As for your point about the programmers...yes, you are correct in that it is a concern and a problem and why we can't get bugs fixed for months, years or even a DECADE now. If they are gonna be serious about making this game not enter a death spiral much less do better, having 2 programmers is laughable way to go about that. For financial health of the game however, two programmers is fine. The better question would be how many graphical artists do they have...because they are the ones who brings in the money. Financial health and game health are not directly related oddly enough until the death spiral happens.
All good points.
My concern is that given the size and scope of an MMO, especially one that has as much content as STO, it seems like a lot of work for 2 programmers. Like you, I can't help but think how many of these wishful projects could actually become a reality with a larger group. Given the games obvious financial success, I just find it disappointing that we can't get these two over worked guys a bit of help. You have a point about the financial viability, that's only 2 salaries to pay and that keeps costs low, I just hope those two salaries don't get over burdened.
Your point about the graphic artists is also a valid one, and I would have to think that section is fairly robust. I have often pointed out how impressive the graphical design team for this game really is, they do a great job considering the age of the engine they are working in. Some of the ships in this game look absolutely amazing and we even have some really impressive environments. Those guys in the Art team are top notch.
Overall, I guess what they're doing is working.. the results speak for themselves. The game is financially viable and chugging along. Sure, it's not everything I personally want, but it's clearly working. I just can't help but think about how much more could be accomplished if some of the profit being made were put into another programmer or two to help possibly get content released faster and get bugs fixed without having to over burden two people. It just seems like a lot for two people to cover.
Thanks for your good points, it's nice to engage someone that can make their points without an agenda.
Sea, I'm sorry to interject here, but to an extent, I do agree with Som, but I also do agree with you to another extent.
I've seen (and I think also heard before) that the dev team is at the right place for what they are doing with the game currently. I understand that there have been other individuals who think that they feel the game would be better if they got more people or even replaced people that are not doing quality work. However, I get the feeling that when it comes to the process of hiring, the decision to get more people might be one that they may not be able to make on their own.
Over the last couple of years, we've seen a big shift in the number of expensive ship packages beginning with the 10th anniversary legendary bundle & moving on with other bundles that contain a minimum of 1 ship & what most people would consider fluff for the price of what used to amount of packs that we usually see coming out with expansions, resulting in mixed reactions because these packs end up being out of reach for many (like me for example).
The increase in the amount of money that they're now asking players to spend might at first seem like they are asking for money & not doing anything substantial to put that money back into the game, but to be honest, we do not know exactly where all the money is going. We know that there's always some kind of upkeep to keep things going, wages to pay workers, pay the trek actors they bring in and so on. Whatever is left is likely how much they are able to actually put into the game & is likely dictated by Perfect World Entertainment, since they do own Cryptic studios.
Moving on from that, I want to address this whole issue in regards to them not having time to do things. Time & time again we've seen them say that they only have so much time to get a particular thing done. Once, I saw Kael mention that the reason why we don't tend to get more than 1 or 2 new missions per release is because they are often working on them up until the day of release. Now, I get that this goes BACK into them apparently needing a bigger team so they can get more things done, but frankly, we do not know exactly what it is that they have to do during the course of their day. I imagine there's some kind of meeting that they may have to go to, which likely takes away from the time that they have to work on the game.
In the case of the programmers, I am pretty sure that they have said that they are shared between Cryptic's games, so the time they get with the programmers may be limited. Putting something intensive like a ship rental system powered by dilithium may sound like it's easy, but because we know the code for the game is extensive, it would take time for them to sort out & that would mean taking away time to do something for Neverwinter, just for example.
I've been playing this game for over 9 & a half years, so I've seen every change imaginable happen. I've been accused of being a white knight on both facebook & twitter for exactly what Som has been accused of, simply because we both pay attention to what the devs say & see that there are limits as to what we should expect them to be able to do, given what they are able to tell us.
