The only resource required for the shared chat was a shared chat server. Dividing out chats by game will actually require MORE resources not fewer. The only advantage to breaking the chats out would be if you were actually going to monitor and police them for trolling; which, given your complete ambivalence toward this in the past, is unlikely. I use the cross chat feature extensively since I lead 2 fleets in STO and a Guild in NW. Ill conceived changes like this encourage people like me that play more than 1 Cryptic game to reconsider our choices. The cross game chat was one standout feature that set Cryptic apart from just about every other game producer; removing it makes you just another game Co.
To all my friends here on STO, I will not be able to chat with you as I did before. It is very odd they tell us removing stuff is an improvement but I don't get an official explanation. Any developer can chime in here, if I am mistaken, but the change is software and not hardware. When my friends on NW would be on Star Trek or Champions Online, I could see them and it would tell me they were playing the other game. Now we just will not see or chat with each other, and it is a new communication barrier that will impede all the games. I would like more information as to how this is an improvement. I don't care how technical you want to explain this move, I would like an answer from an official source.
Thank you.
BTW they won't even allow this to be discussed on Neverwinter. As soon as this memo appeared it was locked! Check it out.
I never noticed cross-game communication, I've been playing Champions and STO with a previous account since post-family and friends alpha testing for Champs.
Doom&Gloom about this sounds overblown to me.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
The Posts over there have the Rating System that was tried here and almost immediately abandoned. It's not locked too much because I was able to select 'Awesome'.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Lt. Philip J. Minns
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
Was only a thing for custom chat channels. For example my fleet has a custom chat channel for cross faction communication between our Fed and KDF fleets. We can also access the same channel in Champions Online and Neverwinter, and can even see people in those games talking if they were. But we don't really have anyone playing those games anymore so doesn't matter. But the capability was there.
> @parkerad said: > I had noticed one day last week that they put up that there was going to be an lts sale for PC, I reckon they did this in error as it was for the consoles. It was after that when the link went missing. STO hasn't said anything about it yet though.
If parkerad is correct it looks like someone messed up another announcement, and didn’t want to admit to it....
Of course it might also be one of the seven curses of servergeddon... kidding...
Well, I actually used this. What are we paying for again?
Does this affect Holodeck<->Tribble chat?
I'd say you are probably paying for Star Trek Online, but it could be one of the others as well.. But IMHO, your "payments" should be benefiting the game you are paying for; and not entitle you to universal everything.. I've never used it, never cared for other games chats in my STO chat, and as far as that goes.. would be nice if they put the STO console chat elsewhere as well.. Just my opinion.
I also bought LTS 10 years ago and used XMPP to connect to chat, and they killed that too.
Never knew or forgot such a thing was there..No difference to me what so ever..As for fly by Oprah notifications of who won what just shut them off from settings..
All our cross-game Chats were moved to Discord a long time ago. Can chat with friends who are playing ANY other game, or none at all.
I've never understood how moving chats to Discord is a better thing. Having to switch between the game and a browser to chat seems like much more work than it's worth. Unless there is something I'm missing, which I suppose is possible since I don't keep up on that kind of stuff. If I can't keep up on it in game then it may as well not even exist.
A lot of gamers have two screens and I always assumed the others do what I do which is play Star Trek in Window mode maximized on one screen and the other stuff on the 2nd screen. As long as you are in Window mode maximized there is no interruption the mouse flows between the screens and apps.
This, and using the actual Discord app, rather than running it in a browser.
The current EP sure knows where to gut dead weight. In all seriousness all the changes have been for the better of the game and that is why both cryptic and pwe needed someone with no attachments that can swing that bat'leth. I just say remember the fun you had with certain things but realize at the same time that its dead weight that those resources can be used elsewhere to make the game better. Although with all the changes compiled together it pretty much tells me that there are changes coming that will make STO look more like a mmorpg than it ever has before. Been playing for 9+ years and that LFG and whole social aspect has never changed since the first day I played this game. Plus things like battlezones where you have content that really needs some sort of coordination to make it flow easier and its just not there and never has been with prime example being the both battlezone lots of spawn camping which results in most of the time getting like 2-3k dilithium per run vs organized with the way the admiralty system works now 7k-8k with dilithium bonus and then another 4k-5k from converting marks and voth implants. So just that example right there using those resources to make the game more enjoyable there is nothing but praise on cutting dead weight.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
Except that I think the Tzenkethi Battlezone is still broken.
Except that I think the Tzenkethi Battlezone is still broken.
Yes, the TZ battlezone definitely needs a lot more work, usually there are only two or three people there at most and even on those rare days that there are are enough people to finish it the reward system there is still borked.
As for cutting dead weight, they are just trading list length for the need for considerably more chat server channels which did not improve things when they tried something like in Second Life. It probably will be just as underwhelming of a change here. And it is not like some possible chat lag is likely to have any effect on the lag of the rest of the game (the chat itself does not seem to lag at all as it is either).
The only advantage of separating the channels would be if they are planning to rip out the chat system entirely and put something else in its place, (like an external service instead of in-house servers), and they wanted to simplify the changeover and limit the effect to one game at a time.
