[PODCAST] [INTERVIEW] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 237: "An Artist's Perspective"

midniteshadow7 · October 2016

Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 237: "An Artist's Perspective" has warped on to Holosuite Media, you can download and stream it from: http://bit.ly/tribbles237

We interview Nick "TacoFangs" Duguid, Senior Environment Artist and Joe Jing, Character Artist from Star Trek Online.

After the interview the we discuss this week's Star Trek news from Star Trek Online (1:13:38), Star Trek Online on Consoles (1:48:00), Star Trek Timelines (1:50:14), Destination Star Trek Europe (1:54:33) and Listener Feedback (2:16:03) and more!

Our community question this week is:
What are your thoughts on the Star Trek Online Artifacts update coming out on October 25th?

LLAP

phenomenaut01 · October 2016

Great interviews! and another excellent podcast (even if my forum handle did get butchered.

)

stoodogg · October 2016

Phenomenaut, ma ma manana, Phenomenaut, mananana!

alex1ger · October 2016

This week's episode was... an experience. I'm not sure if I can get through all of the feedback now, since I promised I would talk about "the quote", but if I can't, my next feedback will talk about communities, communication and watching (and learning from) your competition.

Btw. @stoodogg when you talked about the artifacts announcement or rather the Lukari's involvement, I pictured the Harrier and the brothers Wright in my head. That was funny. And then I thought, in STO the two planes would get into a dog-fight and the Wrights would win. Because it's such an iconic plane.

Okay, I once again traveled back in time (not really) and I found out that I can't fit the communication issue into this week's feedback. Please don't say anything too controversial.

Oh who am I kidding, don't hold back.

Grab some popcorn, booze, "Tea, Earl Grey, hot." or whatever and enjoy the ride. But first things first...

Community question:

Well, I already talked about it in my last feedback, but Cryptic was very clear how season 11.5 "New Dawn" was supposed to be about "rebuilding" and "going back to being explorers and diplomats". Fool me once, Cryptic, fool me once...

Factions and expansions:

Remember how I mentioned that one particular quote ( @sunseahl Wanna remind us?

) being very worthy of praise?
Let's start at the beginning.

So CaptainGeko was talking to a certain other podcast about the then-upcoming expansion Agents of Yesterday. He started the interview saying how they were struggling with calling the TOS feds a faction. That seemed to confuse one of the hosts, which is entirely understandable because what is that even supposed to mean? Is it a faction or not? Yes or no or come up with a different word.
Anyway, she started her next question calling the TOS feds a "quote unquote faction, semi-faction, pseudo-faction" which caused Geko to interrupt and clarify what he meant. See? A dev clarifying some very vague and possibly confusing marketing talk thingy. That is great! We need more of that! Yay for Geko!
And then he proceeded to say that marketing had some concerns about the connotations of the word "faction", but the TOS feds were "at least as much of a faction as the romulans" and even back then I "knew" those words meant trouble. Well, obviously I didn't know, but... I had a bad feeling about it. (Wrong franchise, I know.)
Okay, so we got the basic context and the interview went on for a while and he mentioned the TOS feds would get their own social hub and sector space, but let's get to the issue at hand.

What is a faction?

At launch we had two factions. Feds and KDF. The KDF was supposed to be... a few different things. I seem to remember hearing about "two full factions", but closer to launch the KDF was announced to be a "PvP-only" faction. Let's say the "not yet" KDF players were not exactly happy about that.
Still, Feds and KDF had their own exclusive social hubs, some exclusive playable species, their own exclusive ships, even their own exclusive types of ships (Only KDF had carriers, only Fed had Science vessels and that was not the only difference, but apparently the most important one...)
I won't go into detail when it comes to PvP, because I honestly don't care about PvP. Sorry.

Now, let's look at the romulans. They have their own exclusive social hubs (the command center on New Romulus and the flotilla). They have their own exclusive ships and they get access to some of their respective allies' ships. Guess what, those allies still have their own exclusive ships. Not as many as before, but still...
The romulan ships even have a very unique exclusive mechanic, the singularity core. And last, but not least, they actually do have exclusive playable species.
Now, there was some backlash since they had to choose an ally and weren't a "true" third faction, because Cryptic didn't want to divide the playerbase any further than "red vs. blue". Again, that backlash back then might have been softened or it might have happened way before launch if Cryptic had communicated that properly, but... oh well...
And since Legacy of Romulus all three "factions" get to level... somewhere between 20 and 30 (I know that's vague, but the faction-agnostic Nimbus adventure zone happens somewhere in that leveling range) doing faction-specific content, which helps establish their respective identities.

