Ask Cryptic: August 2011

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Hello everyone!

In a never before seen feat, Executive Producer Dan Stahl is delivering over 5,000 words in this month's Ask Cryptic! Be sure to grab your favorite beverage before sitting down to study this one.

Link to the article (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2578/).

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(And I just KNOW there will be editing errors, this one is HUGE!
Sorry in advance... >.>)

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So... more PvP maps are "planned", just like they have been "in planning" for the past 18 months.

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Thanks to Dstahl for answering so many questions, however a bit dissapointed that the duty officer system has been postponed to end of october.

Me and my friends only resubscribed because we expected a lot of new content out this month or early september at the latest. Think we will take a little STO break now and wait for new content to arrive...

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Really?? we r going to have to wait til OCTOBER for the next FE series??

its been like the beginning of March since we had the end of the last FE series

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Q: Captain_Samson Are there any plans to release more canon ship interiors (Galaxy, Defiant, Intrepid, Sovereign ext.)?

A: Yes. There is a new replica interior being released with the DS9 Feature Episode Series.

Q: alexisnomad Are there plans for dual torpedo launchers, like the ones the Defiant has in DS9?

A: While I don’t know if the dual torps are coming yet, I can say that the Defiant is getting a major IP overhaul for the next feature episode series and that includes the proper rapid fire cannons you remember from the show.

Defiant interior?

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More of the same that we hear every time. Unfortunate.

I had a huge long list of all the ifs, buts and maybe's but I decided against posting. I think the vast majority of users here can see this for what it is. I won't elaborate on it.

I do have an addition though in the style of an "Ask Cryptic" answer:

I will hopefully be discussing this negative attitude I have and I just wanted you all to know that resolving this issue is on my radar and will be decided upon soon. Probably in Season 5. Or 6. With dual cannons on.

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Q: SporeLord Any word on how we might be able to earn the Odyssey class ship (Enterprise F) in-game?

A: Current plan is that it will be a mission reward for completing a TBA Fleet Action series.


Was that a typo and meant to say Feature Episode Series or did he really mean Fleet Action Series

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I am disappointed.
As a university student, i was looking forward to summer as a time to relax. Part of that relaxation for me was the promise of the Doff system and next FE hitting during the summer, but now, with the all the delays, those two items are scheduled to hit during crunch time at school, when i will have very little time to spend on leisure.
I understand that cryptic has been hectic lately with bug hunting season 4 and the transfer between atari and perfect world, but still i can't help feeling disappointed. Not angry just disappointed.

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This time around I don't feel very reassured or informed. The gist of the whole thing was "The check is in the mail"

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A good read, but I have to say I'm quite disappointed in the tentative content release schedule provided...

Still, looking forward to the borg encounters, ground invasion and STF revamps in the "short" term.

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" Will we see the Kobayashi Maru Test used in the Starfleet Academy Tutorial as a part of graduation from the academy ? Who is in Charge of Starfleet Academy ?
A: Yes and we are working on a new character to introduce as headmaster at the Academy in a future episode."

*Gasp!* Or how about a holographic Sulu? Or Uhura?

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Q: Timelord_Victorious What was the reason for making the Rhode Island that is clearly more powerful than any other ship at that level? Isn't this making the old Nova obsolete for people who are willing to pay to be more powerful and turning everyone else into second class captains? This sounds harsh, but I honestly want to know the reason for it. Maybe there is something you have not told us yet, an important piece of the puzzle?

A: The plans are to add ship variants that have cool and versatile powers at all tiers. “More powerful” is debatable and if the forums are any indication there is not a consensus. We want to add new ships with new abilities across the board and simply making “skins” of ships that only look different, but don’t act different is not a goal. We want new ships to feel like new ships with new abilities. There were similar outcries about the Galaxy Dreadnaught when it first came out, but now that there are plenty more ships, the concerns over that ship are not what they used to be.

That said, we are still evaluating the Rhode Island and have delayed the release for at least a week to discuss the ship and ensure it is balanced for what it is intended to be. Also keep in mind that we intend for all ships to be earnable in game via emblems, so arguments that this is only for people who “pay for it” are unfounded.

"More powerful" is not, in this case, debatable. Leaving aside the console entirely, the simple fact is that the ship has identical stats to the same tier Nova class, but has an additional console slot and, most importantly, a higher ranked station allowing one additional power. Something that has more powers than an identically tiered ship is, by definition, more powerful.

Also, making a Tier 2 ship earnable via emblems would be... bad. You can't earn Emblems until Vice Admiral, at which point the fact that a Tier 2 ship is better than its free counterpart is irrelevant to you (other than picking up the console), as you`re three tiers past that.

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Wow. The end of September for a good chunk of the content, and then the end of October for the Featured episodes and the DOFF system? And those are just the tentative dates.

If I wasn't Lifetime, I'd probably be canceling my subscription right now...

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"More powerful" is not, in this case, debatable. Leaving aside the console entirely, the simple fact is that the ship has identical stats to the same tier Nova class, but has an additional console slot and, most importantly, a higher ranked station allowing one additional power. Something that has more powers than an identically tiered ship is, by definition, more powerful.

Also, making a Tier 2 ship earnable via emblems would be... bad. You can't earn Emblems until Vice Admiral, at which point the fact that a Tier 2 ship is better than its free counterpart is irrelevant to you (other than picking up the console), as you`re three tiers past that.

I'm entierly curious as to what forums he's looking at, while there is not a 100% agreement on it being OP or Pay to Win, its quite clear the majority of those posting here are stating it is so, needs to be fixed. And then there's the "It needs to be tier 5 groups" that are also large in number.

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Yay! My question was used!:D

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I do have to give a thank you for the KDF receiving Pengs :) :) :)

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I cant belive the dates.
Its joke? have to wait even more to the new stf' ? "Borg STF Updates (new loot, new group finder tool) (Sep 22)"
And the Feature Episode Series 4 ready to start (Oct 22)

You are killing me, you are losing people, should try one thing WORK FINE

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Wow. The end of September for a good chunk of the content, and then the end of October for the Featured episodes and the DOFF system? And those are just the tentative dates.

If I wasn't Lifetime, I'd probably be canceling my subscription right now...

My thoughts exactly :mad: ...

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¿22 of sep to the update STF? ¿are you joking? Mi god.. dont count with me this month!

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I am rather suprised that the Doff system will not be available till late October. What's the hold up on it?

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Ha ha ha, like Marge Simpson once said, in moments like this, you must just laugh... (silence...)

I just don't care what happens, this is a total disrespect for the ones who PAY for this game.

And yes we PAY, WE PAY...

And then you have to stand the "thank you Cryptic posts".

I am so frustrated and so damn angry that I will stop right now before I give someone the pleasure to ban me for good.

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Wow. The end of September for a good chunk of the content, and then the end of October for the Featured episodes and the DOFF system? And those are just the tentative dates.

If I wasn't Lifetime, I'd probably be canceling my subscription right now...

yes, I know, no other MMO has ever gone 6 - 7 months without adding new PvE content (of course everyone likes to g;loss over the Ground 2.0 combat update, Qo'Nos Zone update, SFA zone update, etc.)...

Oh wait, most other MMOs actually DO take 7 months between content updates (like EVE Online, WoW of late, CoH, DCUO, etc.)

And again, it's not like we haven't seen any updates in the last 7 months. Plus, if they can keep to the projected FE series schedule of no more than two week between series one they start up again; and 9+ series per year going forward, we may never see a similar 'countent drought again. (That said, we'll know in December, after the first new series ends on how well they manage.)

But if you are fed up and don't want to pay to wait (and don't care for the Borg invasion, the Lore missions, etc.); yep, you can unsub for a few months and take a look to see if Cryptic made good - and resub at that point if you're so inclined.

For us LTS folks, in the end, we don't really loose anything by taking a break, or muddling tjhrough per se, as we already paid for the ticket; and are along for the full ride, no matter what.

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Q: Kingdox Are there any plans to create money sinks to remove the mountains of EC every player seems to have?

A: Yes. This is part of our economy update coming over the next several months.


Hey, I like my mountain of EC. Don't mess with my mountain. :D
*Greedily runs and holds on to EC pile worse than Uncle Scrooge holds on to his first dime.*

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yes, I know, no other MMO has ever gone 6 - 7 months without adding new PvE content (of course everyone likes to g;loss over the Ground 2.0 combat update, Qo'Nos Zone update, SFA zone update, etc.)...

Oh wait, most other MMOs actually DO take 7 months between content updates (like EVE Online, WoW of late, CoH, DCUO, etc.)

I read the entire "Ask Cryptic" post, and came to the following conclusion:

Lot's of new stuff are planned, and currently in a somewhat completed state. Release date: Later this year.

What happened to "Feature Episode series 4 to begin shortly after S4 launch" ? Late October is 3.5 months after S4 launch, and 7 months after the completion of Feature Episode series 3.

As for your second part;

In the past 8 months, DCUO has maintained a rather rigorous update schedule releasing content updates nearly on a monthly basis (other than the 1-month delay due to the Sony network hacking earlier this year). RIFT was launched in March of this year, and in that time have managed to release FOUR major content updates. How many have STO had in the same timespan? ONE. And that update wasn't even a "content update" in any meaningful sense of the word. New locales, revamped ground combat and some minor UI updates are not what I would consider super-important, nor meaningful. I, and many others want new missions, new pvp maps, new STFs. Actual mission-type content.

Any S4-related "content" is currently shifted for release to late September and beyond. How many subscribers will the game lose until then? And how many will the game lose once other MMO:s get released later this year? The only way for most companies to maintain subscriber numbers, is to keep the subscribers happy... in the form of new content, bug fixes, new items, new goals etc. All we hear lately is "We got stuff planned, but it's coming later™"

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I'm disappointing and frustrated. I mean, what are going to do for the next month and a half?

At least add startfleet academy to the foundry please :)

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I love this game but I hate to see that the next actual set of for reals content so far away. Did something happen that caused a hiccup in planning that resulted in so long a time without new stuff pushed to the players?

Please make sure the Foundry stays functional, I think this will help a lot.

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At least add startfleet academy to the foundry please :)

¿wich foundry? ¿The one its broken? Hooo.. yes, they broke that yesterdady for the last super patch..


You are killing me cryptic.. you are killing me..

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I don't mean to add to the negativity and I do feel sorry for the pain of transitioning to another company at a crucuial juncture in the game's lifetime.... but the first Answer left a bitter taste in my mouth and I did not enjoy the rest of the Q&A at all.

There is absolutley no incentive for a subsriber to continue subscribing between here and October.
The STFs and Borg (all endgame content) will NOT attract future subscribers and/or provide staying power for lower ranked subsribers. Featured Episodes and the Doff system should have priority. That is my view on it.

I really wish I had not caved into a liftime subscription now.... I admit, I play for free now but I don't think Cryptic Studios are listening to subscribers. They are listening to people who buy through the C-store. Actual content is not a priority.

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Really?? we r going to have to wait til OCTOBER for the next FE series??

its been like the beginning of March since we had the end of the last FE series

I have to agree. To put it simply, this is ridiculous. While I'm sure all those other things will be nice in their own way, they are not the same kind of mission content that this game sorely needs. Having a EIGHT MONTH gap between series 3 and series 4 is inexcusable. I hate to say that, but it really is. Its just beyond sad. For me, that pretty much ruins the entire article, and if I were a regular monthly subscriber I would definitely cancel my subscription after reading that.

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They are listening to lifetimers who buy through the C-store. Actual content is not a priority.

Nope, I'm not being listened too at all it seems so you can count me out of your broad, sweeping, generalisation.

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I'm disappointing and frustrated. I mean, what are going to do for the next month and a half?

They'll be working on all that new content that will ultimately be released buggy and cause many crashes to the desktop.

:)

I have a question that arose from one of the answers given:

Top 3 owned ships (outside of starter ships)

Federation Cruiser
Federation Escort
Federation TOS Cruiser


I though the TOS Cruiser was a starter ship? So what does that mean?

and some other questions ...

This question comes up frequently and previously we’ve stated that we feel older era ships should not be competitive with newer high end ships.

I don't recall those previous statements being made so explicitly. And unfortunately, I don't see this game holding to that at all. Older era ships that are competitive with newer high end ships:

1- T5 Excelsior
2- The Galaxy, Intrepid and Defiant
3- The Vulcan science ship
4- T5 Nebula

All of those are older "era" ships that are competitive with newer ships like an Avenger, an Imperial Class Assault Cruiser, a Prometheus and a Luna.

So I really don't understand where any of that statement comes from since the actions do not back that up in the slightest.

We are still debating whether some form of crafting related retrofit would be possible. If we did do something like this, it would most like be a Season 5 or beyond feature.

Meh, that's all 2012 and later. Why even talk about it now?

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Nope, I'm not being listened too at all it seems so you can count me out of your broad, sweeping, generalisation.


Whatever, I changed my post to "people" to be more politically correct. Call it broad and sweeping all you want but it is the truth.

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The STFs and Borg (all endgame content) will NOT attract future subscribers and/or provide staying power for lower ranked subsribers.

That may be true, but endgame has been neglected for far too long. It's not just about attracting new players/customers, but retaining the ones you have. I for one am very happy to see this get some priority.

They are listening to lifetimers who buy through the C-store. Actual content is not a priority.

Many of the lifetimers who have no doubt purchased items through the Cstore obviously disagree.

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Defiant interior?

Its about time, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

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Came here hoping for good news, left disappointed by yet another "wait another 2 month's its finnished Soon(TM)"

Thank you Cryptic for the massive writeup and I am quit sure you are doing your possible best to make Sto a good game, because thats what you guys did 1 year after the launch when the game turned around and got really good. However all this waiting is really really hard to bear.

At least give priority to the Doff System, id be even happy if the beta of that would hit tribble by late August so there was at least something (even if its on the test server) to actually do with my characters in the game. Farming old missions, STF's and that can only hold so long. My main is decked out completly, alt quit good too and im doing a 3rd and 4th char right now because there is absolutely nothing new to do at endlevel.
But its getting annoying grinding the same missions over and over and over.

So any word on when you might get Doffs on tribble?

Also LT here and id have unsubbed 5 month's ago if it wasnt for that.
Ive been waiting and waiting and waiting for something new hoping that August might bring some new content, but nah all of that late september and late october for the really important stuff.

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So any word on when you might get Doffs on tribble?

The current plan is to push the system to a small closed beta in early September, followed by a general push to Tribble by late September or so, assuming everything goes reasonably smoothly.

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3695179#post3695179

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Hmm, I've been always pro-cryptic and pro-sto dev team, but those release dates (especially the new FE at the END OF OCTOBER?!) get me a little frustrated now. The main reason for that might be that it has been talked about for soooo looooong.
Will there be anything on Star Trek's 45th anniversary at the beginning of September? In my opinion this deserves a big event and not... nothing?!
At this point it just feels like things are getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back again.
I'm just disappointed right now. I hope things will get better in the future though.

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I have to admit I'm a little disappointed myself, but i'd like to think that while we wait, we get some decent previews to at least give us some reason to stick around.

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That may be true, but endgame has been neglected for far too long. It's not just about attracting new players/customers, but retaining the ones you have. I for one am very happy to see this get some priority.

I agree, it should get some priority at least. But I have to wonder just how many players this would help retain currently. Just how many continue to play the Borg and STFs on a daily basis... especailly given how bugged they have been?



Many of the lifetimers who have no doubt purchased items through the Cstore obviously disagree.

Anyone who purchased through the C-store supported the Fluff in the C-store. Cyrptic listened to that support. Simple question... in the past 8 monhts, what has been the most consistent thing regarding STO? Please, don't make me answer that... I hate stating the obvious.

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I have to admit I'm a little disappointed myself, but i'd like to think that while we wait, we get some decent previews to at least give us some reason to stick around.

I asked the following to Heretic in regards to the DOff system:

Mind showing us a preview of the current UI?

His response was:

I will talk to Marketing and see what they'll allow.

In short: Don't count on any previews anytime soon. And after reading this months belated 'Ask Cryptic', don't count on any new content anytime soon either.

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I will say this... I don't see this as any of the Dev's fault. They have truly tried to keep their heads above water and deliver stellar content.

I see this as a ridiculous mismanagment of priorities.... new company or no.

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Fleet action or featured episode??

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Q: SporeLord Any word on how we might be able to earn the Odyssey class ship (Enterprise F) in-game?

A: Current plan is that it will be a mission reward for completing a TBA Fleet Action series.

Was that a typo and meant to say Feature Episode Series or did he really mean Fleet Action Series

Doh, yea, was hoping it would be a series of FEs myself or some combo of FEs / crafting / and some other mission tie ins.

At any rate, will move on and say the following before I log off the forums for the eve.

Will say thanks for touching base with us on what to expect and answering all those questions, it is appreciated.

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More fluff, no substance as usual. It is becoming rather tiresome listening to that of Dan Stahl state the same thing over and over again.

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but what if i cant win at the fleet actions?!?! lol!!

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I have to agree. To put it simply, this is ridiculous. While I'm sure all those other things will be nice in their own way, they are not the same kind of mission content that this game sorely needs. Having a EIGHT MONTH gap between series 3 and series 4 is inexcusable. I hate to say that, but it really is. Its just beyond sad. For me, that pretty much ruins the entire article, and if I were a regular monthly subscriber I would definitely cancel my subscription after reading that.

