ZAM Interviews Craig on Season One and Beyond

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WaxPaper at ZAM chatted with Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich last week about Season One, Update One and the future. Check it out here (http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=22217).



Link to the news article. (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/1662)

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Story not found?

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Story not found. it says in your link

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VBB doesn't parse links with a "?" in them very well, so I gotta edit the forum post. You guys are fast!

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We really did challenge our max-level players here

lol, when did this happen? Infected's doable with only 3 out of the 5 people and only because you need them to push the buttons. Cure's doable with 4, though it goes alot faster with 5. Khitomer part 1's slightly hard just because you need dps for it, part 2 is standard with a slight bit of dps for the generators, and part 3 goes by really fast if you can just spam tractor beams and charged particle bursts (though without it'll just run around alot and take alot of time). Compounded by the fact that all of my runs aside from repeats have been pick up groups, so um, haven't a clue where you guys are getting your information from.

On a completely different note, elite difficulty's really boring, it's like normal but it'll just take 3 times more time without the proper rewards for it. Hurray for shooting the same target for 3 minutes!

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ZAM: What did the development team learn from Season One, specifically regarding raid episodes, max-rank content and item/gear rewards?

Zinkievich: We're still tabulating, really. The initial reaction was very positive, but of late some people have expressed reservation because our Special Task Forces have been too difficult. My read on that is the folks who really live for that super-challenging content ate it up and had a lot of fun, but people not especially used to that style of gameplay are running into some trouble. We really did challenge our max-level players here, and we're still figuring out what's an appropriate difficulty level for everyone.

Almost nobody that i now of had fun. Even hardcore raider thought they were borring and grinding.
Killing +20 nodes and running/jumping to get shields down in every "raid" well that is not my idee of fun.

Fighting bosses that gives you a hell of a good fight now thats fun. And there is no such thing like that in this game. And of course the bugs. I mean you make the stf for the players right, and when most players dont like them well. if you were making the stf for you self only, then we would have had nothing to say, thats the feeling we have now btw. Hard raids are good and fun, grinding borring is not fun. I mean when players ingame saying that they just need to complete the cure one time so they can move on, and never play the cure again when they looking for a team . Thats bad.

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I dont understand... sections of the game are so... hollow and you want to add more extraneous content? Why not flesh out the Klingon faction so it actually plays to an enjoyable level so its not just pvp grind? I mean thats like producing half a game and being proud of it. I understand they want to make the klingon faction more combat and pvp oriented but you could make story lines easy out of that... Hell I even think the federation could be fleshed out immensely... why should we need that many explorer missions, there should be more story more random... ness. Why not distress calls while you are in sector space. I mean something. everything is just so sterile and lack luster, get some depth, get some luster, get some writers, and explore the trek universe more deeply... their is too much content that is just ignored.

I dont deny they havent improved this game since its opening, but it still needs a massive boost if its going to survive/become tolerable to non hard core trekkers, out of my starting fleet guild, I am now the only player that logs in

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Well that was...Cryptic...couple pages of chit chat and said nothing. Although the "mention" of episodic content for Klingons was heartening. Have only been asking for that for around a year. Even had a thread in the pre-launch forums that people were sending in ideas left and right..and...nothing. Sorry but I hear and see the same song and dance while we the paying players get screwed. The game still reflects Cryptic's idea of monster play when it comes to the Klingon Faction. TIme rewind to the time that good ole' CZ said that BOTH factions would be fully developed and if you never wanted to PvP you wouldnt have to. DS stated that the Klingons would have the equivilent of Memory Alpha and crafting. Well NONE of that is there. Here is another thing..a big deal was made out of "well Klingons are a warrior race. so shut up and deal with it." Fair enough, if Klingons are combat centric, why cant we attack outside of our little two sectors??? Why can't we duel with each other???? I should be able to challange another player and IF he accepts..kick his butt with a batleth. Also what self respecting Klingon would EVER be caught with a tribble????? By canon Klingons wipped out the Tribble homeworld.
But no...we have to use the federation junk gimmics to get the same chance at buffs. Anybody at Cryptic ever thought of subsituting Targs for the tribbles?????
Sorry but at this time all I see is lip service, the Klingon faction will continue to be some sort of monster play, and the Romulans will be what Cryptic feads the masses when they are bored with the Klingons...oops..to late.:eek:

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Well that was...Cryptic...couple pages of chit chat and said nothing. Although the "mention" of episodic content for Klingons was heartening. Have only been asking for that for around a year. Even had a thread in the pre-launch forums that people were sending in ideas left and right..and...nothing. Sorry but I hear and see the same song and dance while we the paying players get screwed. The game still reflects Cryptic's idea of monster play when it comes to the Klingon Faction. TIme rewind to the time that good ole' CZ said that BOTH factions would be fully developed and if you never wanted to PvP you wouldnt have to. DS stated that the Klingons would have the equivilent of Memory Alpha and crafting. Well NONE of that is there. Here is another thing..a big deal was made out of "well Klingons are a warrior race. so shut up and deal with it." Fair enough, if Klingons are combat centric, why cant we attack outside of our little two sectors??? Why can't we duel with each other???? I should be able to challange another player and IF he accepts..kick his butt with a batleth. Also what self respecting Klingon would EVER be caught with a tribble????? By canon Klingons wipped out the Tribble homeworld.
But no...we have to use the federation junk gimmics to get the same chance at buffs. Anybody at Cryptic ever thought of subsituting Targs for the tribbles?????
Sorry but at this time all I see is lip service, the Klingon faction will continue to be some sort of monster play, and the Romulans will be what Cryptic feads the masses when they are bored with the Klingons...oops..to late.:eek:

Don't read the forums much I suppose do you. In response to players asking for more Klingon pvE conttent, AT LAUNCH back in February 2010; the Devs stated the Klingons would get some PvE content at the first '45 day patch' (renamed to the Season One patch) - and they did - they got some PvE exploration content in the B'Tran Star Cluster. then AFTER that (and also it's been posted A LOT since launch) - the Season 2 update in the late June/early July will add full episodic mission content to the Klingon faction (like the Fed faction has currently); with a whole new Klingon storyline (ie it's not just federation missions with the words 'Klingon Empire' substituted). Along with new and expanded Ship Interior sections for both factions, etc..

Gotta give you an 'A' fopr effort though in making it sound like the Dev Team isn't listening to the playerbase, when in fact just looking at the Calander (link) (http://www.startrekonline.com/calendar2) on the main page; or the Egineering Reports (link) (http://forums.startrekonline.com/forumdisplay.php?f=158) or the Dev Tracker (link) (http://forums.startrekonline.com/search.php?searchid=806881&pp=&page=) postred here on the forums will give you a better idea than that short interview as to what that STO Dev team is doing to expand and improve the game as time goes on.

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this isn't a new interview it a couple weeks old. it was linked on the last friday article roubd up. you forgot which one you guys linked too in the past :) i knew i read this before

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Don't read the forums much I suppose do you. In response to players asking for more Klingon pvE conttent, AT LAUNCH back in February 2010; the Devs stated the Klingons would get some PvE content at the first '45 day patch' (renamed to the Season One patch) - and they did - they got some PvE exploration content in the B'Tran Star Cluster. then AFTER that (and also it's been posted A LOT since launch) - the Season 2 update in the late June/early July will add full episodic mission content to the Klingon faction (like the Fed faction has currently); with a whole new Klingon storyline (ie it's not just federation missions with the words 'Klingon Empire' substituted). Along with new and expanded Ship Interior sections for both factions, etc..

Gotta give you an 'A' fopr effort though in making it sound like the Dev Team isn't listening to the playerbase, when in fact just looking at the Calander (link) (http://www.startrekonline.com/calendar2) on the main page; or the Egineering Reports (link) (http://forums.startrekonline.com/forumdisplay.php?f=158) or the Dev Tracker (link) (http://forums.startrekonline.com/search.php?searchid=806881&pp=&page=) postred here on the forums will give you a better idea than that short interview as to what that STO Dev team is doing to expand and improve the game as time goes on.

Well I will raise your A for effort with a B for BULL. IF the devs had been listening, or ever were. The content would have been there AT launch. As for reading the forums, I keep up on what I need to. What it is in the forums does not reflect what is actually in the game. The Klingon faction is still monster play, has been and will remain so as far as I can tell. I don't trust anything CZ says, its been one big lie after another out of his mouth concerning the content of this game.