Now let's look at the TOS feds:

Exclusive social hubs: Well, look at that. The thing @sunseahl affectionately calls the "cuteshroom". And even their own exclusive "sector block"? Wow, that's amazing. *Battle of Caleb IV* Oops, nevermind.
See, if I gave you one million $ or € or whatever currency you're using... you would be a millionaire. Now imagine that, after a week has passed, I took that money away from you. (Yes, in real life that's when the legal battle starts, but this is a very simplified example.) Would you still be a millionaire? No, you wouldn't...

Exclusive ships: The starter ship. Uhm... That's cute. They share EVERY other ship with the real feds.

Exclusive story that establishes your identity as a faction: 5 missions, afterwards you do the exact same thing that every "true" fed does.

Exclusive species: Uhm... I haven't tried it, because... andorians and tellarites... *shrug* But isn't the battle for Caleb IV supposed to unlock those customization options for real feds? But even if it didn't, different customization options for the same playable species is stretching the definition of exclusive playable species in my opinion.

So... would it have been feasible to expect a story arc that takes the TOS feds to level 20? 25? 30? Probably not?
Would it have been feasible to have a bunch of TOS-exclusive ships? Well, if they got as few/as many as the romulans, maybe?
Would it have been a good idea to split the playerbase even further by giving the TOS feds their own social hub when so many other social hubs (like Vulcan, like Andoria, like presumably Rura Penthe, like the Captain's table) are barren wastelands? Probably not?

But at the same time, there is nothing that makes them a faction. They are not even a "half-faction" like the romulans. They are literally a different starting experience for feds. It's even possible to call it an extended TOS-style tutorial for feds. Calling romulans a faction caused some backlash. I thought Cryptic might have learned from that when Geko said they "struggled" with calling TOS feds a faction. Seems like I gave them too much credit.
I have a bunch of issues with their marketing, but just this once Cryptic should have listened. That was a painful thing to say...

What's an expansion?

During that particular interview CaptainGeko stated that an expansion is larger in scope than a season. There is more content and there is usually something "big". That can mean a new faction (like the romulans) or something big for the endgame crowd like a level cap increase.

You know, making a bullet point list does not really help anyone, so can we just agree that Legacy of Romulus had a whole lot of story content (even though it was faction-exclusive so that feds might have gotten very little out of it)?

Delta Rising had less story content than LoR (but it was faction-agnostic this time around), but a whole bunch of new systems and all those new species and so many voice actors...

Agents of Yesterday has about as much story content as DR (if you ignore the patrol missions and the Kobali zone like Cryptic seems to do for some reason, although they were the ones trying to sell it as story content in the first place *wink wink nudge nudge*), but I seem to have issues figuring out where the rest of all those man-hours went. *shrug*

And if someone doesn't quite know what the term man-hour means, I'm sure MidNite can explain.

sisteric · October 2016

Hi Alex, your feedback is always appreciated. I wanted to take a moment to respond/comment to your post and some other things. I will not be on the show this week because of daughter's birthday.

Community Question:
My thoughts are simple at the moment. Where's the hype train? I mean, we have 18 days till it's released and the only official word on what's coming is that K-13 will be a fleet holding, the pc will receive the console lighting update, and that a new story arc will be started with the Lukari. What we know of the K-13 is that we will be getting TOS themed stuff. This is good in that it we have an general understanding of what K-13 means to the game and further details are coming. This I am ok with. But this new story arc....what do we know? We escort the Lukari to explore an alien world. They learn things. It starts a story arc that last till next year. If that is all we are getting, then this is pretty light expansion or even season. It's barely more than an update.

As for the Story...what about the current story arc, is this going to be brought to an end or are we dropping it? Neither makes sense for the build up that we have had so far. So....I don't know.

All of this could be handle with a proper hype train. But since they announced that the next update is come 10/25, they have said nothing about the it. Absolutely Nothing! Why?