Here it comes! Here comes content!.... Come Season 4 we'll all be swimming in new content!.......Oops! The content has been temporarily delayed, do to this that, and the other thing we can't talk about, But you just wait!, there's GREAT STUFF coming!...... Any time now, oh boy!, you're gonna go CRAZY!,...GREAT STUFF I TELL YA!....wait,.... no,..... there seems to be a little....The content should be here as soon as by the end of the year!.. Maybe!, but don't hold us to it..... Ohhh but what things are coming! Stay tuned it's gonna be GREAT!!!!! YOU'RE GONNA LLLLLOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE IT!

Wow, just wow, here I got all hopeful hearing the sale to Perfect World was finalized and all. Things are gonna get better I thought.
What do we get? After waiting and waiting and waiting to even get our questions answered?: OH BOY! YOU JUST WAIT, IT'S GONNA BE GREAT!....IT'S COMING!

Guys, I mean no disrespect here, but it's crunch time.
I mean, you could have had play with the devs days, or somethin. I read about all the fun people had with Dan, when Starfleet Academy went live, something like that. Some little fun even, thrown here and there to give us some extra incentive to log on. Start thinkin outside the box here,

I'm really very worried now. Something's definitely askew here.

I've already started to look elsewhere for entertainment, and that's without even knowing it!
My girl said to me the other day, Aren't you gonna go play your game? Even she's noticed more competition for the remote, more so than usual.

You know, for all the patience being asked of us, there should be something special, something really nice, as a special thank you to the customers who've stuck around despite all these delays in content/product. You must know we have other entertainment choices available to us. Soon, EVEN MORE.
That's what I would do, if it were up to me. Just sayin it would be a nice gesture.

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I am actually considering finding a new game to play (which I swore id never do). It seems like there really hasnt been anything to do for the last year on STO. While the weekly episodes are pretty and fun, they provide about 6 hours of gameplay at most and are so far and few between. I find myself these days just logging into esd for about ten minutes a day to listen to a few conversations and then log right back off.

As far as these dates are pushed out I wouldn't even take them with a grain of salt. I'd push them all back at least another 2 or 3 months past when listed if Cryptic has taught us one thing in the lifespan of this game.

Sorry if i'm ranting... I just really had such high hopes for this game :(

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I asked the following to Heretic in regards to the DOff system:



His response was:



In short: Don't count on any previews anytime soon. And after reading this months belated 'Ask Cryptic', don't count on any new content anytime soon either.

Why not? What if they say yes?

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I have a follow up question to this:

Lots of Bajoran assets will be Foundry enabled during the next DS9 themed feature episode series. I’ve also heard rumor of more Bajoran outfits.

Dan, are you aware that nothing from the FEs that your team creates has been added to the foundry? We are not getting anything that is said to be "tagged" for easy inclusion into the toolset. I just wonder here if you are assuming that because your team is working on it, then it will be included in the Foundry.

That hasn't happened at all. We are not getting updates. In fact, our ESD map is ancient, from before the ESD revamp. It's over 6 moths old and severely outdated.

I just want to make sure that you're aware of that. Just because your art team is making stuff and tagging it doesn't mean that it's being included in the toolset.

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will we ever see event on our ships like a mutinies or a insurrection that we have to engage in and put down or talk down. or maybe like thing that brake that we personal have to run out to repair on the ship?

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I am actually considering finding a new game to play (which I swore id never do). It seems like there really hasnt been anything to do for the last year on STO. While the weekly episodes are pretty and fun, they provide about 6 hours of gameplay at most and are so far and few between. I find myself these days just logging into esd for about ten minutes a day to listen to a few conversations and then log right back off.

As far as these dates are pushed out I wouldn't even take them with a grain of salt. I'd push them all back at least another 2 or 3 months past when listed if Cryptic has taught us one thing in the lifespan of this game.

Sorry if i'm ranting... I just really had such high hopes for this game :(

I hear yea, iam already looking for another game as i don't see this improving, it is endless promises that haven't even come about and never will, i think much of what is going on at cryptic is related to mismanagement or what should be focused on and isn't.

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I have to agree. To put it simply, this is ridiculous. While I'm sure all those other things will be nice in their own way, they are not the same kind of mission content that this game sorely needs. Having a EIGHT MONTH gap between series 3 and series 4 is inexcusable. I hate to say that, but it really is. Its just beyond sad. For me, that pretty much ruins the entire article, and if I were a regular monthly subscriber I would definitely cancel my subscription after reading that.

I am with you there.

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Hey, DStahl did not answered my questions regarding Porthos, Talaxians and new clothing...
Who cares about new content?
As soon as I have my Porthos pet with my Talaxian Engineer using some of the best outfits that Neelix used no new content is required.
*I take a sip of some chocolate while writing this... wait, this is not chocolate!!!*
[/SARCASM OFF]

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[/SARCASM ON]
Hey, DStahl did not answered my questions regarding Porthos, Talaxians and new clothing...
Who cares about new content?
As soon as I have my Porthos pet with my Talaxian Engineer using some of the best outfits that Neelix used no new content is required.
*I take a sip of some chocolate while writing this... wait, this is not chocolate!!!*
[/SARCASM OFF]

^^^^^

Exactly this

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When will we able to do our laundry in our ship interiors ? :mad:

Oh, wrong thread and wrong game, the Sims is over there. :eek::D

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Wow. The end of September for a good chunk of the content, and then the end of October for the Featured episodes and the DOFF system? And those are just the tentative dates.

If I wasn't Lifetime, I'd probably be canceling my subscription right now...

Exactly or to be complete honest, i would have canceld my account in april at latest to maybe resub for S4 if i had no Lifetime. But only for one Month because the new Ground Combat is really nice but its no new content. Same for the new locations. Nice but no content. To wait another month and a half for something new and over 2 months and a half for a feature that was anounced for shortly after S4 is just rediculus. I don't know what short means for Cryptic but 3,5 months is not short where i come from.

I don't even know why i still read these reports. Of course i appreciate communication if it is a good one. But these reports are always the same. No straight answers but instead that the stuff is coming later, S5 or 6, it has to be discussed or we have to wait for something and of course it has to be updatet first, they do that for Neverwinter. I think i only read these reports because i still hope that it will change and the features that are talked about are really coming. All of them and not just one or two and the rest 3 to 6 month later if not completly canceld. Remember Poker?

I am very disapointed. Maybe STO will go free to play with the new leadership of PW. And maybe Content will come in the C-Store if the game is F2P. I normaly don't like free 2 play games and the store models of these games. But the good thing about that would be that there would actually come new Content without waiting 8 Month for it and i could play STO without being bored about the franchise i like for decades. On the other Hand, i just preordert another MMO that is coming out this year and that is much anticipated. So forget about paying extra for content and let the Sword glow. ;)

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Oh, and thank you for answering my question, Dan.

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[/SARCASM ON]
Hey, DStahl did not answered my questions regarding Porthos, Talaxians and new clothing...
Who cares about new content?
As soon as I have my Porthos pet with my Talaxian Engineer using some of the best outfits that Neelix used no new content is required.
*I take a sip of some chocolate while writing this... wait, this is not chocolate!!!*
[/SARCASM OFF]

You are forgetting the sombrero and a poncho for my officers.

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Well, i am going to use the foundry.. wait, thats down too =(

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Star Trek Online: loads of potential.

Too bad potential isn't what keeps people around :(

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Well as a newbie I can't speak to expectations or my sense of what timeframe is appropriate. I'm going to subscribe until I decide to stop, then I might come back again later if it's still interesting. That's the MMO biz as far as I'm concerned, and Cryptic had a lock on me for quite a while with COH/COV.

I wanted to mention something in light of this
A: The plans are to add ship variants that have cool and versatile powers at all tiers. “More powerful” is debatable and if the forums are any indication there is not a consensus. We want to add new ships with new abilities across the board and simply making “skins” of ships that only look different, but don’t act different is not a goal. We want new ships to feel like new ships with new abilities. There were similar outcries about the Galaxy Dreadnaught when it first came out, but now that there are plenty more ships, the concerns over that ship are not what they used to be.
And that is the in-game capabilities for the Adv. Heavy Cruiser bear almost no resemblance to the AHC/Excelsior page on the site (http://www.startrekonline.com/ships/excelsior). Unless there's some weird level-scaling I'm not seeing, clearly the AHC was dumbed down to match the normal HC tier. +250 crew and +Transwarp for a ship that isn't as elegant as the Tier 2 cruisers isn't much to get excited about. Whereas my Commander would be flying it now if it actually had the stats as advertised.

Also I'm just starting out a KDF career and it's kind of a shame that the KDF ships aren't also on the website, again unless I'm missing something. Probably small beans/potatoes in the grand scheme of what needs to be done, but I'm a new user who is getting invested into the game, and sometimes that means staring at the website looking for info, and expecting it to be accurate.

Thanks gentlemen.
>B

[Archived Post]

I though the TOS Cruiser was a starter ship? So what does that mean?
It is a starter ship, but it's also a C-Store purchase. I assume it means that it's been such a popular purchase that it was able to make it onto the list, and doesn't count for the "starter ship" exclusion based on being a C-Store purchase.

[Archived Post]

I've already started to look elsewhere for entertainment, and that's without even knowing it!
My girl said to me the other day, Aren't you gonna go play your game? Even she's noticed more competition for the remote, more so than usual.

The same thing has been happening to me as of late, very disapointing, i really don't know what else to say :(

[Archived Post]

I'm kinda underwhelmed. I take solace in the fact that the net cost of playing STO is fifty cents per day.

Say that to yourself and go grind some anomolies. then send the anomolies to me. I'm going to start playing with crafting to fill my time until late September.

Might actually work on getting that cross-faction BOFF from diplomacy, I guess.

Fifty cents a day. Fifty cents a day. It helps. Kind of.

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The dates are what they are and I'd rather share them with you so you have something to hold us accountable to than to keep wondering when it is coming. The team is working as hard every day on the new content. I certainly understand the frustration and share it with you. Nearly all the content is overschedule at this point and we are doing what we can to get it finished and ready to go at the quality bar we set with the last feature episodes.

There is also a lot of other behind the scenes requests that the team has been dealing with, most of which are dealing with the Season 4 code update which was required in order for us to hit the performance/shard goals we have for this holiday.

So your complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It pains me to read, but I'm painting the picture as it is today. If there is any way we can speed up timeframes to release the content, we certainly will.

[Archived Post]

... snip ...

Instead of quoting the entire post, i'll just say I agree completely with everything you just said.

Not preordered the game you speak of yet, but after this month, I might as well.

[Archived Post]

The dates are what they are and I'd rather share them with you so you have something to hold us accountable to than to keep wondering when it is coming. The team is working as hard every day on the new content. I certainly understand the frustration and share it with you. Nearly all the content is overschedule at this point and we are doing what we can to get it finished and ready to go at the quality bar we set with the last feature episodes.

There is also a lot of other behind the scenes requests that the team has been dealing with, most of which are dealing with the Season 4 code update which was required in order for us to hit the performance/shard goals we have for this holiday.

So your complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It pains me to read, but I'm painting the picture as it is today. If there is any way we can speed up timeframes to release the content, we certainly will.

My main concern at this point is what is being done to ensure this doesnt happen again since each season is a pretty big code update?

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So your complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It pains me to read, but I'm painting the picture as it is today. If there is any way we can speed up timeframes to release the content, we certainly will.

Hire more people. Seriously. See if you can get more funding from the new PW masters... whatever it takes. Someone needs to understand the gravity of the situation and get you guys more help.

I'll drop by... do the ol' get out and push method if it'd help. I somehow trick a lot of people into playing foundry missions. =p

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Now if you could just get them to stop introducing breaking updates for the Foundry when they do it, this has been a rough month on the Foundry side of things. Which has me asking, are we going to see anything new on that front in the near term. And honestly by new I mean old, such as any of the items added to the game since roughly march of this year but that have not made their way into the Foundry editor. I would love to see more of the maps available, but even if we could just get the database updated with things like the TOS stuff, or the Sec.31 costumes. I assume its not as simple as making a part of the database 'visible' to the editor, but can we get an idea why this has been so long neglected?

[Archived Post]

Now if you could just get them to stop introducing breaking updates for the Foundry when they do it, this has been a rough month on the Foundry side of things. Which has me asking, are we going to see anything new on that front in the near term. And honestly by new I mean old, such as any of the items added to the game since roughly march of this year but that have not made their way into the Foundry editor. I would love to see more of the maps available, but even if we could just get the database updated with things like the TOS stuff, or the Sec.31 costumes. I assume its not as simple as making a part of the database 'visible' to the editor, but can we get an idea why this has been so long neglected?

Yes please. No one seems to have this job at the moment.

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*twitch* October?!

I-I feel *frumple*.

But I've read Mister Stahl's post. I understand. I don't have to like it, but I understand. I hope the delays will be worth it.

[Archived Post]

The dates are what they are and I'd rather share them with you so you have something to hold us accountable to than to keep wondering when it is coming. The team is working as hard every day on the new content. I certainly understand the frustration and share it with you. Nearly all the content is overschedule at this point and we are doing what we can to get it finished and ready to go at the quality bar we set with the last feature episodes.

There is also a lot of other behind the scenes requests that the team has been dealing with, most of which are dealing with the Season 4 code update which was required in order for us to hit the performance/shard goals we have for this holiday.

So your complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It pains me to read, but I'm painting the picture as it is today. If there is any way we can speed up timeframes to release the content, we certainly will.

I know your Team is not as big as you would like it to be. You said that in an Interview on STOked. And i actually can believe that your Team is working hard. But if an 8 Month waiting time between content is the best you can do, it is simply not good enough. I am sorry that i have to say that but thats how it is in my opinion. STO is one of the most expensive MMO's per Month and for that there should be more to be expected then just to wait Month over Month with nothing new to do. I know that it is not interesting for everyone what one have to pay per month, especially not for us Lifetimers but if i get told that there is simply not enough manpower to speed things up i am asking myself for what the players are paying. The Server alone can not be so expensive or am i wrong? And of course players are frustrated and disapointed if they are waiting for a Feature like the Duty Officer System just to learn from the next Statement that they have to wait longer than the last Statement said.

[Archived Post]

Hire more people. Seriously. See if you can get more funding from the new PW masters... whatever it takes. Someone needs to understand the gravity of the situation and get you guys more help.

I'll drop by... do the ol' get out and push method if it'd help. I somehow trick a lot of people into playing foundry missions. =p

Well that is finally happening now that the deal is complete and we have posted job opportunities and I can say that we have new positions available across the entire scope of the project in order to ramp up.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it can take months for new talent to come up to speed on the full internal editing tools and in some cases that can even be longer and/or not work out.

The encouragement that I can offer is that I've been meeting with Perfect World for some time now and they are very committed to the game (so much so that they paid what they did for Cryptic Studios) and are working with us to address all of the issues and concerns that are (in my opinion) quite obvious.

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.

[Archived Post]

Well that is finally happening now that the deal is complete and we have posted job opportunities and I can say that we have new positions available across the entire scope of the project in order to ramp up.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it can take months for new talent to come up to speed on the full internal editing tools and in some cases that can even be longer and/or not work out.

The encouragement that I can offer is that I've been meeting with Perfect World for some time now and they are very committed to the game (so much so that they paid what they did for Cryptic Studios) and are working with us to address all of the issues and concerns that are (in my opinion) quite obvious.

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.
Any chance you can talk to CBS and convert some of the Foundry missions to in-game content? A lot of people avoid the Foundry - I'm sure you know how many use it and don't use it from your data stream - but even a handful of new missions from the Foundry incorporated into the game for both Factions would help ease some of the strain.

[Archived Post]

So... where's the in-game method for getting that new ship you're putting out? If you're not doing PLay 2 Win, then you need an in-game method.

Cool, you don't get my subscription, you don't get my C-Store money.

I've bought an Excelsior, Open Jackets, MVAM, Ship Skins, and many many more, and you're not getting any more of my money because you lied to me and all of the other players. Suspend the new C-Store items and get to work on some content. There's an idea you can actually make money on.



This post was edited to remove content violating the Atari Community Rules and Policies (http://forums.startrekonline.com/announcement.php?f=120&a=5) ~Q

[Archived Post]

Any chance you can talk to CBS and convert some of the Foundry missions to in-game content? A lot of people avoid the Foundry - I'm sure you know how many use it and don't use it from your data stream - but even a handful of new missions from the Foundry incorporated into the game for both Factions would help ease some of the strain.

One down side, that we actually were discussing with the normal band of SBUGC people, was some of the ideas like Kirkfat's exploration Foundry idea. Any mission we 'turn' over would probably become static in the face of changing foundry technology, and would there be a recourse to update them with newer toys as they come down the line.

[Archived Post]

I know your Team is not as big as you would like it to be. You said that in an Interview on STOked. And i actually can believe that your Team is working hard. But if an 8 Month waiting time between content is the best you can do, it is simply not good enough. I am sorry that i have to say that but thats how it is in my opinion. STO is one of the most expensive MMO's per Month and for that there should be more to be expected then just to wait Month over Month with nothing new to do. I know that it is not interesting for everyone what one have to pay per month, especially not for us Lifetimers but if i get told that there is simply not enough manpower to speed things up i am asking myself for what the players are paying. The Server alone can not be so expensive or am i wrong? And of course players are frustrated and disapointed if they are waiting for a Feature like the Duty Officer System just to learn from the next Statement that they have to wait longer than the last Statement said.