Either way, while it is not going to cause all the players to quit in disgust or anything like that (as some have pointed out most probably do not even know about the cross-game chat), it does remove yet another unique charming aspect of the three games. That is not a good thing in a crowded market where you need every little selling point possible (and I know at least a few people from Champions who tried out the others just to see it work, which is a good foot in the door thing).
And unless you were in a custom chat channel with other people in other games, then you wouldn't have noticed it anyways.
well, I had friends that moved on to neverwinter, but because I and other friends have seen them online, came back to sto for events, or just because friends were online... won't happen anymore, but as I wasn't able to log on to the game for quite some time, I can't tell if there is any of my friends online on a cryptic game at all.
Although most people I've friended in sto were friends just here, they were still precious to me and I cared about them. I hope all of them are well.
Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
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by the way, having returned to another forum recently, it's somewhat curious that there is no way to navigate the forums after you've read all the way through to the bottom of a thread here... aren't we supposed to do so? or is it just a reflection on the fact that none of the cryptic/perfect world staff does?
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I think the foundries were taken away because people were using them for looting and gaining certain things transferable to the holodeck. It is speculation and a theory.
No matter what, its gone, hope it comes back, but it has to do with SOMETHING about profits. Clearly.
Maybe they can make a foundry SERVER and we can character transfer over???
This change is very sad. If they by resources means money, I highly doubt it cuts any costs. As instead of paying for one server per platform they now need to pay for one server per game AND per platform. And if they count the beta test servers as different ones as well, then add a lot more servers to that. Paying for all those smaller separate servers is a higher cost than paying for one big one.
Now if they by resources means people, then they are either sacking the one person who can maintain the servers, or that person quit.
The best way in my opinion is for them to incorporate a function to run a chat program from an other supplier in an in game window. Like we were able to play music that way. A company like Discord for instance. As not everyone plays using more than one screen.
I know that the community I'm the leader of will suffer from this shutdown, as I've already noticed, when we can't talk with each other no matter which game we're playing.
Applications like discord, skype, steam chat, team speak, twitch, etc. make whatever this now gone feature was (that I didn't even realize existed) completely obsolete and not worth maintaining.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Applications like discord, skype, steam chat, team speak, twitch, etc. make whatever this now gone feature was (that I didn't even realize existed) completely obsolete and not worth maintaining.
Not really, those are seperate applications, an ingame chat channel is easier to access, you don't have to mess around alt-tabbing, shift-tabbing or whatever to go to another application to type a message. There are still plenty of people out there who either don't have a mic, or are not comfortable using a mic as well.
The chat channels across all games was a nice feature, as was XMPP, if you have a community that plays multiple games by one company, the ability to message all players at once about something would be pretty valuable, and XMPP was good because you could monitor chat without having the log into a game.
Applications like discord, skype, steam chat, team speak, twitch, etc. make whatever this now gone feature was (that I didn't even realize existed) completely obsolete and not worth maintaining.
Not really, those are seperate applications, an ingame chat channel is easier to access, you don't have to mess around alt-tabbing, shift-tabbing or whatever to go to another application to type a message. There are still plenty of people out there who either don't have a mic, or are not comfortable using a mic as well.
The chat channels across all games was a nice feature, as was XMPP, if you have a community that plays multiple games by one company, the ability to message all players at once about something would be pretty valuable, and XMPP was good because you could monitor chat without having the log into a game.
Yes really. While some people can point to why xmpp worked out great for them, as a whole, it clearly wasn't worth it to maintain the system. With so many ways to connect people with so many applications, it clearly wasn't an efficient use of time and resources to them. Unfortunate for the few that did find xmpp useful but true.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Applications like discord, skype, steam chat, team speak, twitch, etc. make whatever this now gone feature was (that I didn't even realize existed) completely obsolete and not worth maintaining.
Not really, those are seperate applications, an ingame chat channel is easier to access, you don't have to mess around alt-tabbing, shift-tabbing or whatever to go to another application to type a message. There are still plenty of people out there who either don't have a mic, or are not comfortable using a mic as well.
The chat channels across all games was a nice feature, as was XMPP, if you have a community that plays multiple games by one company, the ability to message all players at once about something would be pretty valuable, and XMPP was good because you could monitor chat without having the log into a game.
Yes really. While some people can point to why xmpp worked out great for them, as a whole, it clearly wasn't worth it to maintain the system. With so many ways to connect people with so many applications, it clearly wasn't an efficient use of time and resources to them. Unfortunate for the few that did find xmpp useful but true.
The main problem with xmpp is that it was only an option for lifers so it was not accessible by the vast majority of people who play the game. That made it a very fringe thing.
On the other hand, the cross-game chat was available to everyone and could have been leveraged as a way to get people to try all three of the games if the company advertised it at all. One way would have been to have the launcher app look to see if you played more than one of the games and put a little reminder of the service up to let people know it existed. On top of that, putting it in the tips rotation could have made people curious enough to try the other games and they maybe find out they like more than one of them. It is a moot point now though.
Comments
Thank you.
BTW they won't even allow this to be discussed on Neverwinter. As soon as this memo appeared it was locked! Check it out.