Kael doesn't know if there will be unique dialog for DSC characters for the Terran arc(given what Killy supposedly did to the Mirror DSC characters) Its up to the writer Paul who usually thinks about that stuff
Well, it's not like Kael is told a lot of stuff in the first place anyway as he's almost always as surprised as us when it comes to stuff we weren't expecting or we find weird.
Captain upgrade token, and other new things, weren't for dil because making money to keep making the game is a higher priority then the dil market
I'm sure a $10 token to get a few slots, most of them unnecessary unless you're an hoarder who likes to buy a lot of stuff on the exchange, just for one character will greatly help... /s
Something like a dil based ship rental system is a good idea, but may cost too much programmer time to implement for it to be worth it. Possibly wouldn't be on the table until 2022 or 2023
Higher-ups: Make it so T6 can now carry you through all tiers!
Also higher-ups: Put a T6 version of a ship that has access to all lower-tiered variants... and a T5-U upgrade.
Trying too hard to justify the 5000 Zen price with consumables.
Added all the "legendary" materials like Defiant, Galaxy, Intrepid, and Sovereign
That's been the standard for all C-Store ships for quite a few months now. The opposite would have been more surprising (and less acceptable).
Something like 75% of players are Fed captain
Wow, literally no idea why... *checks the differences between ship numbers and releases*
Kael teased something might be coming back around the time the ship comes out(possibly the vanity shield dil event)
Finally, some good dil content again!
Vesta is more difficult to do overhauls for because they dont own the rights, they rent them. Though Cryptic paid for the rights, and it may be coming up
"No, except yes."
Don't know if they will get O'brien in STO. Kael jokes about the writers not being sadistic enough for an O'brien mission
The writers are sadistic enough to make us team up with Sela several times and make unskippable cutscenes. An O'Brien episode will be fine, I can assure them.
Playable Terrans unlikely due to work needed for a new faction, and most people don't actually want to play the bad guys.
I can't speak for anyone else but I'd welcome a villain faction! Let me be the bad guy!
Everytime I hear the developers say that the majority of the players do not want something or do want something I have to wonder who exactly are they talking to? Is there a poll they release to the players? I have yet to see any sort of questionnaire come my way asking me about what I would like to see in the game. So who exactly is giving feedback to the developers?
"There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life." - Ten Bears (Will Sampson)
Just for the record... I'm not defending anyone when I ask people not to snipe at each other. I've noticed that when certain individuals get going... it tends to snowball. So I'm just stepping in before it does in hopes that it won't snowball.
You keep saying the same things to the same people in thread after thread after thread, but they never stop. They will just do it again in the "next" thread. Do you want to know why? Because you never "back it up" with any action. And we have all learned that by now. Until you actually start editing posts and issuing warnings that actually lead to bans, the same people will keep doing the same things and your "please be nice" posts will continue to accomplish nothing.
At this point Seaofsorrows and Westmetals seem hell bent on starting yet another tirade. You can close the thread if you want. They dont seem willing or able to be respectful to people
Som, you can make some really good points, and your livestream notes are super appreciated, but you have to realize that you can be just as bad as those you argue with, at times even more so, and can bring a lot of toxicity to this forum.
Stop talking like you are separate from the rest of us 'vocal minority', and learn to concede the point that you might be wrong some of the time.
Playable Terrans unlikely due to work needed for a new faction, and most people don't actually want to play the bad guys.
I can't speak for anyone else but I'd welcome a villain faction! Let me be the bad guy!
Everytime I hear the developers say that the majority of the players do not want something or do want something I have to wonder who exactly are they talking to? Is there a poll they release to the players? I have yet to see any sort of questionnaire come my way asking me about what I would like to see in the game. So who exactly is giving feedback to the developers?
They don't need polls. They have metrics from in game seeing what people play and what they don't. They make more of the stuff people play, and less of the stuff people don't. A poll posted outside the game will never be representative of the vast majority of players who never read the forums, but the in game numbers don't lie.