I agree completely with peacekeeper.

The next one will tell us to wait even longer.

I really wish i was jumping for joy, but instead i want to crawl under a blanket :(

Can we get some new faces for posts, like disapointed face, or depressed face.

[Archived Post]

Q: Kingdox Are there any plans to create money sinks to remove the mountains of EC every player seems to have?

A: Yes. This is part of our economy update coming over the next several months.


I would like a little more detail on this. What is a money sink? Are my hard earned Energy credits going to disappear if they are over a certain amount? I have no problem with "combining" ALOT of the in-game currency, I just don't want to loose ANY EC.

[Archived Post]

<Snip>
We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.

I understand that and it sounds great for the STO that is 6 months from now. I'm really afraid that people may be getting bored at a critical time where major competitors are just around the corner.

Maybe schedule some kind of short term update that will keep at least something materializing that's more than what you have planned between now and late sept/late oct? I have a couple ideas but I've never worked on the actual dev side before (just a lowly tester) so I'm not sure how possible it'd be.

[Archived Post]

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip.

Just to be completely clear, when exactly do you mean when you say "now"? It doesnt *seem* like you mean as of today, as the next FE series is still over 2 months away. As of what date do you mean you'll be able to crank out content at a pretty good clip? And what is your personal definition of "good clip"?

[Archived Post]

I must admit I'm disappointed at the tentative release dates, like everyone else here.

What I personally got out of this Ask Cryptic was that the sale of the company, created tremendous problems for Cryptic that they haven't been able to talk about, and still can't talk about really. If you read between the lines you can sense DStahl's frustration, and there are more concrete hints at what has really been going on:

Players have noticed that our previous pace has been interrupted and while I can’t go into details as to why that is, the important thing to take away is that the team that works on this game has been working on content and updates non-stop.

Translation: Atari screwed us over by deciding to sell us all of a sudden. All our funds to hire the new people we needed to meet our original schedule for content production went out the window. Only our existing team of people were now available, and the sale added significantly to our workload because of corporate bureaucracy, legal paperwork, endless meetings, last minute attempts to milk the game for as much money as possible (see recent C-Store sale), etc.

Cryptic Studios and more importantly Perfect World, are fully committed to STO and ensuring that we have lots of new content in the works. Anecdotally, we are also now hiring.
Check out the Cryptic Studios career page for job opportunities.

Translation: Now that we have a company that appreciates MMOs behind us we finally can get back to hiring the people we need to create the content we've had planned for the last 5 months. Unfortunately, this comes too late to prevent significant delays to all our planned updates.

Q: ElCapitan1701 Are we getting new music into the game?

A: This is a top priority we have with the audio team. In addition to continuing to pursue rights to use existing Star Trek music (which surprisingly, isn’t easy), we have asked for additional scores to be added to STO as soon as possible.

Translation: Atari refused to give us any money for music. Now we're hoping that will change but it remains to be seen if we'll be able to get any rights for new music without paying a crap load for it. At least we can now hire a musician to add to our "audio team" (one guy who's been working mostly on Neverwinter the last year or so).

Q: teralkaar About French and German translation of STO: Can we have a wiki/forum dedicated to translation STO where Cryptic post the text to translate of the episodes. once those receive proper translation then they would be integrated in the game?

A: The real question is, where are the FR and DE translations for STO!? Now that we are with Perfect World, this is a big topic of discussion as PW values having top notch localization. We both agree that we either keep the game English or we do an excellent job with the localization of text. Nobody wants to have a “crappy” localization put into the game. Expect movement on this issue in the coming months. I wouldn’t be surprised to see STO localized into more languages.

Translation: Since our parent company is now based in China they realize that not everyone speaks English even as a second language. Perfect Worlds wants to milk the game for more money through new markets as soon as possible.

Q: Cosmic_One Dan, you keep saying more transparency from the Devs is the order of business yet there are very few posts from dev on the forum - especially with the S4 launch. The only way to calm a ranting community is for there to be a Dev presence on the forum regularly. You close down the office for the weekend without telling us why, which leads to rampant speculation, you have no Dev or Moderator presence on the forum all weekend - which leads to more ranting and rampant speculation.

A: The last month has been pretty brutal in terms of vacations, injuries, people OOO for one reason or another, hiring freezes, negotiations that required silence, etc. In addition, we’ve all been very heads down trying to get new content completed so that you can enjoy some fresh new missions and updates.

Now that the announcement has been made and we are beginning our integration with Perfect World, you can expect more communication to flow and for a greater presence from Devs on the Forums.

Translation: The sale of the company has created major stress causing everyone to take their paid vacation over the last couple of months, just to get away from it all. We also have been struggling to keep up with all the bugs in Season 4 that were not discovered until it hit Holodeck. We've grown quiet because we're busy fixing bugs, can't legally talk about how much we hate Atari, and we're terribly overworked. Now that the sale is over, and people are getting back from vacation expect more developers in the forums.

Q: Field_Admiral Like the space map creator in the foundry, will we ever have the option to create custom interior maps? Instead of taking a premade map and adding walls and décor to make it look like our own, we would start with a blank grid then add walls, or premade rooms of different sizes, hallway sections, and/or windows depending if it’s a ship, ground building, or station map. This would give us the tools to give our maps an original look and feel unique to our mission.

A: This is a goal for Season 5 when we plan to release player built and run Starbases. Currently, Neverwinter is pioneering this tech and have the ability for players to create interiors, so we plan to merge that feature into our game as part of our Foundry update in S5.

Translation: Much of Cryptic has been primarily focused on Neverwinter because it's a new game and there is more money to be made with it than STO or Champions. On the other hand the technology being developed for Neverwinter will eventually see it's way into Star Trek Online, but not without bringing a lot of bugs with it.

Conclusion: Cryptic is great, but they are a company that is seeking to make money like any other. They also don't have autonomy. The sale of the company created a lot of problems for them.

On the bright side, Perfect Worlds is probably a better parent company than Atari, who where (and are) complete morons. But it will take a good 3-4 months before we really see the benefit of this transition.

[Archived Post]

“More powerful” is debatable and if the forums are any indication there is not a consensus.

This post was edited to remove content violating the Atari Community Rules and Policies (http://forums.startrekonline.com/announcement.php?f=120&a=5) ~Q

[Archived Post]

I didn't see anything in the report about changes/destruction of kerrat. So......what's the deal there?

[Archived Post]

There was definitely a lot of information, and a lot to look forward too, in this Ask Cryptic. Unfortunately, I still have nothing to do. Though once the Borg stuff comes out that should help, at least until it becomes repetitive.

But I am going to try and look on the bright side:

1) The drought it almost over.
2) We will, hopefully, never see another drought like this again.

[Archived Post]

That's a damn dirty lie and you know it.

Agreed. They should be honest with themselves and stop being greedy.

I guess Cryptic can just see the proof in the pudding when nobody is there to buy it except lifers that have only expensive C-Store Crap to suffice with as content.

[Archived Post]

Really?? we r going to have to wait til OCTOBER for the next FE series??

its been like the beginning of March since we had the end of the last FE series

I have to agree with this one, Dan. I realize you all have been under strength for the last year, but I'm sorry, most folks don't care. I work an office job just like you guys do. When I fall behind on a project, or a product, my client's don't care that I had staffing, or computer issues. I don't get multiple chances to correct mistakes, or make up for blunders. We're your clients, we're paying for access to the game and the additional content that has been promised since Season 1.

I've been patient. I've been quiet, I've been supportive. October isn't acceptable for a project that was supposed to be released every month. Every month a new story line. That's how Featured Series were advertised to the player base back when the Defari episodes first hit live. I think a lot of people are going to continue to give Cryptic chances to correct this, but I also think you all are going to lose clients over this.

On top of all these promised changes, I'd really like to see a strong marketing campaign (TV, Magazine, websites, etc) designed to bring in newer players. I really have a feeling you'll need it.

[Archived Post]

The dates are what they are and I'd rather share them with you so you have something to hold us accountable to than to keep wondering when it is coming. The team is working as hard every day on the new content. I certainly understand the frustration and share it with you. Nearly all the content is overschedule at this point and we are doing what we can to get it finished and ready to go at the quality bar we set with the last feature episodes.

There is also a lot of other behind the scenes requests that the team has been dealing with, most of which are dealing with the Season 4 code update which was required in order for us to hit the performance/shard goals we have for this holiday.

So your complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It pains me to read, but I'm painting the picture as it is today. If there is any way we can speed up timeframes to release the content, we certainly will.

As frustrated as I am, as well as many others, I do understand "things happen." And for many, this is turning into a "breaking point" moment for this game. Others have either started losing the patients asked of us, or are completely without it by now. Alot of it does have to do with the lack of content, & Foundry being down. But another aspect is simply lack of information - not knowing what's going on. I'm not speaking about internal company communications, or legally protected documents, but the general idea of what the plan is for the future of this game. Right now, to be completely honest, it appears to be months inbetween something new. You're asking for us to to be patient a little while longer. So be it, as there seems to be nothing any of us can ultimately do to speed things up.

Grand Nagus asked the most important question, I can think of right now, about how will content droughts like this be avoided in the future. My question, now, is what is the possiblitiy of a statement from CBS & Perferct World regarding their own vision & hopes for this game? I may be asking too much, it may even be nothing more then wishful thinking. But I feel hearing something from all parties involved will give a better picture to what we can actually look forward to. The STO Community & the Cryptic Devs communicate more then what I'd expect from any game. But CBS & Perfect World are apart of this equation too.

I've been going on blind faith when it comes to this game. I feel others have to. We're already waiting as patiently as possible, considering the situation. When it is possible, a few statements from the other two sides of this sandbox might put things into a better perceptive for the community. It certainly can't make things worse right now.

[Archived Post]

...That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.

dstahl thank you for being honest about the situation. I truly hope that the content coming in the next 3 months isn't too little too late, I haven't logged in consistently for months and that isn't likely to change without new content and with a foundry system that is broken more than it is working. I realize that I'm not telling you anything you don't already know and I hope that things get better. I hope when they do I'm still around to see them and I really hope I can find someone I know that will still be around to play the game with me.

[Archived Post]

One down side, that we actually were discussing with the normal band of SBUGC people, was some of the ideas like Kirkfat's exploration Foundry idea. Any mission we 'turn' over would probably become static in the face of changing foundry technology, and would there be a recourse to update them with newer toys as they come down the line.

If it received the same support that an official mission did or was exempted from Foundry mission-breaking changes, I would gladly surrender control of my missions and let every last employee at Cryptic tinker with it. I feel zero possessiveness towards my missions and, frankly, wish that they could just be permanently published and out of my hands as opposed to feeling the need to refine them every time a tech update happens.

I want to create and move on, not turn into George Lucas.

[Archived Post]

Just to be completely clear, when exactly do you mean when you say "now"? It doesnt *seem* like you mean as of today, as the next FE series is still over 2 months away. As of what date do you mean you'll be able to crank out content at a pretty good clip? And what is your personal definition of "good clip"?

I think by now, he means STARTING now. As in, a lot of the new content at this point is onlyt now ready to leave the drawing board but also that the gaps should be fewer.

[Archived Post]

Well that is finally happening now that the deal is complete and we have posted job opportunities and I can say that we have new positions available across the entire scope of the project in order to ramp up.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it can take months for new talent to come up to speed on the full internal editing tools and in some cases that can even be longer and/or not work out.

The encouragement that I can offer is that I've been meeting with Perfect World for some time now and they are very committed to the game (so much so that they paid what they did for Cryptic Studios) and are working with us to address all of the issues and concerns that are (in my opinion) quite obvious.

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.

I think this is one of the most honest posts we've seen since the sale of Cryptic was announced. I'm ecstatic that the sale is finally complete and that Perfect Worlds has more appreciation and vision for STO (and Cryptic in general). Cryptic has a winner with STO but desperately needs more people to properly maintain and improve it. I sincerely hope that Perfect Worlds is willing to make the investment necessary to do this.

As for the code merge with Season 4, I'm a developer myself and have some experience with maintaining separate but related code bases. It is very tricky business and theoretically not the best way to do things, but for business reasons is often required. Because of my experience with these things I don't get too excited with the bugs in Season 4. They may be disappointing from a players point of view, but it's much more complicated than those without programming experience, may appreciate. Try to be patient with the bugs folks.

[Archived Post]

If it received the same support that an official mission did or was exempted from Foundry mission-breaking changes, I would gladly surrender control of my missions and let every last employee at Cryptic tinker with it. I feel zero possessiveness towards my missions and, frankly, wish that they could just be permanently published and out of my hands as opposed to feeling the need to refine them every time a tech update happens.

I want to create and move on, not turn into George Lucas.

I REALLY want to see this happen. I think you're attitude is a perfect example of the type of Foundry authors that could be of benefit to the entire game. BTW I also had this idea and posted it months ago. That's part of the reason I believe so strongly in it. :)

[Archived Post]

Q: Kingdox Are there any plans to create money sinks to remove the mountains of EC every player seems to have?

A: Yes. This is part of our economy update coming over the next several months.


I would like a little more detail on this. What is a money sink? Are my hard earned Energy credits going to disappear if they are over a certain amount? I have no problem with "combining" ALOT of the in-game currency, I just don't want to loose ANY EC.

They're not taking your EC away.

A "money sink" is something that you'll want to use your EC on. Currently the problem is that EC is so easy to come by, without a whole lot of things to spend it on. The result is that there's very little reason to even think about what you're spending EC on with regular in-game items, and the prices players charge for items on the Exchange skyrocket to the millions because players just accrue and accrue and accrue these EC.

So the plan is to add more things that we'll want to "sink" our EC into instead of just hoarding it to the point that EC is worthless currency (like it currently is).

[Archived Post]

I, like most of the other posters, find the continuing delays to be disheartening. STO is my first and so far only MMO, and it pains me to see the schedule as it now stands. I have neither the desire nor the time to play another MMO, but I know that there are many STO players for which this is not the case. With the impending release of another major Sci-FI IP-based MMO, I fear a mass exodus from STO. Which will really, really suck.

I understand the complexities of the PW acquisition of Cryptic threw your schedules and workforce out-of-whack, and I sympathize. That doesn't change the fact, however, that these delays could not have come at a worse time. Do you have any plans to try to entice the playerbase to stick around until your new staffers get up-to-speed? On a related note, can we possibly see a de-emphasis on development for the C-Store for a while? That might go a long way towards generating some positive feelings amongst the user base.

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Well that is finally happening now that the deal is complete and we have posted job opportunities and I can say that we have new positions available across the entire scope of the project in order to ramp up.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it can take months for new talent to come up to speed on the full internal editing tools and in some cases that can even be longer and/or not work out.

The encouragement that I can offer is that I've been meeting with Perfect World for some time now and they are very committed to the game (so much so that they paid what they did for Cryptic Studios) and are working with us to address all of the issues and concerns that are (in my opinion) quite obvious.

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.

Thank you. I appreciate all the work that has been put into this game so far and I'm looking forward to "The Undiscovered Country" ;)

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The dates are what they are and I'd rather share them with you so you have something to hold us accountable to than to keep wondering when it is coming. The team is working as hard every day on the new content. I certainly understand the frustration and share it with you. Nearly all the content is overschedule at this point and we are doing what we can to get it finished and ready to go at the quality bar we set with the last feature episodes.

There is also a lot of other behind the scenes requests that the team has been dealing with, most of which are dealing with the Season 4 code update which was required in order for us to hit the performance/shard goals we have for this holiday.

So your complaints aren't falling on deaf ears. It pains me to read, but I'm painting the picture as it is today. If there is any way we can speed up timeframes to release the content, we certainly will.

I suspect a drop in customers will make the shard performance goals easier to achieve.

My takeaway here is that I may as well not bother with STO until Thanksgiving - by the time the inevitable schedule slips occur, and the equally inevitable bugs have been repaired, that should be about right.

Have a good autumn, I'll check back this winter and see if things have improved.

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Well that is finally happening now that the deal is complete and we have posted job opportunities and I can say that we have new positions available across the entire scope of the project in order to ramp up.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it can take months for new talent to come up to speed on the full internal editing tools and in some cases that can even be longer and/or not work out.

The encouragement that I can offer is that I've been meeting with Perfect World for some time now and they are very committed to the game (so much so that they paid what they did for Cryptic Studios) and are working with us to address all of the issues and concerns that are (in my opinion) quite obvious.

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.


Hey Dan, I just want to say I've always appreciated it when you guys are up front, and give us the bad and 'not so great' news along with the good news. I really hope that trend will continue (and it must case the Marcom folks and you a lot of headaches); but again, I for one do appreciate the overall openess the STO Dev team has with the playerbase at large.

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I saw there was the high request for Androids and the reasoning behind there not being there is relation to the 'Data / Lore / B4' styled androids...

What about ones based on the group seen in 'I, Mudd' They always seemed to be manufacturing themselves. :D

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add my disappointment to the pile. No major updates till fall is going to be tough. I don't know how Cryptic expects to keep subs with this little meat to work with and the Fall season being the time when all the new video games get released for the holidays.

