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How to ask Developers questions directly?
tilarta
Member Posts: 1,799 Arc User
in The Academy
I know this is a bit of an unusual question, but since I've never been able to get the answers regarding my top 3 concerns about gameplay content implementation in Star Trek Online, the only conclusion I can think of it is to ask the Dev Team directly and get the answers from them.
But is this possible?
And before it is mentioned, yes, I have posted these queries in the forum.
Unfortunately it just attracts the attention of HeadCanonHaters, but the question is never answered.
So I don't think trying that approach for the third time will work.
FYI, a HeadCanonHater is someone who ignores established canon fact because the information invalidates their reasoning.
In my case, they're ignoring two ingame established precedents for my number 1 concern.
But is this possible?
And before it is mentioned, yes, I have posted these queries in the forum.
Unfortunately it just attracts the attention of HeadCanonHaters, but the question is never answered.
So I don't think trying that approach for the third time will work.
FYI, a HeadCanonHater is someone who ignores established canon fact because the information invalidates their reasoning.
In my case, they're ignoring two ingame established precedents for my number 1 concern.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
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If there was a guaranteed way, they would be swamped with questions and requests, and the guaranteed way would be closed as soon as possible.
I'd recommend viewing the last dev Q&A for STO at . Keep in mind the side chat is actually an archive of chat at the time of the video, so you have an idea of what was being asked and how it was worded.
Looking at your topics, I'd say the ground/space split is something the devs consider as 'just is that way', as the concept goes all the way back to Perpetual's STO concept. NPC disable/talking down is something they played with in the past with a few examples here and there, but the execution didn't fit with MMO themes, as you kill things to get loot.
As soon as I got the answers I wanted, either confirmation or rejection, they'd never hear from me again.
And I only want these questions answered because from my perspective, it will determine if STO has a serious commitment to future content updates.
Basically, the direct contact method should be reserved for serious concerns such as mine, so that might be a measure of control if it were hypothetically possible.
That there's someone employed to read the messages and if it's something inane, to not pass it on to the Devs.
FYI, number 1 on my list should have been implemented long ago, so it's a continual source of confusion to me why it has not been done.
And they've already done something similar quite easily, so I don't think it's a hard task to do.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Edit: OP be sure to scroll up past your reply to mustrumridcully0, as there is an option, that should be open now and then on their Twitch channel.
I went to the twitch channel, but I don't see anything happening right now.
Are you only supposed to ask questions when a livestream is on?
That could be a problem for me, as I live in the GMT+10 zone and it causes serious incompatibilities with timezone syncing.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Pretty much, AFAIK, anyways. Unlimited dev access I have to agree with mustrumridcully0 with it being unmanagable. With it limited to a specific time and theme, it becomes manageable.
There's a blog on the main page "Ten Forward: A New Weekly Stream!", which goes over the stream going on weekly at 4pm Pacific time (looks like 9 AM for you
I couldn't see what they were doing, but they were holding up a tablet and it looked like they were scrolling through a list, so I think they were reading the channel feed to get the questions.
Also, I am concerned if I ask a question that isn't about the subject of the live stream, they'll ignore it because it wasn't topic relevant.
So a generic Q&A would be the only kind that was suitable for my question/s.
I would need advance warning though, to know when to be online, logged into my twitch account etc.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
And there you see why a "direct line to developers" isn't going to happen. There are hundreds or even thousands of people who have questions that they think are just as important as your special questions. Developers don't have time to deal with them.
The community manager reads many threads, and some developers read a few threads as time permits. That's the best you're going to get unless you can pay Cryptic to hire an extra "question reader" employee along with paying for the lost development time to answer the questions that make it through the filter.
I'm a developer myself (not for Cryptic) and answering random questions even from other staff is a burden in a couple of ways: it derails my train of thought from the ticket I'm supposed to be working on now, and it can mean taking time to wander through bits of code I haven't looked at in months or even years to find the answer. In decent sized real-world applications you can't hold all of the pieces in your memory at once.
And they think that's important, but it's not really.
Without giving too much away, my questions are about new playable species and new factions.
From my perspective, this is important because implementing these additions shows Cryptic is dedicated to improving the game on a regular basis.
Both of these are consistently irking me because I want to create unique playable Captains and am never able to because they require the content that is never implemented.
And before anyone says it, no, I don't want to make generic captains.
Truthfully, I do want to put the questions on the forum.
But as my prior experiences have taught me, to ask again is just creating an opportunity for the HeadCanonHaters to be abusive.
If I were to do it again, I'd have to insist that no player opinions are offered, that the only purpose of the thread is to get a yes/no answer and to bring the subject to the attention of the Developers.
And then the HCH gets angry for being requested not to start aggressive arguments.
