
or if a mechanic told you your car failed its mot for TRIBBLE reasons would you want to want a detailed explanation of the faults even though you don't know a torque wrench from a socket spanner.
or would you just take their word for it.
though I did quite plainly state in my comment "no I don't necessarily believe the devs" and "as they are the ones who know the code for the game and work on it every day I am willing to accept they are correct", what further information could they give that anyone who hasn't seen the code involved would understand.
I wonder how many people would know what this tiny piece of computer code does.
*=$0801
.byte $0c, $08, $0a, $00, $9e, $20
.byte $34, $30, $39, $36, $00, $00
.byte $00
*=$1000
ldx #$000
loop lda message,x
and #$3f
sta $0400,x -> 1024
inx
cpx #$0c
bne loop
rts
answers on a postcard please.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
20, hell, if we're in fantasy land let's say sixteen!
What exactly have you done in the past, in the Gaming Industry, that makes you so sure this idea of yours would be easy to pull off?
And what is the basis for your statement, since apparently you haven't actually worked on the Code for Star Trek Online?
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
The Camus II idea is a nifty one... but I think people are forgetting about the Lock Box Traits that people could buy. The Camus II idea would mean that people could easily obtain Lock Box Traits for little or no Energy Credits, or Real Cash simply by "swapping bodies" with someone who already has those traits and doesn't mind trading them for a fresh character. This would count as a rather large exploit, which is why I don't think such an idea is ever likely to be implemented.
On the other hand creating a Zen-Store item that lets you respec your character seems like a much more realistic way to implement this idea.
I think the OP was referring to "swapping bodies" but without loosing things like traits, reputation, XP, specializations and all the other stuff that you cant just send to another character in your line up.
so basically he could create an alternative account create a new character with the species, sex, Career and maybe even faction that he would prefer then have this new character swap bodies with the character he wants to change on his "real" account.
basically using this method the OP could change every character he has on his "real" account and even the same character a multitude of times without losing anything he has gained on his characters.
currently the only way to do all of this at present is to delete and start over loosing anything that cant be transferred to another character in the process.
according to the devs all of these things cannot be changed any other way then deleting and starting over because of the way the data is stored when you first create them in the character creator.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.