I know what it is like when a new company shows up to to buy you, people start vanishing and the office soon turns into a ghost town. You have to write reports about something you already told them and often end up sending the same email 3 times to 3 different people. Its a drain on resources and I expect that is what has happened these past few months.

I really hope PW wants to pick up STO and pretty much re-launch the game in other regions and starts throwing money at the team to get it back up to snuff.

I'm glad to see a 600 day reward and that we'll get four more 100 day rewards past that. Thanks for also answering my question. Can Cryptic at least keep the player base busy with stuff that already exists? Where are the pre-order items still missing from the Cstore? When can we craft fighters and new horta?

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Concerning the RI:
A: The plans are to add ship variants that have cool and versatile powers at all tiers. “More powerful” is debatable and if the forums are any indication there is not a consensus. [...] There were similar outcries about the Galaxy Dreadnaught when it first came out, but now that there are plenty more ships, the concerns over that ship are not what they used to be.

I have a twitch in the eye and it is not one of the good sort. There is no debate if it is more powerful. The debate is about it being sold in C-Store and that it doesn't matter to be P2W because it has no influence on endgame, but everyone is aware of it being more powerful than a normal T2. How couldn't they? You get a new console and an additional Lt sci skill for free (or a ship ability and the skill if you prefer). Saying this is not more powerful is (sorry to say this) an affront. I know it is still being worked on so you might know of changes we are currently not aware of but for now it leaves a bad taste.

Also the comparison with the GX is lacking. The GX at least has one console less than the other cruisers and only the same amount of BO-powers. Also its low turn rate balances the phaser lance a bit. For me it's still a bit unbalanced (state wise) but you at least tried to give it a drawback and keep it balanced with the other T5s.



The rest of the Ask Cryptic:
Some interesting answers but I'm sorry to hear of all the delays. :( I have to think of ST7... when will we get the Doff system... in September (at least for Tribble), when will we get new Ground dailys... in September, when will we get a new Currency system... in September, when will we get the STF update no wait let me guess September? What you left the starbase without new content? *facepalm* ;)

Anyway September sounds to be an interesting month for STO. *crosses fingers for no more delays* :)

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I saw there was the high request for Androids and the reasoning behind there not being there is relation to the 'Data / Lore / B4' styled androids...

What about ones based on the group seen in 'I, Mudd' They always seemed to be manufacturing themselves. :D

I'd be happy with Ruk-style androids...

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ruk

So... Reading further:

Q: Zarkonis Any chance of another temporal-type mission where we have to go back in time once again? Either 30-some odd years ago, to help Sisko at DS9, or even further, to help Archer against the Xindi?
A: Since we have plans to put the Ambassador class ship into the game via a future Feature Episode, I’d imagine that would involve some sort of time travel ala Yesterday’s Enterprise.

I didn't realize the talk about the fate of the Enterprise-C involved us going BACK. Does this mean we'll see the ability to turn off Wrath of Khan jacket sweaters or... even better, to mix and match collars between closed jacket uniforms? They really need no-collar Enterprise-C style uniforms and with the ability to remove the belt added awhile back (and even use the TNG combadge for the Jack Crusher look), it's really just a matter of removing that darned collar. (And when we can, I'll create some Foundry missions that use it.)

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Let me add, with the Rhode Island:

One could debate whether the CONSOLE makes it more powerful as you do have to sacrifice a device slot for it and it has some real limits

What's not debatable is that the bridge officer stations and device slots DO make it more powerful.

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From the latest Ask Cryptic:

Q: Akalayus Are there any plans on adding android BOFFs?
A: We have been looking to add androids both as playable species and as BOFFs. The concern from CBS is that androids of “Data” caliber are very rare and should not be prevalent in the game. What this means is that we need to come up with something different than a Soong-type android that is not as powerful or reliable as Data. Once we land on android traits that do not interfere with IP or are OP, you can expect us to add androids both as a playable species and BOFFs.

On the subject of androids, here's what I would like:

We have it as part of the story that Bruce Maddox has worked on reverse-engineering the Soong-type android.

Introduce Maddox-type androids, which are his somewhat faulty work in progress.

One way of making them distinct and keeping them still tied to Data conceptually would be to have them be skinless. Look at how much (sometimes conflicting) reference there is for what Soong types look like underneath their skin.

Conceptually, I think it would show CBS that these androids are based on Data, are rooted in the IP, and are less advanced. Which should walk that fine line between being Trek enough to warrant inclusion without threatening Data's unique status.

Beyond this... I would make the Maddox-type android a craftable BO. And one feature of both playable Maddox types and the craftable BOs might be upgrades over time.

Maybe they start with heightened strength and low accuracy but there are devices which correct for their flaws.

Maybe taking a cue from the Decipher TCG's representation of Soong-Types, they have few traits but it can be reprogrammed. So maybe whereas the average character in STO has four traits, a Maddox type would be locked into:

- Superior Sturdy
- Superior Physical Strength
- A third trait of inferior quality, that may be re-selected at any "cybernetics specialist" on starbases, who reprograms them. Can be changed at no cost, as needed, representing reprogramming. But, like I say, it's low quality and they have no fourth trait.
- A fourth trait (Efficient) which must be unlocked via crafting.

Longterm, maybe craftable "skin" that allows them to look like other species. Part of the fun would be their pursuit of humanity while being far behind even Data or B-4 on that regard.

I'd also suggest giving the Maddox types glowing blue eyes. It differentiates them from Data's gold eyes. It makes them look less human. It evokes the blue computer consoles in STO. And what I have in mind here is not straight glowing blue but human eyes with irises that have a blue bloom effect. Unearthly but not overpowering.

Oh... And to make the Maddox-types special, have Lore come back in a Maddox-type body.

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Q: Kingdox Are there any plans to create money sinks to remove the mountains of EC every player seems to have?

A: Yes. This is part of our economy update coming over the next several months.


I would like a little more detail on this. What is a money sink? Are my hard earned Energy credits going to disappear if they are over a certain amount? I have no problem with "combining" ALOT of the in-game currency, I just don't want to loose ANY EC.

They're not taking your EC away.

A "money sink" is something that you'll want to use your EC on. Currently the problem is that EC is so easy to come by, without a whole lot of things to spend it on. The result is that there's very little reason to even think about what you're spending EC on with regular in-game items, and the prices players charge for items on the Exchange skyrocket to the millions because players just accrue and accrue and accrue these EC.

So the plan is to add more things that we'll want to "sink" our EC into instead of just hoarding it to the point that EC is worthless currency (like it currently is).

For example, using a rather popular fantasy mmo, you have a cost to repair your equipment, auctions have fees, skills cost currency, stuff like that.

The game keeps adding currency as players play, but without enough sinks the money just piles up and eventually becomes rather 'worthless'.

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Inflation is the bane of almost all MMORPGs.

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As I read the last "Ask Cryptic" it occurs to me, that there are low spirits on both sides - the players and the devs.

I recognize the effort of the STO team making the game better and better and i also still love the strait way they are dealing with the community. It`s nice to see that dstahl doesn`t do "duck and cover" but instead answers the critical issues. I also can emphasize, that motivation goes down, when things you produced are less valued from community. So we need to break through the circle bringing us down alltogether:

1. klingon community has to recognize the continued efforts of making them a equal species.
2. FED commnity needs to look back and remember where we started - and where we get. This game already was dead when perpetual fails - could you imagine to get a startrek game with this quality at that point?
3. Everything Cryptic has done has been with much passion - thanks for that.
4. Cryptic needs to do less tech, less integreation, less work for other cryptic projects and just more content.

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On the Androids question, didn't Harry Mudd have Androids at one point back in TOS? I think there were a couple of other androids that showed up back in the TOS period that might be dredged up. I don't recall them being of Data caliber.

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Q: Kingdox Are there any plans to create money sinks to remove the mountains of EC every player seems to have?

A: Yes. This is part of our economy update coming over the next several months.


I would like a little more detail on this. What is a money sink? Are my hard earned Energy credits going to disappear if they are over a certain amount? I have no problem with "combining" ALOT of the in-game currency, I just don't want to loose ANY EC.

As a few other posters pointed out, a "sink" is a means to remove money from the economy.

Since someone asked, now I can get into my hobby . . . economics. :)

Money enters the economy through a source and it leaves through a sink. A source is a means by which money is created. When you sell an item at a store and get EC for it, that's a source. A sink is a means by which money is removed. When you buy an item for EC at a store, that's a sink.

Importantly, a process is not a sink if the money just changes hands without actually leaving the economy. Thus, the exchange is not a sink -- that money is just moving to another player, it's not going away.

Now, the problem with a lot of MMO economies is that they are rampantly inflationary, because they have lots of sources (every time you complete a mission/kill a mob/sell a loot drop you get money from the ether) but not enough sinks. The trick is to have sinks that are natural and useful without necessarily being burdensome to the player.

To take the example of another popular MMO, you might have sinks in the form of fast travel (say, flying somewhere instead of walking), or repairing your damaged gear, or paying a listing/sale cost on an auction house. These cost you money and take that money out of play. You *can* play without making use of any of these services -- but the game can be much more tedious and/or difficult. So, players are incentivized to do these things, which sinks money out of the economy and prevents runaway inflation.

In STO, we are generally short on EC sinks. Let's face it -- the stuff you can buy with EC is usually not on par with what you can craft, or get with exploration/pvp currency, or buy on the exchange. So there's no reason to spend EC, except for stuff that you get on the exchange (like bridge officers or very rare gear) or on various incidental "quality of life" costs, like changing your costume or customizing your ship.

Since any player has a recurring source of EC by just playing the game, the game needs a recurring sink. Ideally this means some kind of service or good that you want to pay EC for on a regular basis, but not something that makes the game unplayable if you can't or don't pay it. And you never want to charge your main currency (EC in this case) for some mandatory convenience like bank storage.

I have some ideas in this regard, but the full implementation is a ways off.

One of the other controls on the economy is the diffusion of currency. For instance, there's a lot of different currencies for exploration and pvp -- they're all based around rank bands. So, you can get a bunch of lieutenant-level exploration badges, but these are worthless to you once you rank up, because they only buy lieutenant-level gear. Also, they aren't tradeable. So, no inflation -- you just wind up with leftover bags of currencies that are not valuable to you. To address this issue, it would be preferable to do some kind of more universal currency, the same way that some other games merge their plethoras of badges, marks, and medals down into one. This requires some careful scaling to make sure that everyone can earn enough to get the things they want, but that they don't feel like they should just save the currency they get at low levels and wait before spending it.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking in this regard, so I hope that this gives you a slightly better idea of what goes on in design terms in MMO economics.

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ok given how b roken and unpopular fleet actions are you have to be kidding me cryptic. making us do content we don't enjoy if we want a cool reward isn't the way to do it. I'm dissappointed in this decision.

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Star Trek Online: loads of potential.

Too bad potential isn't what keeps people around :(

It's like energy. The higher the potential, the greater the fall.

You cannae change the laws of physics!

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i think ill actually wait and see the content before i proclaim it a fail. i for one enjoy fleet actions and considering there is going to be a proper reward in terms of a ship, i can see it being popular with people wanting to do them.

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ok given how b roken and unpopular fleet actions are you have to be kidding me cryptic. making us do content we don't enjoy if we want a cool reward isn't the way to do it. I'm dissappointed in this decision.

I think it'd be good to make the acquisition of an odyssey class even more difficult and unpleasant than that if it's to be a mark of prestige. I say unlock the Odyssey for the character at 7000-9000 Accolade points.

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I’m a huge fan of V’Ger myself and have been working with CBS to dig deeper into the possibility of doing an origin or follow up story to the V’Ger ship creators.

Hello Transformers (!!!) ... errr , I mean : " Voyager 6 emerged from the black hole in what was believed to have been the far side of the galaxy, and fell into the gravitational field of a planet populated by living machines. "


In addition, you’ll be able to create private STFs queues where you can invite KDF and FEDs into the same team for the STF.

Yes ! Jesus H. Christ , YES !!! :)


The concern from CBS is that androids of “Data” caliber are very rare and should not be prevalent in the game. What this means is that we need to come up with something different than a Soong-type android that is not as powerful or reliable as Data.

Hello :

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/What_Are_Little_Girls_Made_Of%3F_(episode)

We are adding more assimilated NPC species as part of the Borg Invasion content -(snip)- don’t expect these to be a part of Aliengen.

Awww ... sad panda ... :o

Top 3 Bridge Officers:
Female Andorian Tactical Officer

Hmmm , I wonder if this is because ppl like them , or because they don't swich their initial bridge officers that much ?

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i appreciate finally getting those dates, although they are pretty horrific.

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I think it'd be good to make the acquisition of an odyssey class even more difficult and unpleasant than that if it's to be a mark of prestige. I say unlock the Odyssey for the character at 7000-9000 Accolade points.

Why? Do you think you are special there? Oops I get it also/

Yeah that's right I match your points and even have more.....

How about we give it out to people that are above you? There are several, you are not the "best", sounds good huh?

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...If you read between the lines you can sense DStahl's frustration, and there are more concrete hints at what has really been going on:

While I can't confirm or deny any of your speculation, I did find your insight to be entertaining...

We have been juggling a lot of different priorites over the last several months, and personally, there were days when I was certain the deal would go through and then the next day completely certain it wouldn't go through (given my limited insight into the dealings between those two companies). That sort of uncertainty caused a lot of confusion in schedules and planning on my part since the two companies (from my perspective) have different goals and requirements for STO to build towards.

Ultimately, I had to focus the team on long term goals that would benefit STO while remaining agile enough to deal with shifting priorities and the what-ifs of the deal going either way. The toughest part being a hiring freeze during a time when there was some key attrition in positions that were very important to the operations and ongoing development of our games.

So when I say that we should be better off now, a lot of that is my own certainty kicking in due to the fact that I know where STO is headed with Cryptic Studios and Perfect World. The lifting of the hiring freeze and the ability to backfill key positions will allow STO the resources it needs to get on track with the type of content I've wanted (well that we've all wanted) to see regularly.

Things haven't gone perfectly, and there frankly has been stress, but one thing I adore about the STO team is that this hard working small crew of individuals pours their lives into the game every day. It is amazing to walk around months after release and see people still scrambling to add and squeeze new things into the game whenever possible (thank Thomas the Cat for the Unique Particle icons for example - which was something I mentioned in passing months ago and wasn't on any schedule but made it in this week).

With a good chunk of the team headed to Vegas this weekend for the 45th Anniversary Celebration of Star Trek, I can honestly say that the team loves this game and loves Star Trek. We want it to be continually better. We mess up. We push bugs, but we also make great content when we can focus on it and certainly communicate as much as we can to ensure that you know how we working on this game.

So basically - thanks for all the comments (good and bad). If you didn't care, you wouldn't even be here posting and reading this stuff. So thank you for making STO a priority.

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I have to agree. To put it simply, this is ridiculous. While I'm sure all those other things will be nice in their own way, they are not the same kind of mission content that this game sorely needs. Having a EIGHT MONTH gap between series 3 and series 4 is inexcusable. I hate to say that, but it really is. Its just beyond sad. For me, that pretty much ruins the entire article, and if I were a regular monthly subscriber I would definitely cancel my subscription after reading that.

My main concern at this point is what is being done to ensure this doesnt happen again since each season is a pretty big code update?

Really?? we r going to have to wait til OCTOBER for the next FE series??

its been like the beginning of March since we had the end of the last FE series

I cant belive the dates.
Its joke? have to wait even more to the new stf' ? "Borg STF Updates (new loot, new group finder tool) (Sep 22)"
And the Feature Episode Series 4 ready to start (Oct 22)

You are killing me, you are losing people, should try one thing WORK FINE

I am disappointed.
As a university student, i was looking forward to summer as a time to relax. Part of that relaxation for me was the promise of the Doff system and next FE hitting during the summer, but now, with the all the delays, those two items are scheduled to hit during crunch time at school, when i will have very little time to spend on leisure.
I understand that cryptic has been hectic lately with bug hunting season 4 and the transfer between atari and perfect world, but still i can't help feeling disappointed. Not angry just disappointed.


I agree with the above posts. This is not acceptable this long of a wait. I feel we as players are entitled to some kind of compensation. In fact I demand it. I understand being patience, but this is an example of the community being mislead and our trust taking advantage of. Season 4 has been one of the most disappointing times ever in STO. The season launched in July with promises and we are getting these promises fulfilled regarding features people have been salivating about forever for like the Borg Invasion, Doffs, FEs, and STF updates in late September and late October that were expected around July with Season 4's launch? Again, that is not acceptable. It's inexcusable. I've been supporting the game generously from day one with my lifetime subscription, buying all kinds of different game boxes to collect the preorder items, and buying things from the C store up the wazoo.

This Ask Cryptic was about stuff that is on the way, ok fine. My question is what is being done NOW at this current time to rectify the situation? As a player I want to log into the game tomorrow and feel better about this whole thing. What can you do Cryptic for the community to feel good about the game NOW, not down the line in Septemebr or October, but NOW? Throw us scraps even, I can't take this in-game lull anymore without something. My enjoyment in STO is being and has been severely hampered. Something needs to be done about this TOMORROW not weeks from now in September or October. Make it happen, it's good customer service and a way to apologize for these atrocities.