I can't make sense of that, they start arguments over not being allowed to start arguments?
If they want to hire a question reader employee, feel free to contact me to take on the responsibility.
I am serious, they really can offer me this job and I would accept.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Playable factions are a tremendous amount of work, for very little financial return.
Most money-spending players strongly prefer to be Federation captains for their main characters. It's only a small but vocal minority that wants anything else. The new mini-faction was still Federation, just a variation for geezers like me who watched TOS as their first Trek series.
Cryptic/PWE likes money. If there was enough money in adding new races and factions, they would be asking CBS to let them do it. The key word is "enough" money. Sure, a few people would pay good money to unlock playable Pakleds or Horta, but not enough to justify the expense to create the new content and maintain it for years. The same is probably true for a Gamma Quadrant faction.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
With player characters you generally have a base head & neck mesh with interchangable bodies, with the join between the neck and upper torso having to match otherwise you get gaps.
With NPCs you don't have that issue, they are usually a single mesh from top to toe, like this you only need to make a couple of figures to represent the entire race.
Lets take the Cardassians as an example, in the show they have wide necks, as an NPC that's easy to recreate, as a playable race it becomes a nightmare as that neck wont fit any of the existing costumes. So Cryptic either gives us the texture detail on a default neck and never hear the end of it from people that want proper Cardassians, or they have to create an entire new player rig with the new neck and recreate every single outfit so they fit that neck.
Cryptic's STO department just don't have the staff any more to do stuff like that, so if it can't be squeezed into the default rig set up then it's not going to happen.
As for new races and factions: the devs are always saying they'd like to make more factions, but that its unlikely since everyone just plays Fed. Creating a new faction is a LOT of work, both to develop it, and to maintain it. Any fully fleshed out faction they made would require regular updates. They already have trouble making 3 variants of every new ship for the current 3 factions, it'll be even worse if they have to make 4 versions of every ship. Not to mention the amount of programming that's required to get the game to recognize a new faction. If you want a mini faction like I do, then they need to find a good way (and reason) to make it. Like sure, everyone wants to play as the Borg, but how could they make money off that without locking the faction behind a pay wall?
As for custom races, what's wrong with the Alien creation in game already? Sure it's not perfect, but it's really easy to make something unique.
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
The hardest part of the task would be making the new species specific traits required for that unlock.
But do playable species unlocks require any maintenance?
And it is a Starfleet playable species unlock, so it will be accessible to the majority playerbase if it was implemented.
I'm actually following an old military principle here: if you want to know how the war is going, ask the soldier on the front lines, don't ask the generals.
In this metaphor, Management are the generals, the Devs are the soldiers.
But how would I go about contacting the Management department?
I don't know anything about Twitter.
How does it work?
And how would I find the Twitter accounts of the Devs I need to contact?
I am seeking the ones in charge of playable species and faction implementation.
I don't think it would help asking the Dev who designs new ships, for example.
Mostly I'm wanting to know the answers because I am afraid STO may end up in the same place Champions Online did.
If the answers are yes, then I know STO is actually committed to serious content updates.
And if the answers are no, well, I can stop expecting something that isn't going to happen.
The nebulous nature of this situation is what I'm objecting to, not knowing either way.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Nope. For most players new content means new story episodes, queues, ships, lock boxes. Adding playable races is low on their wish list.
Back when they were really committed to story content, we'd get 5 episodes in a row and a special reward (Breen Tac BOFF, glowy snake levitation) during the first run week.
Now we're down to one episode per release and no special item.
From my perspective, they're just making a new Rep every release and that's all.
@coldnapalm
And that's why I don't approve of the Custom Alien generator, it can never be the real thing.
Players will always use it as a reason to never ask Cryptic to make the playable species.
It's just visual appearance, there is nothing special about them.
And I did try to emulate what I wanted, the failure as always was the traits, they either aren't practical or don't exist.
Which is why I gave up trying to imitate it, because I believe there is no substitute for the genuine article.
For example, I could make a convincing Jem'Hadar quite easily, but can they consume Ketracel White without being debuffed?
Now before this gets derailed any further, let's go back on topic and stay there.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Or another way: If there are enough players that share your interest, Cryptic will take notice and will consider how to accommodate that, if they can in any way. Just like they did eventually with the Tier 6 Connie. But they won't tell you until they are close to release it. Just like with the Tier 6 Connie.
If you don't get the amount of players that share your interest... Chances are low for it too happen, and there is no reason to give you special access to ask your specific questions to the devs.
I am awaiting information on how to use Twitter as was recommended.
Since searching an entire global social networking service for specific users is highly impractical, I need some direction as to where I should be looking.
Or alternatively, if a livestream is announced that may cover these topics, please let me know in advance in this thread so I can attempt to participate and ask my questions.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad