State of the Game: September 2012
By PWE_BranFlakes @ September 21, 2012 at 12:00pm
Greetings!
Now that we are a few months into Season 6 and rapidly approaching the release of Season 7, it’s a good time to give you an update on the State of the Game. First off, a big thank you is due for continuing to send in your questions for the monthly Ask Cryptic column. Your feedback and questions about the game provide valuable feedback to the development team and help to provide a constant reminder of what you find important about STO’s future.
At the end of the last Ask Cryptic there was a poll asking which feature you would most like to see in 2013. Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote and to the almost one hundred pages of discussion responses about the results. It is great to be able to talk about the long term future of STO and realize that the game is moving forward. Season 7 will be launching this November, followed by our 3 Year Anniversary in February. The team continues to grow. We’ve been very lucky to land some great talent from 38 Studios and Paragon Studios. As these new team members come up to speed on the game, they will be adding their own personality and style to the game and they are very excited to show you what they can do.
Looking at the results in the Ask Cryptic poll, it is clear that there are some very strong opinions about where we should be focusing all of this talent. We want to tackle all of your feedback and deliver everything you want to see in the game. As we look over our 2013 development plans, we will be taking your opinion into consideration as we build the schedule of what comes next.
After the last Ask Cryptic, I posted the following rundown of the top issues we are looking to tackle. It seems appropriate to repost this in the State of Game as it gives a solid overview of where we are and where we are headed in the near term.
Reading through the many comments after last month’s Ask Cryptic, here are some of the biggest topics on the development team’s radar.
The Foundry
The Foundry is awesome and the people who make Foundry missions are even more awesome! There are so many amazing missions being made on a weekly basis that it is a downright shame that we haven’t found a better way to integrate these missions into the standard flow of the game. Right now they are on a filtered tab, but we can do so much more. Foundry missions should also offer better rewards and fill content voids where they exist. If we could adopt the missions and ensure they are integrated with the overall arch of the game, it would show the power of crowdsourcing.
PvP
It is no secret that PvP in STO has suffered from a lack of development effort. This has been a shame because it could become a much more compelling aspect of the game as whole. The storyline behind the game pits the Federation against the Klingon Empire in a state of war, and yet the PvP doesn't reflect the conflict in a meaningful way. Territorial gameplay or iPvP matches would go a long way towards improving this part of the game.
The Klingon Empire
The KDF faction has a long history of trying to establish itself and has suffered greatly from the "what is it going to be?" thrash. While there is a passionate contingent of KDF players at max level who want more KDF specific content, there is also a large number of players who pass on playing in the KDF because you cannot build a KDF character as your first. In either case, the KDF wants to feel established and have their own agenda in the game instead of always playing the "foil" to the Feds. The best way we could tackle this issue is to take a “build it and they will come” attitude and find a way to let players create Klingons as their first and primary character.
The Romulans
Aside from the KDF, there are a significant number of players who would like to play as a Romulan, but don't want that experience to be as simple as a "playable species". Playing a Romulan should mean having your own story and agenda, your own ships, and your own experience. Given the games development history with the KDF, there is skepticism that a Romulan experience would be any better than what the KDF had shortly after launch. The fate of the Romulans is also a topic of debate. What has happened to them since Romulus was destroyed? Are they splintered? How many are left? Who's in charge? Any effort with the Romulans should start from a perspective of "Telling their Story" so that the design is fulfilling to fans.
Those are some of the big issues and features we want to start tackling and resolving. It doesn’t mean that we are ignoring everything else – we will continue to look at features like more episodes, more ships, more Duty Officer and Crafting system improvement, as well as exploration and general gameplay bugs. It does give you an overview of the broad strokes we’re considering for the near future.
As we move forward it is also important to look at where we’ve been and how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. When you consider what it takes to run an MMO in today's highly competitive marketplace, STO has been kicking some butt. Despite what some may think, we have a deliberate path and long-term goals that we've been tracking quite well against. STO has not only survived, but is thriving at a time when many MMOs have kicked or are about to kick the bucket. The STO community has been a big part of our success and has truly impacted both the development and health of this MMO. We can’t thank you enough for supporting this game. The company is recognizing your support by throwing more resources at the team than we’ve had since pre-launch. Our team size has nearly doubled since a year ago, and we’re still hiring!