Doom&Gloom about this sounds overblown to me.
It is.
And unless you were in a custom chat channel with other people in other games, then you wouldn't have noticed it anyways.
Unchanged. Still exists.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Was only a thing for custom chat channels. For example my fleet has a custom chat channel for cross faction communication between our Fed and KDF fleets. We can also access the same channel in Champions Online and Neverwinter, and can even see people in those games talking if they were. But we don't really have anyone playing those games anymore so doesn't matter. But the capability was there.
> any one know what happend to the life time subcription option
> @rattler2 said:
> (Quote)
>
> Unchanged. Still exists.
Incorrect I believe (Although I haven’t personally checked) people have been noting the lifetime sale link problem on other threads...
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1254292/lifetime-subscription-link
> @parkerad said:
> I had noticed one day last week that they put up that there was going to be an lts sale for PC, I reckon they did this in error as it was for the consoles. It was after that when the link went missing. STO hasn't said anything about it yet though.
If parkerad is correct it looks like someone messed up another announcement, and didn’t want to admit to it....
Of course it might also be one of the seven curses of servergeddon... kidding...
I also bought LTS 10 years ago and used XMPP to connect to chat, and they killed that too.
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Kanak'lan-TRIBBLE (LVL 65 DOM Gamma ENG) TRIBBLE (June 2018)
This, and using the actual Discord app, rather than running it in a browser.
Yes, the TZ battlezone definitely needs a lot more work, usually there are only two or three people there at most and even on those rare days that there are are enough people to finish it the reward system there is still borked.
As for cutting dead weight, they are just trading list length for the need for considerably more chat server channels which did not improve things when they tried something like in Second Life. It probably will be just as underwhelming of a change here. And it is not like some possible chat lag is likely to have any effect on the lag of the rest of the game (the chat itself does not seem to lag at all as it is either).
The only advantage of separating the channels would be if they are planning to rip out the chat system entirely and put something else in its place, (like an external service instead of in-house servers), and they wanted to simplify the changeover and limit the effect to one game at a time.
Either way, while it is not going to cause all the players to quit in disgust or anything like that (as some have pointed out most probably do not even know about the cross-game chat), it does remove yet another unique charming aspect of the three games. That is not a good thing in a crowded market where you need every little selling point possible (and I know at least a few people from Champions who tried out the others just to see it work, which is a good foot in the door thing).
well, I had friends that moved on to neverwinter, but because I and other friends have seen them online, came back to sto for events, or just because friends were online... won't happen anymore, but as I wasn't able to log on to the game for quite some time, I can't tell if there is any of my friends online on a cryptic game at all.
Although most people I've friended in sto were friends just here, they were still precious to me and I cared about them. I hope all of them are well.
[Emotes] Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog.
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
[Emotes] She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
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here here
I haven't been at ESD recently, but what I remember reading there, it really could use some moderating.
[Emotes] Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog.
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
[Emotes] She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
Yozit'yaza@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Nog.
Yozit'yaza@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Nog.
[Emotes] Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog.
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
[Emotes] She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
Yozit'yaza@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Nog.
Yozit'yaza@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Nog.
No matter what, its gone, hope it comes back, but it has to do with SOMETHING about profits. Clearly.
Maybe they can make a foundry SERVER and we can character transfer over???
Now if they by resources means people, then they are either sacking the one person who can maintain the servers, or that person quit.
The best way in my opinion is for them to incorporate a function to run a chat program from an other supplier in an in game window. Like we were able to play music that way. A company like Discord for instance. As not everyone plays using more than one screen.
I know that the community I'm the leader of will suffer from this shutdown, as I've already noticed, when we can't talk with each other no matter which game we're playing.
Recruitment: Neverwinter Online (spotlight)(wiki) - Star Trek Online Federation - Star Trek Online Klingon - Star Trek Online Romulan - Champions Online
Guild FAQs: Neverwinter FAQ - Star Trek FAQ - Champions FAQ ..........Facebook: Mattachine Guild
Not really, those are seperate applications, an ingame chat channel is easier to access, you don't have to mess around alt-tabbing, shift-tabbing or whatever to go to another application to type a message. There are still plenty of people out there who either don't have a mic, or are not comfortable using a mic as well.
The chat channels across all games was a nice feature, as was XMPP, if you have a community that plays multiple games by one company, the ability to message all players at once about something would be pretty valuable, and XMPP was good because you could monitor chat without having the log into a game.
Yes really. While some people can point to why xmpp worked out great for them, as a whole, it clearly wasn't worth it to maintain the system. With so many ways to connect people with so many applications, it clearly wasn't an efficient use of time and resources to them. Unfortunate for the few that did find xmpp useful but true.
The main problem with xmpp is that it was only an option for lifers so it was not accessible by the vast majority of people who play the game. That made it a very fringe thing.
On the other hand, the cross-game chat was available to everyone and could have been leveraged as a way to get people to try all three of the games if the company advertised it at all. One way would have been to have the launcher app look to see if you played more than one of the games and put a little reminder of the service up to let people know it existed. On top of that, putting it in the tips rotation could have made people curious enough to try the other games and they maybe find out they like more than one of them. It is a moot point now though.