I'm getting off my soapbox now, I needed to get that rant off my chest, it's been building for a while.

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i appreciate finally getting those dates, although they are pretty horrific.

I worry for your sanity if they have to push them back. :(

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1) I am happy that working with perfect world gives Cryptic better resources. This game definitely needs it, and the quality of the season 4 launch and the content delays prove that.

2) But at the same time, I don't know if the game will work for me as much as it did before. New content, a larger team, less bugs is all good. But if I see stuff like the Rhode Island, I am worried. It has reekings of pay-to-win and giving up any semblance of game balance. And also adding some in-game methods at an unspecified future date is not removing the potential for pay-to-win for me. Especially when the existing retrofits are very hard to get in-game, and come with a severe drawbacks. They are not reclaimable, and they cannot be claimed on other characters.
It makes me question if the existing team understands its own system, if it seems somewhat debatable to dstahl that adding a Lt. power and a console is making a ship more powerful.
If the team doesn't treat the game balance sensibly, at least for me the game is getting a lot less interesting. I came for the IP, but I stayed because the game had an interesting and enjoyable combat system. But that is eroded more and more, with adding unbalanced items, either on the C-Store or via in-game rewards.

Maybe 1) can fix all that is wrong with 2). I surely hope so. But then I better speak up about it now.

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Rant.

You don't like it here, leave! : Magnificient Ferengi -Brunt

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Now that's an intersting idea.

We really do want androids in the game. Coming up with the right sort of "species" traits for them while not stepping on Data's toes will be key.

The androids from Mudd's women is also a great direction to look in. There is a chance that we can find some middle ground and come up with something that we can all enjoy playing as Captains, even if we aren't as fancy or powerful as a Soong android.

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When will we see more Marines in StarTrek? How about some MACO camo uniforms? The Federation is at war with Klingons, Romulans, etc. Is all the confict in Space? I am sure the ground warfare part is more than a few landing parties. I love StarTrek, but they never mention Marines, who probably really have to defend planets from Borg of Klingon invaders.

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Well, I have to say I can believe what I am reading.

What was DStahls quote, oh yes "Judge me by my record". Well guess what I am judging you by your record and guess what, I believe it's poor.

I read so much about the fluff coming out (Dax and Worf's wedding costume on your radar?) come on, that shouldn't be even a disscussion unless you really are turning the game into Sim Trek.

My questions I would have like to ask is what do you want STO to be? What is it's focus? Where are you going with it? Are you happy with people subbing and unsubbing monthly because of the way the game is going?

So October comes round, people sub to try out the content, blaze through it in less than a month and they back to square 1. F/E every month or so will not keep the population going as they take what, an hour at the most to complete?

So what is the plan? Do you have one?

If it's to dress up my toon in wedding dressings or Archers baseball cap then so be it, but you won't get my subs.

And please to those certain people that call every negative post a "rant" this isn't, this is me saying that DStahl and the team are "not" doing a good job and I am giving my feedback as to why.

Looking through these post so far, even some of the "apologists" (and I don't say this in rude of flame way) are not happy at all and they stuck by you a long time, only now to release you are not doing your jobs well.

Hmmm the winds of change....

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Why? Do you think you are special there? Oops I get it also/

Yeah that's right I match your points and even have more.....

How about we give it out to people that are above you? There are several, you are not the "best", sounds good huh?

I doubt the intention was to say "I want it, you cant have it", but rather to make it either time consuming or difficult to get the ship..

Id prefer to see a mission more difficult than anything we've seen before.. The ship should signal "This person are an exceptionel player" rather than every single Fed player having the ship on day 1, simply by doing a 30 min faceroll mission.

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When will we see more Marines in StarTrek? How about some MACO camo uniforms? The Federation is at war with Klingons, Romulans, etc. Is all the confict in Space? I am sure the ground warfare part is more than a few landing parties. I love StarTrek, but they never mention Marines, who probably really have to defend planets from Borg of Klingon invaders.

I REALLY think you're going to like the new end game uniforms that are coming with the updated STFs and Borg Invasion content....

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You don't like it here, leave! : Magnificient Ferengi -Brunt

I haven't liked it lately, a majority of us haven't if you read this thread. You don't leave something you invested in and I've invested a lot of time and money as a player in STO. I seldom make posts, but this was a large enough grievance that I wanted to add my two cents to. Please be more constructive in your future endeavors.

P.S. Never liked Brunt. My least favorite Ferengi in the IP. Always getting in the way of Quark and Rom's objectives.

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Dan, I need to ask this only due to my love of ship collecting and liking value for my CP. Will you guys FINALLY let the UFP (feds) get their: T-5 Escort with LTC Eng (Increase hull lower maneuverability), T-5 Cruiser with LTC Sci and (Lower hull Increase Shields) T-5 with LTC Tac (Lower Hull Increase Maneuverability). As for the suggestions in parenthesis, they are just for bare minimum tweaks but you get where I'm going with this. As for those in KDF that feel the BoFF needs an edge to counter...give it its missing BoF station. ;)

And on a side note. When are the pre-order items coming to C-Store. I am missing my Radiometric Converter Console the Neodymium Deflector and my EMH Console...lol. And I know of a ton of people waiting to buy Tr-116's. (hint hint and finally make these things scalable to level...within reason of course).

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Why? Do you think you are special there? Oops I get it also/

Yeah that's right I match your points and even have more.....

How about we give it out to people that are above you? There are several, you are not the "best", sounds good huh?

I really don't care how many accolade points you, I, or anyone else has. I couldn't care less how much more or less of anything you have than me or anyone else. Your argument is puerile. I'm saying a fleet action doesn't seem like enough effort to earn the federation's newest, flashiest, technology.

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Hey Dan, I just want to say I've always appreciated it when you guys are up front, and give us the bad and 'not so great' news along with the good news. I really hope that trend will continue (and it must case the Marcom folks and you a lot of headaches); but again, I for one do appreciate the overall openess the STO Dev team has with the playerbase at large.

What's the point if the info is not correct and bogus?

Go back and you read all the broken promises and date changes to the point that the only thing on the calendar that seems to be 99% correct is C-STore stuff.

How many people really believe now any dates or info the Devs come out with? Didn't Dan only just before or after S4 say he ways playing the first FE and it should be soon? Now we learn it's the end of Oct?

Sorry, but I don't trust a word they say. They might as well not bother with the calendar and just release the stuff when it's ready.

They are already going to hurt bad now with nothing for subbers to but unsub and leave and the lifers going to find something else.

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I think it'd be good to make the acquisition of an odyssey class even more difficult and unpleasant than that if it's to be a mark of prestige. I say unlock the Odyssey for the character at 7000-9000 Accolade points.

Not with accolade grinds still in the foundry.:mad:

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Now that's an intersting idea.

We really do want androids in the game. Coming up with the right sort of "species" traits for them while not stepping on Data's toes will be key.

The androids from Mudd's women is also a great direction to look in. There is a chance that we can find some middle ground and come up with something that we can all enjoy playing as Captains, even if we aren't as fancy or powerful as a Soong android.

The android guy, Rukk, played by the 60s Lurch, is doable with your current alien gen tech and at least visually distinct.

I think at the heart of playing an android is the Pinocchio factor, though. They either want to be human or reject being human. And if it isn't one of those two, they're basically just droids from Star Wars.

I think incorporating that sense of progression in is how you make it authentic to the Trek IP. Just have players start noticeably below Data and strive to get where he was in Season 1.

There are actually a lot of counters to androids. One of which is the off switch. In the trading card game, the generic soong types were fairly one note. But they were very strong and smart. They had one ability at a time but it could be any ability in the game, as announced by the player. And the counter was a card that represented the off-switch.

I used to play the Trek card game with a couple of the more prominent tournament players, I think nationally, and I was just this rube with the occasional theme deck.

I remember the theme deck dejour for the serious competitors became this one where soong-type androids take a neutral space station, move it from planet to planet at warp speed, nuke planets, and kidnap my personnel and interrogate them for points while they get points for having kids with the Youth trait on their starbase.

I remember how once, utterly outmatched, I played six cards (mostly time anomalies and interventions by Q) back to back that let me dispatch Mirror Sisko and Sisko in his role as Bajoran Emissary, beamed from the Mirror Universe, through the enemy's shields, and allow me to keep taking action until my Siskos had killed all of my opponent's children as an act of desperate retribution. I believe my enemy and the tournament sponsor were both some amused that they gave me some foils for "creative thinking" and also because I think they were amused at space and time breaking down to allow Sisko to go on a killing spree against children, in retaliation for androids kidnapping his crew and nuking the Alpha Quadrant with its warp capable space station.

Anyway, their solution to balance in that game was that Lore and Data were loaded with skills and bonuses and perks whereas a generic soong-type (the card image was based on Lal, before she chose her gender) could have any one ability but only one at a time, with the ability to change it every round.

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Not with accolade grinds still in the foundry.:mad:

Can you get that many exploiting the foundry? I guess the number might have to be even higher to ensure that the player does those horrid sector defense accolade grinds.

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I really don't care how many accolade points you, I, or anyone else has. I couldn't care less how much more or less of anything you have than me or anyone else. Your argument is puerile. I'm saying a fleet action doesn't seem like enough effort to earn the federation's newest, flashiest, technology.

it is if you have to finish top scorer or something, or its a fleet action like the CE.....or both.

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I believe this to be the best Q&A I have ever read from any MMO since '97!

Just a few of my favorite things said:
<snip>...Also keep in mind that we intend for all ships to be earnable in game via emblems, so arguments that this is only for people who “pay for it” are unfounded.
A: Deconstructing items is on my to-do list for Crafting. I’m awaiting some software tech so that I can properly give you the right amount of anomalies for the item.
<snip>...what is it that you want to see added the most to the game? Not necessarily short range, just your own personal dream feature.

A: Completely awesome remake of Exploration so that I can head off into the unknown and run into things I could have never expected to find.

Q: 1701LivesOn Will the ship customization system ever be expanded upon in a way that allows for mixing-and-matching parts from similarly-designed ships at different rank? For example, will the parts of the Vesper be available to the Excelsior, and so on and so forth?

A: We do not plan to allow kit-bashing where you can mix and match parts from different starships as we want to keep the integrity of the ships recognizable as they class they are intended to be. That said, we do plan to introduce new parts and variants to offer more variety for customization within the class of ship.
Hopefully the Dreadnought is on the to do list here! It is, after all, a Galaxy Class. It should have the Galaxy Variant Pieces too. ;)


Good stuff!

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Duty officers and the next FE .... IN OCTOBER? Sorry ..... Is it just me that had his blood boiling when one reads that?

For me it appears that the faith i had in the Devs when i bought this lifetime was horribly unfounded.

Link: http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2578

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It pains me to say it, but I'm starting to feel really stupid for accidentally letting my sub re-up. I had intended to give it a three month break originally, but when I discovered I had mis-remembered the billing date (was off by two days), I consoled myself thinking, "Well, now you'll be here when most of the new stuff rolls out, at least."

Turns out not even that was wholly true.

Psyched for the Borg invasion, mind you. Absolutely thrilled. Finally, something that fills that niche of "I just wanna blow stuff up mindlessly" that actually has some goal in mind.

But... I was under the impression the next Featured Series and DOffs would be out sooner than that.


But I don't have the heart to end the post with gloom. I <3 you guys too much for that. So I'll end with, it's great to hear that you're hiring again. With this nightmare sale finally over, once you guys have had the chance to make up for lost time, I trust your word that content will start churning out.

For everyone else. Look at it like this. It's almost over. The thing that was the source, directly or indirectly, of all the trouble causing these delays is finished. All we have to do now is hold tight while Cryptic staffs up and buckles down to close the atrocious gap created by this sale's stresses.

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it is if you have to finish top scorer or something, or its a fleet action like the CE.....or both.

If you have to be top scorer and it's as difficult or more difficult than CE (the both scenario) maybe. Getting top scorer is usually not such a chore. The CE has some nice challenge to it, but I think if you're going to get a ship like that, I think it would only be right that it's even more challenging. Still, I stand by the accolade notion. Just because my suggestions always get shouted down by those that want it easier and faster does not invalidate them.

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I do not mind. I really haven't delved into what the whole system entails as I just don't want to get my hopes up on anything like that until it's ready.

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I do not mind. I really haven't delved into what the whole system entails as I just don't want to get my hopes up on anything like that until it's ready.

You should listen to the Zebular unit. He's a cool guy, he's trying to help you chill and accept that which you cannot alter.

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You don't like it here? Leave!

Brunt - FCA.

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For everyone else. Look at it like this. It's almost over. The thing that was the source, directly or indirectly, of all the trouble causing these delays is finished. All we have to do now is hold tight while Cryptic staffs up and buckles down to close the atrocious gap created by this sale's stresses.

I hope so, because as much as I diss the game, I am still a fan of trek and this game is currently the only game that lets me fly a defiant (bar SFC3).

That said, I hope the resources are not getting pumped into NWN. I hate the thought that they are going to try and win back a lot of their "bad" reputation, by trying to make NWN a top notch game and leaving STO on life support.

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I believe this to be the best Q&A I have ever read from any MMO since '97!

Good stuff!


Wow. Just wow...

I'm all for someone liking what they read, but seriously?

Tell me, is it whisky or gin your have in your hand atm;)

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Oh yes, I got answered in number one ;-) time to read the rest.

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Meh, DOFF system could never happen as far as me and my fleet is concerned. Much better things to work on than some other micro-managing mini-game.

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No, I'm not in the least bit concerned about either of your points there OP.

I'd be more than happy to wait until the new year for the DOff sytem and the next FE, if you are going to put the time into fixing some of the bugs or improving the Klingon side of the game, or dare I say it...some new PvP maps(pretty please!).

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"If you dont like it here, leave" .... Well thats what i plan to. Sadly.

Everybody here seems to have casually forgotten that this stuff was promised a month ago. If i have to wait to October! in order to get something i was hyped up for a month ago. Well there are other games ill be looking into.

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If you have to be top scorer and it's as difficult or more difficult than CE (the both scenario) maybe. Getting top scorer is usually not such a chore. The CE has some nice challenge to it, but I think if you're going to get a ship like that, I think it would only be right that it's even more challenging. Still, I stand by the accolade notion. Just because my suggestions always get shouted down by those that want it easier and faster does not invalidate them.

Tac in escorts get a nice shiny new......Cruiser?:rolleyes:

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I believe this to be the best Q&A I have ever read from any MMO since '97!

Good stuff!Wow. Just wow...

I'm all for someone liking what they read, but seriously?

Tell me, is it whisky or gin your have in your hand atm;)

Hah!

Seriously though, I do not recall ever smiling at so many answers in one Q&A in the past as I have at this one presently. Additionally, it has to be one of the longest, non-chat based, Q&A's from an MMO Game in a long time.

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Tac in escorts get a nice shiny new......Cruiser?:rolleyes:

I am a tac in a escort. I wouldn't go after that tug no matter what the challenge level is. And if it's awarded to me, I'd delete it and move on with no further ado.

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Indeed and with the upcoming C-Store rush STO gets even more unattractive for me.

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"If you dont like it here, leave" .... Well thats what i plan to. Sadly.

Everybody here seems to have casually forgotten that this stuff was promised a month ago. If i have to wait to October! in order to get something i was hyped up for a month ago. Well there are other games ill be looking into.

Can I have your stuff? (1st! :D)

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Dan, I need to ask this only due to my love of ship collecting and liking value for my CP. Will you guys FINALLY let the UFP (feds) get their: T-5 Escort with LTC Eng (Increase hull lower maneuverability), T-5 Cruiser with LTC Sci and (Lower hull Increase Shields) T-5 with LTC Tac (Lower Hull Increase Maneuverability). As for the suggestions in parenthesis, they are just for bare minimum tweaks but you get where I'm going with this. As for those in KDF that feel the BoFF needs an edge to counter...give it its missing BoF station. ;)

Will the KDF also get such ships, please?

Oh, and costumes are all nice and shiny, but they do _not_ replace actual playable content. (And new ships don't do that either, actually (though they are a little closer.)

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The only reason I am not concerned with it being a fleet action is because I think that Cryptic is seeing the low popularity of the queue system and even if released with the current queue system, they will eventually change up the Fleet Action and STF system. Hopefully a change to not have mandatory queues anymore, or maybe not at all.

I enjoyed it how it was before I took a financial break before Season 2. I loathe queues, I loathe forced teaming. I loved the open nature of the original Fleet Actions. I am not sure why they even changed it.

I try my darnedest to never do any missions that involve queues, including STFs. I pretend they just do not exist, so I try to not miss them. I fail at that though.

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Will the KDF also get such ships, please?

Oh, and costumes are all nice and shiny, but they do _not_ replace actual playable content. (And new ships don't do that either, actually (though they are a little closer.)

Some ships in KDF do already have more a unique feel BoF assignment-wise....the Kar'Fi Carrier springs to mind. I mean if properly set up...that this is a beast. And that is prior to them soon being given another hanger bay.

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Well as a poster said in another "I'm not happy thread" good, let them go, I won't miss them. See ya!