If you don't mind, I'd also like to give a shout out to this amazing STO team. Since my return as EP last February, STO has been on a steady pace to deliver fun new content and address some of the top issues in the game.
As a reflection of what we've been able to accomplish, check out what we've done in the past 6 months:
- Dominion Featured Episode Series
- "Alpha" one-off KDF Episode
- Dilithium Mining Event with new Mini-game
- KDF Federation Blockade Fleet Action
- First Contact Day Event
- Vault Shuttle Event
- Ferasan Playable Species
- Fleet Advancement Starbase System
- New Starbase Fleet Events
- Over 40 new ships
- 2 new Duty Officer Packs
- Half a dozen new costumes
- Revamp of Defera Adventure Zone world missions
- New Tholian Adventure Zone with two new boss battles
- New Foundry features and assets
- Lots of new loot
Here are some of the things we’re working on for the next 6 months:
- New Personal Advancement System with Reputation based personal projects
- New Embassy Fleet Holding with related projects and rewards
- Several new 5 and 20 man Fleet Events some of which are cross-faction team-able
- New Max Level Sector with Daily Patrols
- New Romulan Colony "Adventure Zone" – our biggest to date – includes BOFF gameplay
- Into the Hive STF – Finally fight the Borg Queen
- New Ships including the Vesta class
- New Duty Officer Pack
- New Loot
- New Foundry Spotlight feature
- New Foundry assets
- UI improvements including the Queues
- Updated Winter Event
- 3 Year Anniversary Event
In addition to that, a small subset of the team has also been working on the ships, costumes, and consumables that appear in the C-Store. There are probably things that I even left out, including bugs, that we continually squash week to week, but the gist is, we are aggressively moving forward.
Altogether, that is a healthy amount of new updates this awesome, little team has delivered since we launched F2P. In 2013 will deliver even more as we continue to staff up and train our new team members.
As we move forward into Season 7 and then on towards 2013, the STO development team will be keeping all of the hot topics close to our heart so that we can ensure that the features we deliver in upcoming Seasons reflect the best decision of where you feel the game needs to go next.
So please continue to discuss the game and what it could and should be. Send in more questions! Post more feature requests in the forums! We are listening and do find value in the dialog we share together.
Thank you for taking the time to participate and communicate, and most of all, thank you for your continued support. We want your business and will continue to work hard to deliver for months and years to come.
Star Trek continues to shine thanks to you.
Live long and Prosper STO!
Until next time,
Daniel Stahl
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
goldentail @ Sep 30th, 2012 2:05AM
I'm looking forward to seeing this season 7 to come out. Far as you guys say your lacking in things coming out is far from the truth in my eyes. You guys and gals in Cryptic have keep me swamped with things to do none stop round the clock. If someone saying they are bored and there isn't anything too do. Then I would say they aren't really trying because the foundry missions are never ending. Far as everything else, I enjoy it. I started playing about a year ago and left do to money problems, but the F2P opened up and I came back to playing and now I pay to play because I wanted the gold member status. $15 a month is really not that bad once you thing about it, or do the wise thing and dump the $300 for Lift time member ship which comes out to being a little shy of 2 years of subscription time at $15 per month. I can't say this enough, but far as seeing a few bugs here and there is way better than Blizzard could pull off with WoW. So, keep up the good work guys.
astroviking @ Sep 27th, 2012 3:31PM
has any fleet reached Lvl5 yet if so ill sell my soul for a Very Adv Fleet hangar
kingjohn22 @ Sep 27th, 2012 8:19AM
wait when they say they are working on Romulans, please mean that you are working on a playable faction, I really want a Romulan and D'Deridex. I don't see why everyone is complaining about KDF, sure they have less than Feds but it is because the story is always told by the Fed point of view so they have less KDF cannon to work with. I will personnally enjoy a Romulan Playable Faction. Here is some feedback, with the new starbases and stuff, people will probably want to have more fleet wars but there is no way to have one due to the pvp systems, maybe you can work on an official fleet war system, I know my fleet would like to take out Starfleet Dental.....