At this point Seaofsorrows and Westmetals seem hell bent on starting yet another tirade. You can close the thread if you want. They dont seem willing or able to be respectful to people
Som, you can make some really good points, and your livestream notes are super appreciated, but you have to realize that you can be just as bad as those you argue with, at times even more so, and can bring a lot of toxicity to this forum.
Stop talking like you are separate from the rest of us 'vocal minority', and learn to concede the point that you might be wrong some of the time.
@somtaawkhar - I hope you will keep posting this here, and just ignore any snarky responses. Just flag them and don't respond and the thread might stay on track.
Some of us intentionally don't have reddit, twitter, etc. accounts and we also don't have the patience to sit through the livestream. You're doing something helpful.
Playable Terrans unlikely due to work needed for a new faction, and most people don't actually want to play the bad guys.
I can't speak for anyone else but I'd welcome a villain faction! Let me be the bad guy!
Everytime I hear the developers say that the majority of the players do not want something or do want something I have to wonder who exactly are they talking to? Is there a poll they release to the players? I have yet to see any sort of questionnaire come my way asking me about what I would like to see in the game. So who exactly is giving feedback to the developers?
No idea. Just glancing at other players and ships in game I'm seeing a lot of Terran uniforms running around and ISS starships orbiting ESD.
@somtaawkhar - I hope you will keep posting this here, and just ignore any snarky responses. Just flag them and don't respond and the thread might stay on track.
Some of us intentionally don't have reddit, twitter, etc. accounts and we also don't have the patience to sit through the livestream. You're doing something helpful.
The problem with that theory is that he's largely the one posting the snarky responses.
Then you can flag him and not respond, instead of continuing the battle. And I'll try to follow my own advice
Comments
All good points.
My concern is that given the size and scope of an MMO, especially one that has as much content as STO, it seems like a lot of work for 2 programmers. Like you, I can't help but think how many of these wishful projects could actually become a reality with a larger group. Given the games obvious financial success, I just find it disappointing that we can't get these two over worked guys a bit of help. You have a point about the financial viability, that's only 2 salaries to pay and that keeps costs low, I just hope those two salaries don't get over burdened.
Your point about the graphic artists is also a valid one, and I would have to think that section is fairly robust. I have often pointed out how impressive the graphical design team for this game really is, they do a great job considering the age of the engine they are working in. Some of the ships in this game look absolutely amazing and we even have some really impressive environments. Those guys in the Art team are top notch.
Overall, I guess what they're doing is working.. the results speak for themselves. The game is financially viable and chugging along. Sure, it's not everything I personally want, but it's clearly working. I just can't help but think about how much more could be accomplished if some of the profit being made were put into another programmer or two to help possibly get content released faster and get bugs fixed without having to over burden two people. It just seems like a lot for two people to cover.
Thanks for your good points, it's nice to engage someone that can make their points without an agenda.
I've seen (and I think also heard before) that the dev team is at the right place for what they are doing with the game currently. I understand that there have been other individuals who think that they feel the game would be better if they got more people or even replaced people that are not doing quality work. However, I get the feeling that when it comes to the process of hiring, the decision to get more people might be one that they may not be able to make on their own.
Over the last couple of years, we've seen a big shift in the number of expensive ship packages beginning with the 10th anniversary legendary bundle & moving on with other bundles that contain a minimum of 1 ship & what most people would consider fluff for the price of what used to amount of packs that we usually see coming out with expansions, resulting in mixed reactions because these packs end up being out of reach for many (like me for example).
The increase in the amount of money that they're now asking players to spend might at first seem like they are asking for money & not doing anything substantial to put that money back into the game, but to be honest, we do not know exactly where all the money is going. We know that there's always some kind of upkeep to keep things going, wages to pay workers, pay the trek actors they bring in and so on. Whatever is left is likely how much they are able to actually put into the game & is likely dictated by Perfect World Entertainment, since they do own Cryptic studios.
