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Lies in the livestream? Misinformation? What is your take?
wraithshadow13
Member Posts: 1,728 Arc User
At about 00:38:30 in the most recent livestream, a question is asked and answered. The question being about getting to change the color of our weapons. Not a major thing, as the Cryptic engine is clearly built to do that, but the problem comes with the answer given. Both Kael and Borticus are VERY specific that the game is not built to handle such a thing for several very specific reasons. Some of which would include the daunting task of adding such a thing and the amount of hours and work it would take to even get all the weapons to do that, since there is nothing in the game built to do that.
Except...
This is just untrue, as we used to do that very thing via a simple /command line in the chat window. It worked across all weapons and energy types and weapon vfx and firing modes and it worked pretty well. The only difficult thing about it was trying to remember the base code or what numbers your favorite colors were.
A fact that they are immediately told in stream at 00:41:45, which kind of invalidates a lot of what was just specifically used as an explanation as to why it just wasn't possible. Jeremy then has to backtrack and say that not only did it work but it worked on everything.... which we were just told wasn't even possible, nothing in the game could do that, and it would be a major task to do such a thing since everything was so different. And yes, I rewatched that segment several times just to make sure I was hearing it all correctly.
I recall playing with that code and really enjoying the variety of colors (everything but black and white, i think?) but i don't recall it working on anything BUT the weapons, so I would love to hear from others on what all they recall it doing vs not doing.
I suppose the question is really this: Should they be allowed to lie in a livestream? Should they be allowed to use false information? I get that it's Cryptic's stream and they can do with it what they please, but there is a point where it goes against community trust versus "towing the company line". Granted it's not anywhere NEAR what twitch would consider violation rules against misinformation, since it's not harmful or constant but still... Watching it happen and then get called out really does make you wonder about things.
I get that CBS has the final say and that Canon is the most important thing (after Money), that makes perfect sense as to why they removed the player ability to change the color hue of our weapons. I GET that and it makes perfect sense.
But why lie about it?
If anything, maybe they should reactivate the player access to it on PTS. Let us see what it did, what it can still do, and just let it be there for a week or so. They used to do fun things on PTS, like invasions of ESD and all that, so it would be an interesting thing and a fun interaction with the players.
As a community, what all do you guys think? Both about the misinformation AND about the colors? IF they DID return that to PTS, even as a short week long event, would you partake?
Except...
This is just untrue, as we used to do that very thing via a simple /command line in the chat window. It worked across all weapons and energy types and weapon vfx and firing modes and it worked pretty well. The only difficult thing about it was trying to remember the base code or what numbers your favorite colors were.
A fact that they are immediately told in stream at 00:41:45, which kind of invalidates a lot of what was just specifically used as an explanation as to why it just wasn't possible. Jeremy then has to backtrack and say that not only did it work but it worked on everything.... which we were just told wasn't even possible, nothing in the game could do that, and it would be a major task to do such a thing since everything was so different. And yes, I rewatched that segment several times just to make sure I was hearing it all correctly.
I recall playing with that code and really enjoying the variety of colors (everything but black and white, i think?) but i don't recall it working on anything BUT the weapons, so I would love to hear from others on what all they recall it doing vs not doing.
I suppose the question is really this: Should they be allowed to lie in a livestream? Should they be allowed to use false information? I get that it's Cryptic's stream and they can do with it what they please, but there is a point where it goes against community trust versus "towing the company line". Granted it's not anywhere NEAR what twitch would consider violation rules against misinformation, since it's not harmful or constant but still... Watching it happen and then get called out really does make you wonder about things.
I get that CBS has the final say and that Canon is the most important thing (after Money), that makes perfect sense as to why they removed the player ability to change the color hue of our weapons. I GET that and it makes perfect sense.
But why lie about it?
If anything, maybe they should reactivate the player access to it on PTS. Let us see what it did, what it can still do, and just let it be there for a week or so. They used to do fun things on PTS, like invasions of ESD and all that, so it would be an interesting thing and a fun interaction with the players.
As a community, what all do you guys think? Both about the misinformation AND about the colors? IF they DID return that to PTS, even as a short week long event, would you partake?
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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In fairness, people often ask to change visual effects not just beam colors, which is a bit different. Also, at that time the option existed were there any weapons other than 2409 phasers and KDF disruptors?
You keep saying "lie" but I can see them thinking visuals and eleventy different weapon types until being reminded of the old recoloring for phasers.