howiebabey82 @ Sep 25th, 2012 2:32PM
the more factions and ships the better im sure many wont agree with this but how about a borg story line lol
kingjohn22 @ Sep 25th, 2012 6:49AM
I think that it's great to be working on a Romulan playable faction, I personnally hope that they extend silver players to 3 chars, 1 fed 1 kdf and 1 rom, everything there working on is great
goldentail
If the Romulan's are going to be their own faction, then I would have to agree with ya on this one. It would only be far to everyone that you can make one of each.
zeroraijin @ Sep 24th, 2012 8:45PM
I just want a locked box that grants something for a Tactical officer.
bloctoad
I approve this message.
coppermouse14 @ Sep 24th, 2012 6:58PM
I would love to play Borg.. To make that is easy. There are many ST episodes that show some borg breaking away from the collective. If the borg be comes available I will start a character. I will have to let my fleet know I will be playing more borg. As for capturing ships. I can see some farming going on with that..
darthdudenate
many as in 4 or 5, maybe as many as 10. And when they do break away, it's always in reletively small groups. The largest I can think of was Unimatrix 0, where there were a few thousand. And the borg tend to try to put down subfactions whenever they arise. The bigger the faction, the more powerful the atempts. Enough to take a cube from the collective's grasp would easliy be put down by all nearby cubes converging on it. Taking a system? that would lead to a huge massacre of all drones in said system. Changing the entire collective could work, except for the fact that then it would be a different collective and therefor other undesireable effects would be produced, such as the loss of need for a queen, getting rid of Cryptics shiny new STF. I do want to see the borg be playable, but it just doesn't seem possible. I do like the idea of capturing ships, but it should be EXTREMELY difficult, otherwise some max level idiot could go to Ker-rot, set his eye on some poor struggling recruit, and relieve him of active duty.
vinru821 @ Sep 24th, 2012 12:03PM
Great reading for me. Enjoying the game more lately, and hey. im in for life so lets get it great!
darthdudenate @ Sep 24th, 2012 9:21AM
The biggest problem with making a borg playable faction (as I see it) is actually making it canon-able, working with the canon. There are no individuals in the collective. Because of that, you cannot have a single character as the player, of Boffs for that matter. Not even the queen or Locutus are exempt from this, they are simply manifestations of the Hive's will. When Cryptic does figure this out though, I think a good way to make the character would be to complete a special mission in which your other guy gets assimilated, then you can play him afterwards as a fed/kdf or a drone.
darthdudenate
by my last comment on that, I mean that your character is still not assimed in your fed/kdf normal profile, but you play drone in the borg profile.
desholywater
A playable Borg faction and staying true to canon is a possibility, Hue borg from TNG I borg and Decent 1 and 2.
pilotman1 @ Sep 24th, 2012 9:12AM
what will into the hive drop? borg tech, something new?
shpoks @ Sep 24th, 2012 8:47AM
Thanx guys for your efforts to develop and improve the game and keep up the good work. I just have so much fun playing it, maybe cause I'm a ST fan, but I never had enjoyed myself with any other game quite so much. I haven't been around as much as some players have but I realize STO has gone far since launch. I'm a KDF fan and for me the Klingon faction makes up for more realistic playing experience, but I for one don't mind having less than the Federation as long as we still get some improvements on regular basis. After all, there is a pinch of a sence the wealthy and spoiled Federation to have more and the KDF to have to work with what we have as warriors do. Still hope to see new content though, despite the patience ;) Qapla'
peevil31 @ Sep 24th, 2012 8:46AM
Thanks for making a, truly, enjoyable game! "You can't please everyone" holds true, even here. Thanks for doing a great job at balance. Some people won't think STO's environment is a balanced one. I disagree. All the variables that go into a characters diversity is staggering... I think the Cryptic team deserves a big pat on the back for integrating so many ways to make my character as unique as I've made her. You are doing a good job and I look forward to all the awesome content that's sure to follow. -Jeremy
lasagne01 @ Sep 24th, 2012 8:31AM
Why everytime we enter Sol "System" and we end up seeing Earth's Orbit, and all we can go is the boring Spacedock or Academy. I want to go to Jupitor Station or Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards on Mars to.Would it be better that we have the option to choose to go to when we enter Sol "SYSTEM".