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Tell me, is it whisky or gin your have in your hand atm;)
And please pass it along, I think we all could use one right now :(

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And please pass it along, I think we all could use one right now :(

Make mine a double, please :(

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If it has mvm, ablative generators, saucer separation, fire toros while cloaked, and trans warp drive, I'll get it when hits cstore:D:D

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Any chance you can talk to CBS and convert some of the Foundry missions to in-game content? A lot of people avoid the Foundry - I'm sure you know how many use it and don't use it from your data stream - but even a handful of new missions from the Foundry incorporated into the game for both Factions would help ease some of the strain.

I think that would be excellent idea if the details could be sorted out.

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If it has mvm, ablative generators, saucer separation, fire toros while cloaked, and trans warp drive, I'll get it when hits cstore:D:D

Saucer sep would look a little strange with that one I think

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It's done, when it's done.™

At least we know the schedule now.

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Saucer sep would look a little strange with that one I think

My point is for me to waste time for another flying brick oops cruiser it better have the special ability of every ship in game.

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Make mine a double, please :(

I'll take a draught of that....wait hey...I didn't say drought, I said draught......:mad:

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As a few other posters pointed out, a "sink" is a means to remove money from the economy.

In STO, we are generally short on EC sinks. Let's face it -- the stuff you can buy with EC is usually not on par with what you can craft, or get with exploration/pvp currency, or buy on the exchange. So there's no reason to spend EC, except for stuff that you get on the exchange (like bridge officers or very rare gear) or on various incidental "quality of life" costs, like changing your costume or customizing your ship.

Since any player has a recurring source of EC by just playing the game, the game needs a recurring sink. Ideally this means some kind of service or good that you want to pay EC for on a regular basis, but not something that makes the game unplayable if you can't or don't pay it. And you never want to charge your main currency (EC in this case) for some mandatory convenience like bank storage.

I have some ideas in this regard, but the full implementation is a ways off.

One of the other controls on the economy is the diffusion of currency. For instance, there's a lot of different currencies for exploration and pvp -- they're all based around rank bands. So, you can get a bunch of lieutenant-level exploration badges, but these are worthless to you once you rank up, because they only buy lieutenant-level gear. Also, they aren't tradeable. So, no inflation -- you just wind up with leftover bags of currencies that are not valuable to you. To address this issue, it would be preferable to do some kind of more universal currency, the same way that some other games merge their plethoras of badges, marks, and medals down into one. This requires some careful scaling to make sure that everyone can earn enough to get the things they want, but that they don't feel like they should just save the currency they get at low levels and wait before spending it.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking in this regard, so I hope that this gives you a slightly better idea of what goes on in design terms in MMO economics.

i had a few ideas in anther recent post about how some of it could be tied to exploration. if you want, i could dig it up for you

i couldnt see it being successful in being completely redone in the current game without causing problems, however consolidating may help.
marks, emblems, all that stuff is just clutter. if anything, a trade and bartering system could be a practical replacement that makes more sense. go out, trade and make deals. trade a common item of yours to some civilization that needs it. they give you something common to them, but is uncommon to you. creating a supply and demand situation would go a long way.

i could see it tied somehow into exploration with no doubt.

just off the top of my head, a starship preparing to leave known space would hafta prepare and stock up. my thinking is if you venture into deep space, you will have to fuel up and stockpile supplies. these items either get used up as you travel (fuel) or as you meet new species, deal with situations (supplies). meeting alien species and visiting alien outposts may not only allow for adventure, but provide an opportunity to trade or refuel.
trade supplies for fuel, trade energy cells for other supplies. since energy credits would likely not be any use to alien civilizations, you could use them to replicate something that would be of use to them, in order to trade. maybe a 5ec hypo is in high demand and they trade you something that they have in abundance, yet is rare and worth 200 ec to your ship or home sector.

say in deep space, you come across a vast spacial anomaly that you must cross or go around. you stop at an alien outpost. you can refuel for the trip around, or you can purchase a shield emitter that will help you make the journey through. a low level one burns out after a time but is cheaper. a high level one is indefinite and is extremely expensive.

my thoughts on fueling is that maybe fuel should drain when you exit known space. once you go to home territory, the fuel drain ends (simply for practical purposes)
if you run out of fuel, you end up in a desperate bind. in that case a merchant ship would come to your aid. you can opt to get a tow home (free), buy fuel from him (priced by unit) or, if out of money, receive a complimentary supply as an IOU. possibly with interest. in that case, he will return to collect once you acquired the right amount.

now these are in no way suggestions, but maybe ideas that may help inspire. discuss scrutinize and adjust in any way you want :cool:

*edit* found it.

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Hello Transformers (!!!) ... errr , I mean : " Voyager 6 emerged from the black hole in what was believed to have been the far side of the galaxy, and fell into the gravitational field of a planet populated by living machines. "



I've had this nutty pet idea that the androids from "What Are Little Girls Made Of...?" built by the "Old Ones" are tied to the "Old Ones" mentioned in "Catspaw." (They currently have separate Memory Alpha articles.) The pioneering in ancient robotics could be tied to the Doomsday Machine, the race that upgraded V'Ger, and The Borg.

My pet idea is the Iconians are the Old Ones and they dispatched the ornithoids in Catspaw as heralds of their return, to scout the nature of the Milky Way since their departure. Furthermore, I have a pet idea that one of the races that repelled them was the ancient race of androids... which they created... and that race might be the Tkon, who only came into being as an alternative to the Iconians due to a misremembered line of dialogue, I believe.

Tkon. Tech-on. I think it works in the Trek pun way that Romulans as Roman analogues works.

Maybe the Hur'Q and Preservers turned the Tkon against their Iconian masters.

Whatever the case, I'd like all the old (pre-Federation, pre-Klingon) races' political and social climate to get linked up. Maybe work in the First Federation and the El Aureans, since they were clearly vestiges of an old galactic order. (Heck, the El Aureans clearly had some exotic means of getting around for Guinan to be on Earth in the 19th century, seemingly as a casual trip, and then to be fleeing the Delta Quadrant a few hundred years later.)

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Q: Timelord_Victorious What was the reason for making the Rhode Island that is clearly more powerful than any other ship at that level? Isn't this making the old Nova obsolete for people who are willing to pay to be more powerful and turning everyone else into second class captains? This sounds harsh, but I honestly want to know the reason for it. Maybe there is something you have not told us yet, an important piece of the puzzle?

A: The plans are to add ship variants that have cool and versatile powers at all tiers. “More powerful” is debatable and if the forums are any indication there is not a consensus. We want to add new ships with new abilities across the board and simply making “skins” of ships that only look different, but don’t act different is not a goal. We want new ships to feel like new ships with new abilities. There were similar outcries about the Galaxy Dreadnaught when it first came out, but now that there are plenty more ships, the concerns over that ship are not what they used to be

Bahahahahahahah!!


How is the same ship with an ensign science replaced with a lieutenant science and an extra engineering console not "more powerful" in every way imaginable?

I understand your general point, that when there are more of them you won't notice it so much. But the point still remains that thses c-store ships are "more powerful" than the free variants of the same tier.

I'm all for versatility and new ideas for boff layout. But making better versions and releasing them at the same tier through the c-store is not the way to do it, IMHO.


And before you say "It'll be available in game through emblem grinding".

When? 6 months after c-store release? A year?

More importantly, when can you start to earn emblems? Vice Admiral. When do you use a T2 ship? Waaaay before vice admirtal...

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“More powerful” is debatable ...

:rolleyes:

Great then:


Show me what negatives there are compared to the Nova to balance having twice as many Engineering Consoles on the Rhode Island, as well as twice as many top tier powers for that rank. I'll wait for a reasonable response to this. This should take a while because there are no disadvantages to the new ship.

If the Rhode Island isn't more powerful, why don't you swap it's stats and the Nova's stats. Since this isn't supposed to be a "Pay-for-Power" scenario then there shouldn't be any effect, right? Since they're "balanced" in your eyes.


:rolleyes:

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It's done, when it's done.™

At least we know the schedule now.

wow you are blind are you not either that or you must be new to the game cause you have not been paying attention but never the less.

To the op come play age of conan its free mass content mass worlds lots of players and lots of other things to do plus did i mention its free and the is lots and lots to do while the devs get things write around here come and have some fun

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dstahl´s engi report: answer to the 1st question


2 words:


sorry unacceptable!

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Wow just be happy there is any new FREE content. If you played EQ 1 you would have to wait a whole 12 months for new content and would also have to pay $30-$40 for it. I just wish they would have pushed the DoFF before the useless ground revamp that is nothing but pure fluff imo. And what use is the Starfleet Academy other then just usless scenery. I would just like to see more attention put towards accual content like the DoFF, the same que for the STFs as the Fleet missions and even like 10-20 random KDF specific missions would have been nice. And acually very disapointed there was no mention to any new KDF contant at all. And we need alot more Diplomatic content also. Or at least not limit it to on or two dailies. Even if the Diplomacy is lowered to just 1 xp of diplomacy after 2 or 3 missions would be better then what there is now. Anyway cannot wait till the DoFF system is in game and hopefully that will not disapoint.

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To the op come play age of conan its free mass content mass worlds lots of players and lots of other things to do plus did i mention its free and the is lots and lots to do while the devs get things write around here come and have some fun

Heh, a friend of mine did ask me to come play that with him last night. Only downside to the F2P deal is that you can only play 4 classes out of ... 12? I will give it a go. Any way i can contact you there?

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Saucer sep would look a little strange with that one I think

They picked it in part because they wanted a ship with the basic Enterprise silhouette that would have a weird looking saucer separation.

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wow you are blind are you not either that or you must be new to the game cause you have not been paying attention but never the less.
[...]

What exactly are you trying to say?

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Yeah I agree, very disapointing. Ever since the foundry was added, content just has not been coming out. Gee ... who would have seen that coming :rolleyes:

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Why do I feel like a dog getting excited about a ball thats just been thrown down the road far-far ... far away :rolleyes:

Too little too late ... October? (insert crazed laugh here)

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What exactly are you trying to say?

I believe he's trying to say that it keeps getting pushed back. Just because they r saying october doesnt mean it will be there. Like the many times we have seen a date appear, only to see the date pass us by and nothing happening.

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We know the devs can work much faster than this. they have proven they can do better than what we have seen so far this year. i dont think the fault lies with gozer, or dstahl, or heretic or capnlogan or any of the guys. some of the suits must be hampering them for what ever reason because this has gotten silly.

it seem the atari/pw situation, plus some other stuff with code syncs and bugs has slowed them right down to a crawl. they cant be taking this long to do content by their own choice. something has to be hampering them.

i just hope now PW have bought them we start getting this content things return to normal.

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We know the devs can work much faster than this. they have proven they can do better than what we have seen so far this year. i dont think the fault lies with gozer, or dstahl, or heretic or capnlogan or any of the guys. some of the suits must be hampering them for what ever reason because this has gotten silly.

it seem the atari/pw situation, plus some other stuff with code syncs and bugs has slowed them right down to a crawl. they cant be taking this long to do content by their own choice. something has to be hampering them.

i just hope now PW have bought them we start getting this content things return to normal.

Totaly agree.

But its also a case of "bitting off more than they can chew" with a small team and limited resources.

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My blood isn't boiling.

It is defintily disappointing. Things are as they are, and people have to make their own decisions on how to continue. Continue playing, take a break, leave forever (for certain values of forever).

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Did the OP read the part which said:

Note these dates are estimates and subject to change.

I guess not.

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Did the OP read the part which said:

Yes, and if the voice in you is going "its probably going to be sooner then that" ... then you'll be me, a couple of months ago. Im realy curious how you will be in october.

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Totaly agree.

But its also a case of "bitting off more than they can chew" with a small team and limited resources.

Didn't Cryptic hire three new content developers so we wouldn't have to deal with as long of a slowdown with content? Or when they said these guys were content guys, they meant they were C-store item development guys?

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Didn't Cryptic hire three new content developers so we wouldn't have to deal with as long of a slowdown with content? Or when they said these guys were content guys, they meant they were C-store item development guys?

1) you still need to train these guys up, so i doubt they will hit the ground running.

2) we dont know if some left. snix left so that's one down already, so those 3 extra people really only becomes 2 extra people.

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Wow just be happy there is any new FREE content. If you played EQ 1 you would have to wait a whole 12 months for new content and would also have to pay $30-$40 for it

Same tired excuse.

What free content? Surely you have been around for a while but just to re-itterate.

1. Game released extremely content lite and no end game to speak of.
2. Game gets updates and reworking and F/E but they dry up.
3. Game gets Foundry where you make your own content.
4. Content is coming soon....

So I should be glad that in 18 months, their is still little content and what we had is free. Even Cryptic are not that daft to charge for content in the state the game is so your point about free content is way invalid.

I played EQ 1 from beggining and loved how I could play many different characters and races in a vibrant world. Yes remember them, vibrant worlds, they were big in the 90s... When the content came out that you had to pay for, guess what, it was whole continents, Kunark, Vellious etc so they were worth it.

Stop with the smoke and mirrors about STO's free content. All we have had is what should have been at release. How many content droughts have we had now? Are you saying that the game is now what it should have been at release and that if/when the content comes out in Oct is us getting new free content? I say it's not and that we are at least another 12 months away from STO being a fully fleshout MMo.

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But its also a case of "bitting off more than they can chew" with a small team and limited resources.

Signed. IMO Atari / Cryptic didn't knew what they did when they signed the STO deal.
The bought a licence which brings with it certain expetations by the customers.

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1) you still need to train these guys up, so i doubt they will hit the ground running.

2) we dont know if some left. snix left so that's one down already, so those 3 extra people really only becomes 2 extra people.

I know that new job training can take a while. But if the Foundry is supposed to be similar to what the content developers use for the creation of actual missions, the whole point seems a bit moot. I mean you have published a few missions yourself, Captain_Revo. How long did it take you to get up and running with the Foundry?

I don't think it's too much to ask that a few new run of the mill missions pop up to fill any of the leveling gaps, such as the one that is the KDF leveling experience.

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Disappointing? Yes. But considering the new Odyssey-class (Ent-F) and Klingon flagship are (supposedly) either an FA or FE reward, it's understandable. And as Revo said, there may be a lot going on behind the scene that has forced the STO team into this content drought, especially since the transfer from Atari to Perfect World has apparently been completed.

And hopefully, we'll get more content between now and then. :)

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Brunt - FCA.

Well as a poster said in another "I'm not happy thread" good, let them go, I won't miss them. See ya!

Lol.

Yes you will. Because more people leaving, unsubbing and lifers not playing, will effect Perfect World when they look at the books and the money isn't coming in.

At least if people are still playing but are not happy, the money is coming in.

So you don't like negative posts but you still repsond in every single one of them. Why? If you won't miss them, why feel the need to respond. Wait, we know why so don't bother to answer.

These forums are going down the tube with people not understanding that when someone is not happy and they like to vent, or rage or complain that by telling them to leave, your just hurting the game and therefore themselves.

I won't miss the defenders or apologist either when I go because you hurt the game just as much as I do when I complain or rage.

My complaining may not help you or Cryptic but guess what, it helps me.

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Im happy to see it as an in game reward in lieu of paying for it on the C-Store

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Thanks Dan for the big ask cryptic article. Every little word is precious to us.

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October is pretty good timing for those additions. The Doff system needs to be tested to destruction before release it a huge addon to the game

As for the FE. Take your time, devs. The FE's so far have been very nice to play and I would hate to see one ever get rushed, they are all about the quality and immersion, not just about having some padding to the level up process.

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Honestly I don't even have the words. Its beyond me guys, I just can't express my shock at this news. I understand the trade off must have been pretty rough, I guess even rougher then I had thought. Further I can appreciate that ya'll are doing your best but, this is not good news. Given patterns of release in the past it seems very likely we will not see not See FE4 until November. That Borg DSEs better be amazing cause honestly patience is a commodity in very short supply. I dislike being so negative, but come on now.

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And for the love of all that's good, take your time to make a nice TIER 5 Rhode Island...Tier 2.5 just isn't right.:mad:

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Maddox is a really great idea.

We could also look at the " Automated Personnel Unit " from Voyager episode ("Prototype").

if we have Hirogen we could also have these guys, say a few of them found their way to the Alpha Quadrant.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Automated_Personnel_Unit

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October is pretty good timing for those additions. The Doff system needs to be tested to destruction before release it a huge addon to the game

As for the FE. Take your time, devs. The FE's so far have been very nice to play and I would hate to see one ever get rushed, they are all about the quality and immersion, not just about having some padding to the level up process.

"rushed" ?????? :eek: /gag /ghasp /omg

the last FE was in 5th March ... /insert tears :(

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Where is the Ambassador class? will more iconic ships make it in game....
Will we ever get a mission to fight along side the USS enterprise?
Can we have a tailor mode to view linked items and preview how they look?

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in the first look youre right, but:

do you think there will really be a lack of ppl in the fleetactions (like in the big dig and such) when EVERYONE wants this ship? i think this one fleetaction will do perfectly, cause there will be a lot of ppl in there, i really are more in fear of lack and disconnects due to SO many ppl in that fleetaction ^^

just make sure you find 5 ppl that want that ship and then it works. the only problem i see is, that there will only be engineers/cruisers in the fleetaction as long as we dont know if the F-fy will do for tac/scis without kknowing the setup ^^

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Thanks Dan for the big ask cryptic article. Every little word is precious to us.

Talk is cheap though.

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So... more PvP maps are "planned", just like they have been "in planning" for the past 18 months.