Personally I'd be somewhat happy even with just setting RGB values even if we can't get the ideal of unifying full visuals and sounds.
Reasonable and valid points of view but all the more reason to give it a week on PTS. Not that CBS would allow it to go live but it would be an interesting thing to see what changes, what isn't changed, and how well it works on things that have been added since.
ALSO valid and fair points.
Yeah, they had more than just the two weapons types, my favorite being the anti-proton beams with this really dark red. It just made for a really cool effect. I could have seen that Kael is newer and Jeremy wasn't on the dev team at the time but to go into such a detailed "this is why we can't" followed up by "this is what it was doing" kind of gives more of the lie vibe than the misinformation. Had they not known about it because they were both new to the team, that's an easy mistake to make. Thirteen years is a long time and a lot of the original team knew things the older teams had to rediscover when learning the engine. Again, though... saying we can't do that for X reason, only to then verify that it actually DID do all the things... I think i only said lie twice, though, three times if you count the title.
I would be curious to see what would happen if they allowed the code to work, again. Especially for Gravity well and other abilities.
The code you mention was news to me, on the stream. You can hear me mention that to Jeremy as it comes up. And I want to dig further into it to see what the heck that code was, how it worked, and why we turned it off 12 years ago.
But *man* is it such a blatant, unfair leap to go from what actually happened - Jeremy and I giving the answer we had, being given new info, and following up on it *live on the air* - to a thread saying, "SHOULD THEY BE ALLOWED TO LIE TO YOU?!?!?!"
Folks, we're all human here. Sometimes I have 100% of the information on an issue. Sometimes my guest does. Sometimes we don't because this game is 12 years old, and a whole heck of a lot has happened. But accusing us of deliberately lying is the kind of wildly unfair thing that prevents developers from wanting to talk to you. You can stop for half a second and think about what you're saying before you dive into these kind of wild, conspiracy theory accusations.
This sort of thing happens all the time around here. People on this forum get an answer they don't like, and they start throwing accusations of lies and manipulations around. Nobody is sitting in a dark room over here, steepling their fingers and saying, "Muahaha," no matter how much that fits whatever narrative folks have built in their head.
Anyway, I'm gonna ask Keith, our Lead Programmer, about this today and see what kind of answer I can get ya'll. And whatever that answer is, I'll pass it on here. If it's an answer you don't like, just remember that doesn't make it a lie.
Pepperidge Farm remembers. Lord knows what they'd break, and for how many people, if they tried to patch that old bit of code back in - if it'd even patch back in, in this poorly-documented plate of spaghetti code.
Not really. Its more appearing, and getting slapped in the face with a 2x4 repeatedly by some of the more... shall we say vocal elements who like to express their negative opinions. As human beings, its only natural to want to avoid that kind of repeated abuse. We have a whole thread on communication that highlights the exact problem and WHY the Devs rarely come on the forums themselves. And a few arguments over the ethics of certain communications tactics.
Fact of the matter is, flaming the Devs for everything under the sun is not condusive to communication. There is a difference between constructive criticizm and pulling out the flamethrowers. With more level headed criticizm, that can provide useful information for the Devs. Jumping straight to the flamethrowers is pretty much a guaranteed way of driving them off the forums outright and attracting the wrong kind of attention from the mods regarding forum rules.
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> Is this why the developers seemingly ignored the forums for the longest time because of other preferred sources to communicate with the players?
Is this a rhetorical question?
I don't believe they actually lied, and I continue to suspect the game doesn't have a reliable way to share institutional knowledge. This was prevalent during the days of the Foundry, and it's been referred to in multiple streams.
Early versions of the game did allow for altering weapon colors, and that ability persisted through console commands long after they removed the player option to change weapon colors.
Same. Been here for 10 years or so and I don't even remember anyone ever talking about this.
It's not surprising that even people who were around at that time don't immediately remember such things. Suggesting that those people are lying just because they may not remember something is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
What made Borticus say everything about it being technically impossible, then change his excuse to it was possible, but affected everything, which he had just said was impossible?
To me, I see two possibilities: He doesn't know how it works and didn't want to say "I don't know" or he didn't think he'd get pushed on it and the issue would go away if he made up an excuse.
Neither of those seems very conductive to a conversation. I don't know if either is accurate, but when we've come to expect excuses and obfuscation, how else are we supposed to interpret a sudden backpedal like that?