pilotman1
i agree it makes no sense since in the desription of sol system it desribe utopia planetia
pilotman1 @ Sep 24th, 2012 8:26AM
I love this game!!! as huge star trek fan exploring the places featured in movies and tv showes is pretty cool. Thanks Cyptic some great additions would be the capturing enemy ships, also could you guys lower the ceilings? when you visit the bridge or go to ESD or DS9 the ceilings are really high on my escort when they should be shorter. really all internal ship functions like visit the bridge could be improved also improve the chance of getting a proto borg tech, i know it is ment to be hard but i have done over 75 and no sign of it
klastsotsi @ Sep 24th, 2012 7:25AM
I have been a member since Beta testing, and I think it would be a great idea for players to be able to capture enemy ships (even if only on a limited basis.) These ships could then be used or sold.
inhumanekitten @ Sep 24th, 2012 7:01AM
Thanks for all the work you put into the game to make it better! I love the starbase system. It's great that you are putting out lots of new ships, but a lot of us would rather have you take a break from that for a while and focus on improving/creating ship interiors for all 3 decks. Interiors make a big impact in roleplaying atmospheres. Also there is a great number of us who really want a Voyager bundle. I realize that these two items are not new requests to you, but I want to add my voice to the crowd of requests for these things. Live long and prosper!
alessandrolander @ Sep 24th, 2012 6:57AM
I dont know why but i like more Romulan then fed and kdf .-.
bekstorm0cz @ Sep 24th, 2012 6:39AM
I em playing for beta, and ( sorry i em in "comment" mod ) I MUST write some bulsh ... I men stuffs 2. 1) STo is beautiful ( i like STO graphics and some planet surface maps are jaws dropping ) wot a loot of potential. 2) I realize tha Star Trek is more restricting then your own Cryptic made universe ( champions on-line is more fun but ... Star Trek is 2 serious to be fun ONLY game ) and .... yeh 3) KDF .... yessss KDF need more love seriously BUT tel mi folks did some of you players can name any Star Trek KDF movie or series or ... just few Klingon oriented pieces among thousand of NON KDF material this is Sta trek sorry but making KDF is quit a hard task please give thous Cryptics folks some time .... Romulan faction .... good luck with that 4) Grab boxes ... nearly all MMO have some kind of this "amusement" dint like don buy it BUT plese don write about it it is weird. P.S. I liked DAngelo more the Stahl ..... sorry it needed to come out
ehlim @ Sep 24th, 2012 5:13AM
Hi all, I've begun playing this game since it went F2P and so far I've extremely enjoyed the experience! For one, I think that a feature like STO's Foundry can be the envy of any MMO, and I find the duty officer system to be very amusing too. I want to thank Cryptic for all the hard work, the passion and their exeptional consideration of the community's opinions. To show my support I've just subscribed for the 3 months period, and will gladly keep it on if the game continues to be this awsome! Congratulations!
leighandrew12 @ Sep 24th, 2012 3:28AM
I like the idea of a Romulan faction but I think realistically thats a long way off. Many of you may not know this but Star Trek Online was initally developed by Perpetual Entertainment in 2004, they went bankrupt in 2008 and Cryptic took over but none of the game assets were transferred to Cryptic and they had to create the entire game from scratch. When the game was released in 2010, Cryptic had to do 4 years worth of work in 2 year and thats one of the reasons why the game has looked unpolished or unfinished in some areas and the countless bugs. So to be fair to Cryptic they have had the weight of it all on their shoulders and have pulled alot off without the resources of bigger game companies in a short space of time. The game does certainly need alot of work with especially with Klingon faction, which has become like a bastard child, which is essentially just something the Feds can bash around. Yes the Federation faction maybe more popular but thats because there is nothing to perk the interest of anyone except a die hard Klingon fan, in many ways the Klingon faction is the perfect opportunity to do things you can't on the Federation side as the Trek shows are always told from the 'Human' side, which restricts what you can do with the established canon. The reason why Klingon side is not as popular as the Fed is because the playing field isen't level, of course people will go for the Feds because all the shiny stuff in the C-store etc are mostly on the Fed side. Its human nature to want to play on the popular team because we think they are better. Give the Klingons more love and attention and people will change their tune, give people nothing and you get nothing in return.
ahilles7
Good post.
echoslockjaw @ Sep 23rd, 2012 8:24PM
Well 1 problem with a kick vote what if there are 4 friends on a team who want to be a dick to a person and deside to kick vote him right before the end of the mission? thus screwing him out of the loot. ive had this happen to me on other games and let me tell you it sucks.