Moving on from that, I want to address this whole issue in regards to them not having time to do things. Time & time again we've seen them say that they only have so much time to get a particular thing done. Once, I saw Kael mention that the reason why we don't tend to get more than 1 or 2 new missions per release is because they are often working on them up until the day of release. Now, I get that this goes BACK into them apparently needing a bigger team so they can get more things done, but frankly, we do not know exactly what it is that they have to do during the course of their day. I imagine there's some kind of meeting that they may have to go to, which likely takes away from the time that they have to work on the game.
In the case of the programmers, I am pretty sure that they have said that they are shared between Cryptic's games, so the time they get with the programmers may be limited. Putting something intensive like a ship rental system powered by dilithium may sound like it's easy, but because we know the code for the game is extensive, it would take time for them to sort out & that would mean taking away time to do something for Neverwinter, just for example.
I've been playing this game for over 9 & a half years, so I've seen every change imaginable happen. I've been accused of being a white knight on both facebook & twitter for exactly what Som has been accused of, simply because we both pay attention to what the devs say & see that there are limits as to what we should expect them to be able to do, given what they are able to tell us.
Yes I meant the landing page. So no word about when it's going to get fixed. Just curious. Thanks.
I can't speak for anyone else but I'd welcome a villain faction! Let me be the bad guy!
An O'brien mission would be so cool, he is one of my favorite character from DS9. The best Star trek tv show had the best characters.
btw, thx for the summary, my english is not enough to understand by myself all the livestream.
I'm sure a $10 token to get a few slots, most of them unnecessary unless you're an hoarder who likes to buy a lot of stuff on the exchange, just for one character will greatly help... /s
Is Kael aware we're in late 2021?
Higher-ups: Make it so T6 can now carry you through all tiers!
Also higher-ups: Put a T6 version of a ship that has access to all lower-tiered variants... and a T5-U upgrade.
Trying too hard to justify the 5000 Zen price with consumables.
That's been the standard for all C-Store ships for quite a few months now. The opposite would have been more surprising (and less acceptable).
Wow, literally no idea why... *checks the differences between ship numbers and releases*
Finally, some good dil content again!
"No, except yes."
The writers are sadistic enough to make us team up with Sela several times and make unskippable cutscenes. An O'Brien episode will be fine, I can assure them.
Everytime I hear the developers say that the majority of the players do not want something or do want something I have to wonder who exactly are they talking to? Is there a poll they release to the players? I have yet to see any sort of questionnaire come my way asking me about what I would like to see in the game. So who exactly is giving feedback to the developers?
You keep saying the same things to the same people in thread after thread after thread, but they never stop. They will just do it again in the "next" thread. Do you want to know why? Because you never "back it up" with any action. And we have all learned that by now. Until you actually start editing posts and issuing warnings that actually lead to bans, the same people will keep doing the same things and your "please be nice" posts will continue to accomplish nothing.
They got quietly let go from Cryptic.
Som, you can make some really good points, and your livestream notes are super appreciated, but you have to realize that you can be just as bad as those you argue with, at times even more so, and can bring a lot of toxicity to this forum.
Stop talking like you are separate from the rest of us 'vocal minority', and learn to concede the point that you might be wrong some of the time.
They don't need polls. They have metrics from in game seeing what people play and what they don't. They make more of the stuff people play, and less of the stuff people don't. A poll posted outside the game will never be representative of the vast majority of players who never read the forums, but the in game numbers don't lie.
Some of us intentionally don't have reddit, twitter, etc. accounts and we also don't have the patience to sit through the livestream. You're doing something helpful.
No idea. Just glancing at other players and ships in game I'm seeing a lot of Terran uniforms running around and ISS starships orbiting ESD.
Then you can flag him and not respond, instead of continuing the battle. And I'll try to follow my own advice