Factions and expansions:
I think that if Gecko had just said we didn't feel it appropriate to call it a faction but we don't have a better name for it, most of this would have been avoided. If they had been just honest and upfront about it, the memes wouldn't exist and the anger would be less than it is now. But when you say that a thing will be "as much as a faction as the Romulans" then you set the expectation that we would be getting as much as the Romulans got to start them off with. The reality was they got a fraction, a small minimalistic fraction, of what the Romulans got to Start with. The reality is that the TOS Feds are not living up to the statement.

What is a faction?
Pretty much what you said Alex. And does a good job of pointing out why Fed-TOS are not as "much as a faction as the Romulans."

Looking at the Fed-TOS:
Yeah, the social hub gone after 5 missions is way less that the two hubs that the Romulans get to keep. And the exclusive ships, story and species are just as laughable.

So... would it have been feasible to expect a story arc that takes the TOS feds to level 20? 25? 30? Probably not?
Yes it would be reasonable to expect that. At least to level 20 if not all the way to 30.

Would it have been feasible to have a bunch of TOS-exclusive ships? Well, if they got as few/as many as the romulans, maybe?
Yes, at least one per tier, more would have been better. Like one per career path per tier. But at least one per tier.

Would it have been a good idea to split the playerbase even further by giving the TOS feds their own social hub when so many other social hubs (like Vulcan, like Andoria, like presumably Rura Penthe, like the Captain's table) are barren wastelands? Probably not?
No, and that's where making them part of the Feds after completing the initial Story Arc could have gone. Forcing them to join the Feds is not unlike forcing the Rom's to choose KDF or Fed in their story arc. And they still got Rom exclusive story arcs after choosing the faction. SO we know that they can do it. They just chose not to.

What's an expansion?
If AoY was supposed to be larger in scope than a season, I don't see it. The 10 missions you got really was only 5 missions, unless you made a TOS-Fed guy. Not bigger than season usual 5 to 10 missions. No new species. No fleet holding.
oh wait...skills revamp, right? Oh, that came with 11.5, SEASON 11.5.(In that season we got the ship visual slots, the Strategist spec, Romulan Admiralty campaign, and the featured episode "Temporal Front") SO there was no systems overhaul or new systems implemented. So what was the big thing? Nothing that I can find.

All we got was a few more missions, a new rep (which have come in seasons before), a couple of queues (to add to the growing queue list that don't get run), a new spec (which season have delivered too) and the TOS-Fed starting area. Nothing big here. Nothing game changing. Nothing that other seasons have delivered to us before. Nothing worthy of the title "Expansion".

Now, I do want to point out that what has been given to us, I have enjoyed. My Fed-TOS guy is not level 57. But he has been just like any other Fed character I have since the Battle of Caleb IV. He just doesn't stand out as being TOS because there is literally nothing about him that is TOS except his Uniform. And I could have done that without making a new guy.

I don't want to take Alex's title of longest posts so I will sign off at this point....
Later all

sunseahl · October 2016

Heads up guys.... No show this week as Midnight's severely under the weather. Stay safe and look forward to your feedback being presented in our next show, along with ANOTHER INTERVIEW!

Get some rest midnight!

sisteric · October 2016

Another week has gone by, and still no hype train for Artifacts. One has to wonder if even they are excited about this upcoming change. And the complete lack of details with only 12 days left to launch is very disconcerting. This time has been a marketing mismanagement of the grandest scale. Deafening silence is not how you market a expansion/season.

And those lock box changes.....argh!
Galor is now gone and the Keldon is the box. And the T5 Jem'hadar ships are replaced with T6 version. But the anguish of not having a way to get a T5 Galor is going to be noticeable. And, I think at least, is not a very good way to go. I guess getting the Steamrunner will make up for it for the Feds, but for the KDF is just one less ship to get. Rom's suffer as the KDF, one less ship to get.

stoodogg · October 2016

The Galor is still in the game under the Keldon t6 bracket as a skin. so your t6 keldon can be cosmetically a galor. as for the jem hadar ships, I think thats a straight upgrade. less t5 ships yes, but in the long run more t6 ships. So what will be upgraded to 6 in the next run of infinity? Wells, Mirror Wells, T5 tal shiar ships?

sisteric · October 2016

But if you had the Galor and the Keldon, you would have two different ships. Now you are down a Galor, even if you can make the Keldon look like a Galor, it's still not a Galor in it's layout.

[PODCAST] [INTERVIEW] Tribbles in Ecstasy Take 237: "An Artist's Perspective"

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