What i speculated before. Having PvP tied into their featured series. This is gonna be a good thing and worth waitin for :-D

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Id prefer to see a mission more difficult than anything we've seen before.. The ship should signal "This person are an exceptionel player" rather than every single Fed player having the ship on day 1, simply by doing a 30 min faceroll mission.

That way you will only promote the C-Store version of the Odyssey.

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Guys your most regular positive minded Forums users are q-qing in the streets here. Even the Negus is ticked. If you can do one thing to turn this around stop production on everything else and Just release FE4. Take a look around, there won't be anyone but lifers left by October, I understand your worried about SWTOR but FEs are the only real answer.

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Where is the Ambassador class? will more iconic ships make it in game....
Will we ever get a mission to fight along side the USS enterprise?
Can we have a tailor mode to view linked items and preview how they look?

Can we post our questions in the actual question thread ? :p

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Really?? we r going to have to wait til OCTOBER for the next FE series??

its been like the beginning of March since we had the end of the last FE series

I agree! ... Didn't they originally say we would be getting it the end of July? .... That's three months difference!

The Borg stuff is not the same as featured episodes ... so in my eyes ... the content drought continues.

The question is, how many people will begin looking elsewhere? ... I've already started losing friends in game because of this drought? ... How much worse will it be and get?

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Same tired excuse.

What free content? Surely you have been around for a while but just to re-itterate.

1. Game released extremely content lite and no end game to speak of.
2. Game gets updates and reworking and F/E but they dry up.
3. Game gets Foundry where you make your own content.
4. Content is coming soon....

So I should be glad that in 18 months, their is still little content and what we had is free. Even Cryptic are not that daft to charge for content in the state the game is so your point about free content is way invalid.

I played EQ 1 from beggining and loved how I could play many different characters and races in a vibrant world. Yes remember them, vibrant worlds, they were big in the 90s... When the content came out that you had to pay for, guess what, it was whole continents, Kunark, Vellious etc so they were worth it.

Stop with the smoke and mirrors about STO's free content. All we have had is what should have been at release. How many content droughts have we had now? Are you saying that the game is now what it should have been at release and that if/when the content comes out in Oct is us getting new free content? I say it's not and that we are at least another 12 months away from STO being a fully fleshout MMo.

I agree completeley with all Solomace says here.

EQ1 was my first MMORPG and it was great and from some point they released a paid expansion twice a year. You know what .. i would like to pay for expansions if these expansions are as big as EQ1's and Cryptic would be able to deliver it.

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I agree that new content is lacking but I think just taking what we have and giving it a twist would also be good for the meantime.

I gave a suggestion a while back about taking one of the holodecks at the Academy and making it a holographic Borg traning program. Have a deathmatch where styronger borg keep beaming in. Then make sure you have a leaderboard so that people can rate their kills/damage against each other.

I think people would be there all the time to try and have the best score in the academy. It'd Be even better if you got a holographic statue of yourself, but that's just me dreaming...

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That said, we are still evaluating the Rhode Island and have delayed the release for at least a week to discuss the ship and ensure it is balanced for what it is intended to be. Also keep in mind that we intend for all ships to be earnable in game via emblems, so arguments that this is only for people who “pay for it” are unfounded.

How does that help when it is a T-2 ship and you cannot unlock use of emblems until VA ... when the ship is too far beneath you? ... And we are talking ship, not console as the console is not the ship.

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One way of making them distinct and keeping them still tied to Data conceptually would be to have them be skinless. Look at how much (sometimes conflicting) reference there is for what Soong types look like underneath their skin.


Well, yes, but at the end of the day it would be the android call on how to look. I mean, they are a free sentient specie, so, if they decide to look like Data they could.

I really was hopeing to have a Soong Type Android, but if they cant do that, i think the best way would be to have the androids from Mudd's episode.

Anyway, Mr Dsthal, I would like to ask for one thing, and its that PLEASE, what ever you do, dont close the Soong Type Android door, you see, there a lot of players (like me) that have them with the alien gen ;)
So, if your guys can avoid the words "imposible" or "never" would be grate ^^

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Well that is finally happening now that the deal is complete and we have posted job opportunities and I can say that we have new positions available across the entire scope of the project in order to ramp up.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it can take months for new talent to come up to speed on the full internal editing tools and in some cases that can even be longer and/or not work out.

The encouragement that I can offer is that I've been meeting with Perfect World for some time now and they are very committed to the game (so much so that they paid what they did for Cryptic Studios) and are working with us to address all of the issues and concerns that are (in my opinion) quite obvious.

We are at a point now where we should be able to crank out content from this point forward at a pretty good clip. To address another point someone made, we are absolutely learning from the code merge that was Season 4 and I'm being very vocal about how much it has cost STO and how we can avoid it in the future.

That said, we are running behind schedule on many fronts due to missing components or key personnel and that is causing the slow turn around in new missions. Hopefully in the next month you'll see a big change as we release our Aug 25 and much bigger Sep 22 release.

The tricky part with this is, statements prior to this ask cryptic suggested the team was working very hard the whole way through and that the game would be keeping up a smooth pace. Heck, people were a-OK with giving the team time to readjust featured episodes and go play "reruns" ... but well, yeah, see it doesn't really match up or ring true any more.

Q: Kingdox Are there any plans to create money sinks to remove the mountains of EC every player seems to have?

A: Yes. This is part of our economy update coming over the next several months.


I would like a little more detail on this. What is a money sink? Are my hard earned Energy credits going to disappear if they are over a certain amount? I have no problem with "combining" ALOT of the in-game currency, I just don't want to loose ANY EC.

I wouldn't worry too much about the economy. Now that BOFFs can be bought for real money and then sold for energy credits, ECs are somewhat valueless.

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Hey listen just had an nice idea and not so hard to do for mister Stahl.

First Idea :

Ask Cryptic on you tube .
every Ask Cryptic will be recorded by D.Stahl where he answers all the Questions he find important.
It's a small thing to do and I saw an great video about S4 just like that.

Second Idea :

Not sure if you like it but here goes.
Because STOked has lesser stuff to present I thought why not present it with them.
You can call it STOked Ask Cryptic Just an Idea .

Hope too see you soon on STOked Daniel, Greets...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYlQ2qbwdSA&feature=player_detailpage

:D

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Q: Tricksterbro Would it be possible to add STF's to the PvE queue?

A: Yes! This feature is in the works and is expected to release with the updated STFs in September. In addition, you’ll be able to create private STFs queues where you can invite KDF and FEDs into the same team for the STF.

Now THIS is progress and what I really want to see in this game!!!!!

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That way you will only promote the C-Store version of the Odyssey.

Which is a problem how?

I mean.. If people cant be arsed to spend the time learning how to do a mission, then they shouldnt just get a faceroll option for getting stuff.

I would even like to see a general increase in difficulty in all missions, currently there is no sense of accomplishment for doing anything PvE in this game.. This makes for tedious and unimmersive gameplay, which isnt good.

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Q: SporeLord Any word on how we might be able to earn the Odyssey class ship (Enterprise F) in-game?

A: Current plan is that it will be a mission reward for completing a TBA Fleet Action series.


Was that a typo and meant to say Feature Episode Series or did he really mean Fleet Action Series

I'll be honest ... I actually am hoping for completion of a "Fleet Action." .... and no .... NOT for first place in that fleet action or the torches will be lit and pitch forks sharpened.

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When will we see more Marines in StarTrek? How about some MACO camo uniforms? The Federation is at war with Klingons, Romulans, etc. Is all the confict in Space? I am sure the ground warfare part is more than a few landing parties. I love StarTrek, but they never mention Marines, who probably really have to defend planets from Borg of Klingon invaders.

Unless I missed a story arc somewhere I don't think the federation is at war with the Romulans. Officially at least.

That being said, the TR-116 being made more readily available AND some MACO uniforms? I'm all for it. Heck, I love PSutherland's idea for having a brand new class made, a MACO class. As Enterprise was so quick to differentiate ... MACOs and Tactical were very very different.

:)

And heck, a new MACO "class" would add more depth to the game.

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Anyway, I've been doing some thinking in this regard, so I hope that this gives you a slightly better idea of what goes on in design terms in MMO economics.

To add a bit of a sink, the following idea may be useful:

- Anomaly store for crafters (anomalies sell at crazy prices at the exchange, indicating the demand being much higher than the supply, so you could drain a LOT of EC this way)

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understand the trade off must have been pretty rough, I guess even rougher then I had thought.

One reason why it's rougher than you thought is ... the "sping" presented on the forums was that it wasn't going to be rough at all. And everytime someone tried to discuss it, it got ignored, shut down or moved aside. So the only readily available information was the spin doctoring that it was going full steam ahead, no problems. To then be told later that it was full of problems is ... only adding to peoples' frustrations.

What i speculated before. Having PvP tied into their featured series. This is gonna be a good thing and worth waitin for :-D

I'm not really enthusiastic. I don't PVE to PVP.

I agree! ... Didn't they originally say we would be getting it the end of July? .... That's three months difference!

DOFF system was slated for the same time period. And remember, DOFF system is also incomplete and the really really intriuging stuff for it (the first officer stuff that is supposed to lead into you being able to turn your first officer into a new character of your own) is supposed to take even longer to do.

It's rough rough sailing right now.

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Regarding the DOff system, if you've followed the development of that at all and the more than stellar insights
Heretic has offered into that you'd know that it has grown over time into something bigger than what was expected in the beginning.
It was also stated that it will be on tribble for at least one month.
It has not in fact hit tribble yet, so october is the EARLIEST to expect that system.

Would I like to have it in game right now? Sure!
Would I like to have a bugridden system that's more frustrating to use than anything else? Heck no!
So at least in that regard: chillax, good things come to those who wait.

Hm. The early bird gets the worm, but good things come to those who wait. Ergo: worms are bad. QED :D

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I really haven't delved into what the whole system entails as I just don't want to get my hopes up on anything like that until it's ready.

There's a DOFF 101 stickied in this very forum.

But I'll just outline for you the single most exciting aspect of the system that's been hyped ... you choose your department heads. So you assign a first officer. A chief medical officer. A chief engineer. You basically finally get to assign your senior staff. Your own Spock, Geordi and Phlox.

And supposedly the DOFF system is going to be what allows for the functionality that lets you take your First Officer, and reassign him or her as a brand new character for yourself to play. So then people could finally get to play Federation Gorn if they so chose, as DStahl once mentioned way back in 2010. Or you could just you know continue the adventures of your own crew by having your first officer get his own command. Kind of a neat trek-style twist.

Of course the caveat is, none of that stuff is part of the initial DOFF system impelementation. And so pushing DOFF 101 off, pushes the really fun stuff people want this system for off even further.

All in all, it looks like the DOFF system may launch worse off than diplomacy, and is primed to fail even more than the "Vote for stuff with the ambassador on DS9" functionality they once said they implemented (and then didn't actually implement for a month or two).

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Someone wake me when this game starts getting significant content again. zzzzzzzzz

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It's done, when it's done.™

At least we know the schedule now.

The schedule now says what was supposed to be in game by July will be in game by October. LAST YEAR, some ships were promised by October that didn't hit until 2011.

So don't be surprised when what's now on schedule for October doesn't hit until 2012. Because, as you say, it's done when it's done. And you don't know the schedule at all. None of us do.

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As a few other posters pointed out, a "sink" is a means to remove money from the economy.

Since someone asked, now I can get into my hobby . . . economics. :)

Money enters the economy through a source and it leaves through a sink. A source is a means by which money is created. When you sell an item at a store and get EC for it, that's a source. A sink is a means by which money is removed. When you buy an item for EC at a store, that's a sink.

Importantly, a process is not a sink if the money just changes hands without actually leaving the economy. Thus, the exchange is not a sink -- that money is just moving to another player, it's not going away.

Now, the problem with a lot of MMO economies is that they are rampantly inflationary, because they have lots of sources (every time you complete a mission/kill a mob/sell a loot drop you get money from the ether) but not enough sinks. The trick is to have sinks that are natural and useful without necessarily being burdensome to the player.

To take the example of another popular MMO, you might have sinks in the form of fast travel (say, flying somewhere instead of walking), or repairing your damaged gear, or paying a listing/sale cost on an auction house. These cost you money and take that money out of play. You *can* play without making use of any of these services -- but the game can be much more tedious and/or difficult. So, players are incentivized to do these things, which sinks money out of the economy and prevents runaway inflation.

In STO, we are generally short on EC sinks. Let's face it -- the stuff you can buy with EC is usually not on par with what you can craft, or get with exploration/pvp currency, or buy on the exchange. So there's no reason to spend EC, except for stuff that you get on the exchange (like bridge officers or very rare gear) or on various incidental "quality of life" costs, like changing your costume or customizing your ship.

Since any player has a recurring source of EC by just playing the game, the game needs a recurring sink. Ideally this means some kind of service or good that you want to pay EC for on a regular basis, but not something that makes the game unplayable if you can't or don't pay it. And you never want to charge your main currency (EC in this case) for some mandatory convenience like bank storage.

I have some ideas in this regard, but the full implementation is a ways off.

One of the other controls on the economy is the diffusion of currency. For instance, there's a lot of different currencies for exploration and pvp -- they're all based around rank bands. So, you can get a bunch of lieutenant-level exploration badges, but these are worthless to you once you rank up, because they only buy lieutenant-level gear. Also, they aren't tradeable. So, no inflation -- you just wind up with leftover bags of currencies that are not valuable to you. To address this issue, it would be preferable to do some kind of more universal currency, the same way that some other games merge their plethoras of badges, marks, and medals down into one. This requires some careful scaling to make sure that everyone can earn enough to get the things they want, but that they don't feel like they should just save the currency they get at low levels and wait before spending it.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking in this regard, so I hope that this gives you a slightly better idea of what goes on in design terms in MMO economics.

Interested to see how this turns out. I want to see something that I can spend my EC but not on stuff that is just there for convenience. Example, buying transwarp tokens to certain sectors with EC. Cool if you want to save time for sure. I'm one of those guys that will not care to take the time to get to where I want to go. For sure don’t want to spend it to the point that I have to throw it all down into something that keeps me competitive with everybody else, but I see that’s something you’re not shooting for. At least I hope not.

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I prefer my Ask Cryptic in text format.

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Well thanks for answering lots of questions Dan. But I must say, along with many others, how very disappointed I am. :( Sure some of the forward-looking stuff you discuss sounds neat, but then it all sounded neat and exciting back earlier this year when it was all due to come out in the summer and now we're waiting for the fall. Waiting again. Still. Always.

STO the Waiting.

Sure, company sale threw things outta wack. Ok, I can try to sympathize. But it doesn't take away the failure. I still enjoy STO, but I'm bored. And to keep having carrots talked about, but forever out of reach is discouraging.

I saddens me is that some of the stuff you've talked about could be exciting, but I'm too jaded to believe it until I see it.

Meh.

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ok given how b roken and unpopular fleet actions are you have to be kidding me cryptic. making us do content we don't enjoy if we want a cool reward isn't the way to do it. I'm dissappointed in this decision.

Relax, they'll also give you the choice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton%27s_fork) of paying for it via the C-store. You don't seriously think they won't milk a cash-cow like that, do you? :D

Edit: been said already, but whatever.

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Do you realise how complex the system is?

It is not just a new feature, a new interface, a new screen. There is massive amounts of database data to be generated just for this. There is going to be a massive amount of processing going on when when your not logged and there is a lot to think about in that.

Also, you got to think marketing. SWTOR is out around then.

You want STO to be a success right? So you want them not just to create and release things quickly. You want them to get it right at least I do.

I just not long posted a thread about leaving, already cancelled my subscription and I plan to come back in a year. The duty roster system will be an amazing thing to return to on top of everything else planned in that time. It is well worth waiting for and you have already paid up.

I recommend to people especially lifers, to take a small break at times. Just because you paid for the entire life of the game it doesnt meant your joined to it. Even giving the game 2-3 months to build up some new things can make it a lot of fun to return to.

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As a few other posters pointed out, a "sink" is a means to remove money from the economy.

Since someone asked, now I can get into my hobby . . . economics. :) [...]

In STO, we are generally short on EC sinks.[...]

I know several players who own over one billion energy credits, yes, that's 1,000,000,000 EC. I'm not one of them, but it's something to strive for. If you consider that you would need to pay our favourite gold farmers over $800 to get 1 billion EC, I would really appreciate 2 things here. First, the Accolade and Title "Billionaire" for players like that. And second, really high priced vanity items. A couple of items like (ferengi/klingon) jewelry, pets or *gasp* a monocle ranging from prices at 100 million EC to 1000 million EC could be a great money sink.

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The fact that Cryptic are taking so long to produce anything for three months after the release of Season 4 does not surprise me. When you're in the middle of being sold off by the game company which initially bought you and forced you to produce a game in two years with a predictably mediocre result, while being constantly harassed for more content by an impatient playerbase, I can understand that it's tough to deliver.

I do think however that as paying customers, we deserve better than what Cryptic are delivering right now. I also think that Cryptic just aren't able to deliver what we want them to deliver, regardless of how dedicated they are. I don't think they have the resources to do it, and I think that this is beyond their control right now. If my arthritic grandmother offered to push my broken down car up a hill for a modest fee, I wouldn't pay her and then flip out when she started to struggle with the task. She is just not capable of delivering on her promise.