Or the question was interpreted as the common request to apply weapon visuals not just RGB values. There are many different visual effects if you look at beams and cannons closely, even beyond different beam styles (solid, flickering, small bolt, long bolt, ...) and a second visual for beam overload.
Or they thought they knew the correct answer, but were mistaken.
This was not about answers people don't like. This was about answers not matching experienced reality.
YouTube: MitNaqt Facebook: STO Neuling
The fact is that two ideas for this bounce around all the time. Weapon visuals like shield visuals, which is a lot of work because weapons aren't set up to change like that. And then there is the old color hue command - which is something different, it didn't change effects but only RGB colors and the devs told why this was unfeasible to change only your weapons - because it changes every effect your player character causes. I don't see where anyone lied about anything.
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Why does everyone keep forgetting my suggestion: disabling the visuals of specific weapons?
> Why does everyone keep forgetting my suggestion: disabling the visuals of specific weapons?
I assumed that is covered by the first case: Shields, engines and deflectors come with a 'disable visuals' option because they come with a costume, but weapons don't work like that. How they work differently in the code I have absolutely no idea, but when a dev says it's different then I have to believe that 😅
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A key detail to keep in mind is that neither Kael nor Borticus worked for Cryptic when the game launched, as a result Kael had no knowledge of the command at all, and Bort's knowledge of it is limited to what little he can remember from an interview he did twelve years ago when he was doing the STOked podcast.
There is a third idea: expansion of the various one-off weapon visuals so that a full suite of them are available. Alternate color versions of the KCB would also be nice, with them being identical stats wise and unique-equipped, just slightly different visuals on new items with new methods of obtaining them.
Misinformation complaints are NOT defamation. They are customer feedback.
YouTube: MitNaqt Facebook: STO Neuling
I am responding to you and others in this post. According to Merriam Webster, harming the reputation of by communicating false statements about, accusing, or disgracing is the definition of defamation.
Correcting incorrect information which Cryptic did in the livestream is not misinformation, it is fixing a mistaken view on something that was said upon being provided with new or previously unknown information. Remember those who work at Cryptic are human beings and as a result can get things wrong. Sadly, some players (they are part of the community too hence why Cryptic speaks to the community in general and not just specific individuals) seem to ignore this or think that since they are providing a service, they (the player) can lash out at Cryptic for a perceived wrong that may or may not have a basis in reality. Customer feedback can be positive and/or negative but the OP and others in the past and present have crossed that line when it should not be crossed. Yes, it is customer feedback but it is also defamation since that feedback is not based on facts and might even ignore the facts but bolster one's subjective interpretation of the facts and might or might not be true or be somewhere in between. This type of behavior is not new in the Star Trek Online community but is present in gaming communities in general, it is part of human nature as well but that does not excuse that.
"This is further complicated by the artwork for things like beam overload, surgical strikes, etc being unique, adding more work on top of the pile. Each weapon set takes between 4-8 days to make for the artwork. Jeremy guesses theres around 100 weapon types in the game. So even if they had the system to allow for it to be changed, all the artwork would need to be redone for all those weapons to allow for it. Not saying it can't happen, but its an incredibly daunting task with a lot of baggage on it. Jeremy loves the idea himself."
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/wldedr/ten_forward_weekly_81022/
...and after that they were told about the old color change command
"Back when STO first launched there was a powerhue command that allowed you to change effect colors, but the problem with that was not only the CBS thing, but that it changed EVERYTHING related to your ship purple, and there were concerns about what that would do to certain effects, and how it would worsen the visual spam that existed even back then, and wanting effects to be recognizable in PVP, among other similar issues"
So I'm seeing the OP jumping to conclusions to make the unkindest possible interpretation. That's just my opinion of course.
Those few in the community are part of the community besides I think it is good for all parties to hear this even if you are not in the wrong.
Accusations of deliberately misinforming the community is defamation.
Did anyone mention you by name as being a problem? Did anyone call you out personally or jerk your chain? No one said that EVERYONE in the community is doing such-and-such. It wasn't all inclusive. Just that there are those that do. If you feel that you were somehow attacked about something that you know doesn't apply to you, but wasn't actually directed at you, then that is on you. No one has blamed or bullied you, but this is the third time in this thread that you have made accusations towards moderators, and I, for one, am tired of that.
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Just wondering since I never get to the live streams is there anything in the works to fix the TOS npcs who are sitting in the floor. I asked about this awhile back I believe you mentioned it was something that was going to be fixed also any update to the Gorn tos outfit