imralizal @ Sep 23rd, 2012 7:54PM
This post makes me happy. I'm glad the game is doing well and that they seem to have a good grasp of the diversity of player wants and playstyles. Nothing is perfect, but it's come a long way since launch.
captainbrady @ Sep 23rd, 2012 2:52PM
Here's what you should add. The ability to VOTE KICK a griefer in PvE. Seriously, there are people (mostly veterans) who deliberately do things to make the STF missions fail for some sort of sick personal joke. Why should people like that be allowed to sabatoge everyone else's good time. If a majority vote to kick a person they should be forced to leave the team and get no loot whatsoever. Maybe that will give people reason to behave themselves.
leighandrew12
But that just leaves it open to abuse. What if you have a group of freinds with one random person who think it would be funny to kick vote him/her out of the game and rob him/her of thier rewards because they think its funny? Very a few times I have had to go afk to answer the phone or something because someone unexpectantly calls me or knocks at my door, I can't help that. If your having problems with people on STF etc all you have to do is form a team with people you know or fleet mates etc, simple
diafpwe
@leighandrew12 vote-kick usually requires a majority vote from all the group's players. So if 3 out of 5 are tired of you sitting at the zone in while everyone else is struggling, off you go. This I think is very fair.
leighandrew12
@diafwe I think you read my post wrong so I will clarify. What if you were on a team with for other who were all freinds, fleet mates etc and YOU were the random person and they all decided to get rid of you just because they thought it funny or for whatever reason, you missed a probe on kitomer accord for example, d oyou think thats fair? I doubt that if you were on the recieving end youd soon complain...
leighandrew12
@diafpwe what they should do is add contribution rewards like they do in other PvE. Everybody gets a basic reward for completing an STF, for example 1 Borg Data Chip and depending on who the player performed he/she will be giving a reward based on their overall contribution, for example more data chips or rarer loot etc. Then in order for people to get the most out of a game they have to work hard for it. The real people that annoy me are the ones that get worked up over the optional objectives and rant and rave at you and the rest of the team. All they do is complain or the time and put the other players down. All I can say is if you don't like playing with other people, be they newbies who dont know what they are doing or time wasters that just sit around the zone is go form you own team with freinds or fleet members. You have that option!
captainbrady
@leighandrew12 diafpwe read your post just fine. You have an irrational fear that my fellow Terrans and I will vote kick you, for incompetance. You should be afraid of that, because if you grief and blow optional for us, or flat out cause the mission to fail, we will have an unanimous consent to kick you. Now the idea of it being abused is just stupid. Why would I have my fleetmates kick you and reduce our DPS so that we either fail the mission? That's ridiculous. STF success depends on having a high DPS and teamwork to complete the mission. It does the team no good whatsoever if we just kick you for the lols. If for some reason that does happen, who cares? I never said you would get a leaver penalty. Also I would be willing to ammend the vote kick to be disabled as soon as the STF is no longer possible to fail, or in the case of infected after the second transformer is dead. At this point it becomes a situation where all members have contributed. I don't understand why people insist on protecting willfulliy ignorant players, or griefers who get off on seeing missions fail. You will get no quarter from me though, nor from my fellow Terrans.
bos142 @ Sep 23rd, 2012 1:29PM
I think all of these points and future goals are both important and great but i really would like to see the gang at Cryptic take a little time to work on reported bugs before they release new content. Great job so far but a little catch up love would be nice.
falconnightperu @ Sep 23rd, 2012 10:58AM
Season 7?... They are thinking of advancing the game, but they do not worry about aspects so important as to solve the bugs of Defera's missions and that now also they are presenting in Khitomer's STF. They continue despising to the Spanish language, when the majority of games are doing (or already they did) translations to this language. According to my point of view they are getting into a great problem on having included new content without solving the current problems. We all want new content, we all wish a constant renovation of the game, BUT ALSO WE WANT A STABLE GAME THAT DOES NOT DEMONSTRATE PROBLEMS OR BUGS. That there are many players who applaud them and clean the shoes, but here it is a question of telling the truth: First solve the current problems and then they can think of throwing more new content BUT WITHOUT UNBALANCING THE ALREADY EXISTING ONE. This it is true, and I give them to him free. Regards.
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