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Duty officers and the next FE .... IN OCTOBER? Sorry ..... Is it just me that had his blood boiling when one reads that?

For me it appears that the faith i had in the Devs when i bought this lifetime was horribly unfounded.

Link: http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2578

That is nothing, the KDF are getting equivalent content compared to the feds 45 days after launch.

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I don't mind the ship being a fleet action reward, but if its a 1st place reward that will suck badly as most fleet players will not be able to enjoy it as much as most of us will be rigging it so that we can ensure our fleetmates all get a turn at getting it... and lets hope the fleet action isnt as poorly designed as the CE was (and i just know there will be one person saying "there's nothing wrong with the CE i can do it at VA in an NX ship using only 1 phaser bank while solo" :D)

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I don't mind the ship being a fleet action reward, but if its a 1st place reward that will suck badly and lets hope the fleet action isnt as poorly designed as the CE was (and i just know there will be one person saying "there's nothing wrong with the CE i can do it at VA in an NX ship using only 1 phaser bank while solo" :D)

Naw.. CE isnt able to be soloed (Ive tried), the rest of the FAs can though.

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Well, yes, but at the end of the day it would be the android call on how to look. I mean, they are a free sentient specie, so, if they decide to look like Data they could.

I really was hopeing to have a Soong Type Android, but if they cant do that, i think the best way would be to have the androids from Mudd's episode.

Anyway, Mr Dsthal, I would like to ask for one thing, and its that PLEASE, what ever you do, dont close the Soong Type Android door, you see, there a lot of players (like me) that have them with the alien gen ;)
So, if your guys can avoid the words "imposible" or "never" would be grate ^^

I could be wrong, but I don't think it's up to Cryptic, with regards to using the Soong-type android - it's up to CBS wanting to keep Data unique, which I can agree with.

However, since the Maddox-type would be reverse engineered from the Soong-type, most likely with Data's help and input (if you extrapolate on his continued correspondence with Maddox in the show) there would logically be some similarities to the design, even though it would be an imperfect copy of the original.

The other upside of this is that they could actually create an old and haggard looking Maddox NPC in the game without actually running into issues with the likeness rights. It would be funny if Maddox actually became like old "often wrong" Soong in his old age.

The real question is if they could use the gold skin and eyes at all, or if CBS would nix that because then players would mostly roll up characters that look exactly like Data.

The Mudd-type androids are essentially human in appearance anyhow...so I'm personally not that interested in them being added as a "species". New species should be unique in traits and appearance in my opinion. Not to mention that the Mudd-types are centuries out of date now, and even if they had "evolved" they wouldn't be as flawed, and thus as interesting as a newer type.

Maddox-types however...there's a lot of potential there.

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What's a Fleet ACtion Series?

It seems more likely he meant "Featured Episode Series".

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On a side note, telling the player base that you are going to intentionally sink their resources ... is not usually a good thing.

People don't like to be bored. So I'm not sure how excited people are going to get when hearing that the development team (that hasn't put out new content to stop their boredom) is instead working on ideas to make them grind more.

Money sinks and time sinks ... do players actually want these things?

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I can honestly say that the team loves this game and loves Star Trek. We want it to be continually better. We mess up. We push bugs, but we also make great content when we can focus on it and certainly communicate as much as we can to ensure that you know how we working on this game.

So basically - thanks for all the comments (good and bad). If you didn't care, you wouldn't even be here posting and reading this stuff. So thank you for making STO a priority.

Just want to say thanks to the entire STO Team for pouring their lives into the game. I'm glad the PW transition is in full swing and that hiring is ramping up. One of my hopes for STO since launch was to see Cryptic expand so you can handle more of our requests.

The only thing I don't like about STO right now is the lack of unique, specialized content on the KDF faction. I realize you never had the resources to do it and had to focus on faction agnostic episodes instead. But there is so much untapped potential there and so many stories that could be told. A lot of it is being done with the Foundry but I still hope some official, full featured episodes will be made by you - the professionals.

I still have seen little to no commitment toward making more KDF only episodes. Perhaps the population numbers are still too low and resources still too few. But I still have hope you'll figure something out eventually. Until then, I look forward to enjoying the awesomeness that is on its way to both factions.

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ok given how b roken and unpopular fleet actions are you have to be kidding me cryptic. making us do content we don't enjoy if we want a cool reward isn't the way to do it. I'm dissappointed in this decision.

According to DStahl himself, there will be an Oddyssey Variant available on the C-Store.

So ...

1- C-Store Variants are usually better than free ships.
2- C-Store is easier to do than a Fleet Action

Just wait for the C-Store version and continue to ignore terrible Fleet Actions.

On a sad, but it seems completely UNRELATED note ... Fleet Actions used to be so much fun when the game launched. Until they level banded them. They used to be fun, social, events that involved tons of people.

These days, they are broken and unpopular content that people do not like doing.

Top notch development right there! Boo Yaa!

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That's your choice but if they want to reach the gamers or a larger MMO Group Video VIA Stoked or You Tube has a much wider range and will attract much more people if you show some special stuff and its much lesser work than writing it all down so it has a lot off positive thing to !!!

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I really don't care how many accolade points you, I, or anyone else has. I couldn't care less how much more or less of anything you have than me or anyone else. Your argument is puerile. I'm saying a fleet action doesn't seem like enough effort to earn the federation's newest, flashiest, technology.

If you feel an items is a mark of prestige, then you suggest that you DO care about how much more or less of something you or others have.

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There are also the Corby-type Androids from the TOS episode (I think the title is) What Little Girls Are Made Of. Also, if you guys are looking for inspiration about androids, one of the Myriad Universes (can't remember off-hand atm which one) books has a short story about a group of androids, including Data, that go and form their own little colony/commune. Pretty interesting stuff about android society. Teaser: The Romulans show up and give everyone a hard time

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My prediction for how you acquire this ship "in-game" will be that you must place first in the Crystaline Entity Fleet Action.

And they'll alter the text of the CE FA to include some mention of Captain Data.

Tying the story and the ship into the fleet action.

There you go. In-Game means for acquiring this ship for "free"

Boo Yaa!

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The fact that Cryptic are taking so long to produce anything for three months after the release of Season 4 does not surprise me. When you're in the middle of being sold off by the game company which initially bought you and forced you to produce a game in two years with a predictably mediocre result, while being constantly harassed for more content by an impatient playerbase, I can understand that it's tough to deliver.
.

1. Please get your facts straight in that Cryptic told Atari they can make games within 2 years. Not Atari's fault that Cryptic couldn't bring out a full game within that timescale and the release went as promised, within the 2 years that "Cryptic" said they can make quick MMos. Atari can be blamed for not funding as much after (extra devs etc).

2. Impatient playerbase? Surely you jest. Are you seriously calling people asking for content from month 1 as impatient? How many content droughts have we had now?

I think you will find that any other MMo that released content as lite and as little as STO, would have gone bye bye now. It's only the Star trek fans that keep this game going.

Shesh, impatient????? I cannot believe that statement.

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Did the OP read the part which said:



I guess not.

Yeah, add another month to all those estimates and you'll be closer to the reality.

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Let the whining begin. All of those who are crying or whining, please make your way to the nursery. it's down the hall and to the left. Once there you'll receive a rattle and pacifier to keep you content until you feel the need to pitch the next tantrum.

OK, got that out there. Now for what I came to say.

First, thanks Dan for taking the time to answer that many questions. We (including myself) didn't always get the answer we were looking for, and some are vague for various reasons, but you made an effort. This is truly appreciated.

Second, it looks like we will be seeing a lot happening in the next month, and from that point on. This is truly exciting.

Finally, while the size of this Ask Cryptic is impressive, each month we see some of the same questions over and over and over with the same answer over and over and over. If the people haven't got it by now, they never will. Could you try to focus more on original questions and not repeat quite as many as you do. Thanks in advance.

[Archived Post]

Oh and about money sinks...

I hope Cryptic has done extensive data mining to get a really good picture about how much EC the casual player has compared to hard cores. And how hard the proposed sinks need to be.

I've been playing casually since closed beta. I never PvP. I sell anything that gets decent prices on the exchange but I do not gouge (I price to sell). I'm also frugal when it comes to equipment, either crafting it or purchasing with marks. By the time I reach max level my characters usually have around 4 or 5 million EC.

My richest character has 20 million EC due to those blow-up-n-win missions when the Foundry first went live. People keep claiming everyone has bazillions of ECs and that all these sinks are badly needed. If I were to buy some rare purple loot or a single efficient BO I'd be broke.

Just saying everyone is not a baller, and I suspect most casuals aren't at all. If Cryptic's data mining shows we are all rolling in it and need sinks I'll hush. But if it's yet another case of hardcores being overly vocal then all this need-sinks-NAO feedback needs to be considered carefully for the sake of the majority.

[Archived Post]

Things that I really want to see above all are..

1. Warship Voyager from the episode Living Witness
2. The classic body swap mission or two (With option to keep permanent changes or swap back?)
3. More playable factions.. I like the Fed and like KDF, but I really badly wanted to be a Romulan.. Surely this is on their scopes.
4. Ablative hull armour ability, with graphical effects of the armour deploying over the hull as in the episode Endgame.
5.TR-116 release to the Cstore.. Come on, you released the TOS connie that was my special unlock from the gamestop copy of STO, why not give me the TR-116 or release some Era-specific weapons other than TOS, like First Contact rifle or TNG hand phaser or DS9/ Voyager weapons.
6. An EVA mission like in the movie first contact would be awesome, heck even wearing that suit would be amazing for away missions to planets with a toxic atmosphere.
7. Special ship abilities such as landing on a planet with the Intrepid?
8. Get rid of names like Assault cruiser and just put the ship class.
9. Add better game physics as seen in Star Trek Shattered universe, if you go near a planet the gravitational pull can pull you in and you will die, or multi-phasic shielding to use the sun as a weapon.. Basically making the environemt more than it is.. To include nebulas..
10. Add the Delta quadrant and species.. I would love fighting the Kazon so much, maybe add another caretaker and have a long set of missions to find your way back.. I always wanted to live the reality of Voyager.
11. Add more shuttle missions, but make it to where you can just fly your main ship there, maybe have a cutscene of the shuttle leaving the shuttle bay. Shuttle can still be used as a primary, but it would be easier than switching back and forth.
12. Class 2 Shuttle.. Seriously, the Class F, but not the infamous Class 2.. It comes free with Class 2 claustrophobia!
13. You have Star Trek Enterprise Jumpsuits, do you expect to release the M.A.C.O. uniform or ENT era weapons? I am sure there are many people that would like it as much as I.
14. The ability to wear clothes from other factions or go in disguise as other species at will? That would really mix things up for bored players.
15. Not sure if this was an update or not, but I can't seem to make my femle character's off duty clothes wear pants.. Bit sexist, eh? Can you add jeans and a plaid shirt and sun glasses and converse high tops for a grunge look?
16. I had a drawn out conversation over this, but the name Energy Credits.. Why can't Gold pressed latinum just be the name of the in game currency? Seems more true to trek that it would be that.
17. A more challenging crafting system, I am a long time MMO crafter and miss doing such on FFXI, why not borrow some of FFXI's economy ideas? Crafting in STO is a complete joke and anyone can do it..
18. Enough with TOS time travel! I am surprised we are not killing Nazi's yet!
19. More hairstyles, I like my hair long and messy!
20. Acid floors on Infected, really? Can we do away with that, seems entirely unecessay and stupid to me.
21. Auto frequency modulate? Why do we have to waste a spot for a frequency modulator, it would be cool if it did it by iteself, prompted or had a key specifically for it.
22. Make Starfleet academy the starting tutorial for the game, maybe start as a cadet and until the player becomes the rank of Lieutenant Commander, Commander or even Captain, have the ship under the 'command' of an NPC name, but player is really the one in full control. Seems odd that a lonely Ensign would be the permanent commanding Officer. (Despite the Stargazer)
23. More survival missions like Coliseum from Cloaked Intentions.. Maybe even a survival course in the sol system on Titan as heard on ST: Enerprise.
24. More Romulan presence and less Reman..
25. Maybe scatter around free goodies for people to find, such as era specific items.. Clothes, weapons.. et cetera.. Maybe Ceti Alpha V and get Khan's clothes or something.
26. Maybe have unique NCC numbers? I noticed a Class F shuttle with my NCC registration.. Insulting!
27. Better emote system like FFXI..
28. ST: ENT era shuttle would certainly be interesting, especially since you have the NX class starship!
29. Maybe have an episode in the future where peace between the KDF and Federation begins again?
30. Maybe add one more player slot on a team, six sounds better than five. And in real military terms, you have two full fire teams.
31. Add more of the little things that FFXI had, but in more of a Trek fashion, like FFXI had fishing.. Surely that can go somewhere. There is a reason why FFXI was and is so very popular.
32. Maybe a mission when you get promoted and need a new ship where it is ambushed or something via a distress call and crashed on a planet.. Maybe to a lower level ship or when you become a Rear Admiral?
33. Go back and watch every episode from every series, there are some great stories you can re-create that players would love to do.
34. In FFXI, you can get married, I read you are adding a wedding dress.. Why not let players get married?
35. Can we really look at FFXI for guidance here and make some of the primary fleet/ guild focus on doing raids and such?
36. Maybe some of us loners do not want to be in a fleet or maybe we want a hardcore gamer/ non-casual fleet.. Maybe add a search box for that? And maybe make an advantage for players without fleets as well as a disadvantage.. Balance is key!
37. I miss on FFXI when you get knocked down and needed to be revived, unless you waited to be raised you lost points for clicking respawn. Makes people more of a team!
38. Coaxial warp drive?
39. More explorable and interactive ship interiors?
40. When you go back in time make the ships very weak as we see in Star Trek Voyager when the Klingon ship fires on Voyager and does nothing. Ground combat normal difficulty, but space super easy for technological differences.
41. Make a way to change what our ship's crew uniforms look like, SCI, ENG and TAC.. It is weird walking around and only a few people wearing custom stuff whilst the rest wear something else.
42.Another look at FFXI, can we borrow the option to disable the idle auto timer! I can't tell you how many times I had to walk the dog when I am in a team and I am logged out.
43. Add the ability to make Macros!
44. Ability to look at people's equipment on ship and person by clicking your character or ship.
45. Ability to examine 'info' from anywhere.
46. More types of food..
47. Current world guns and more melee weapons to include the Klingon d'k tahg
48. Hologram BO with mobile emitter.
49. Duras sister's armour and Worf's warrior sash.
50. USS Yeager NCC-65674 ship to download on the Cstore, I have always loved that kitbash ship. Either make it a new class ship or make it creatable via ship customization. Sabre class and Intrepid basically!

[Archived Post]

Let the whining begin. All of those who are crying or whining, please make your way to the nursery. it's down the hall and to the left. Once there you'll receive a rattle and pacifier to keep you content until you feel the need to pitch the next tantrum.



Hmm, every seen the film "they live"?

Obey, Everything is fine, Conform, do not criticize.

Apprently if your not happy and you make a post about it, it must be whining? Oh wait a minute, these forums are only for those that -

1. Do not whine
2. Love STO
3. Love the work the Devs are doing.
4. Happy about the content droughts.

Everyone else should just leave okay?

[Archived Post]

Indeed and with the upcoming C-Store rush STO gets even more unattractive for me.

Am I the only person here that sees free to play on the horizon ??

[Archived Post]

That was kind of a disappointing read, but not surprising knowing Cryptic.

[Archived Post]

To the op come play age of conan its free mass content mass worlds lots of players and lots of other things to do plus did i mention its free and the is lots and lots to do while the devs get things write around here come and have some fun

Funny you should mention *** - the poster child for why you should not release stuff before it is ready. Probably 90% of those now returning are people who quit in 2008.

[Archived Post]

There's been a pretty long gap where there was a lot of ducking and covering. Since all of this straight shooting in this one ask cryptic had to be couched with a caveat up front that stated (and I paraphrase) Sorry for not being able to tell you anything for so long ... and a few of the questions had to be couched with (again paraphrase) I can't tell you any of this inside info ...

I tend to think that a lot of information has not been given. Things are not up front. And there was a lot of ducking and covering.

I'll use an example. It was stated that reruns of Featured Episodes were going to be done so that the team could have time to reorganize featured episodes and get them on a much more robust schedule with a lot less downtime between them.

Reruns came and went.

The PW sale was announced on other sites. And shuffled under the rug on this site.

And content died.

That was a duck and cover move.

I'm not keen on thanking them for being up front when they weren't up front.

Just sayin'

[Archived Post]

Let the whining begin. All of those who are crying or whining, please make your way to the nursery. it's down the hall and to the left.

All those who are conformist, appeasers please make your way to the room across from the nursery.

C'mon. People are mad because we enjoyed playing this game and there's really nothing to do... I mean, I myself have made plenty of Alts. It's getting pretty boring... it makes me want to go to other games and not look back.

I have money to spend on this game but it's just they aren't producing content or anything to make me want to do so.

Really, when you have a trek community who's willing to fork out their resources why wouldn't Cryptic invest enough on a front loading way(hire more people to get content out quicker) then they can reap rewards afterwords by loyal subscribers and LTS from the C-Store.

There is money to be made... it's business. Get some new butts in the chairs and get to work. I'll gladly pay more for new content.