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August Engineering Report
Cacaphony
Member Posts: 738
Your local STO basher/critic/hater what have you, reporting in with the newest engineering report. Enjoy!!
Greetings!
Welcome back to another edition of the Engineering Report! We are certainly excited to see more players coming back to Star Trek to check out the Season Two: Ancient Enemies update. In a market where new MMOs are struggling to find a foothold and more and more games are shutting down, we recognize and thank you for continuing to support Star Trek. This is your game and we will continue to listen and drive development in the direction that you tell us it needs to go in.
Right now there are two big things we're hearing and working to deliver. Improved and fixed PVP and more PVE content for everyone. Add in more ships, more costumes, and more overall Star Trek and you can see that a lot of the changes you are asking for are on the radar. We want to see the game continue to improve and grow over time and after our six month anniversary it is amazing to look back at how many updates have gone into the game already. We plan to continue releasing updates that improve the quality of the game.
In fact, that is the goal and focus of the development team. Focus on Quality. There are many features in the game that need a quality touch and instead of promising that we have a quick fix around the corner, we are taking the time to develop a solid solution and deliver a functional and tested feature. The new PVP challenge system is an example of this. We recognized that PVP was in a scary state after the release of Season Two, and instead of rushing out a temporary solution, we've been working to deliver an improved Queue and Challenge system. Those changes have been going onto the test shard and we've been incorporating feedback and bug reports to ensure the update addresses the issue.
So while the team takes time to address your concerns and wishes for the game, we are also working on new ways to introduce content into the game. In the immediate future we will be releasing our first weekly series focusing on the Breen. These series will allow a way for us to release content on a steady basis in a fun and exciting way. Another way we want to introduce new content in the game is to allow you to make your mission content in the game via a User Generated Content Tool.
While still in the infancy stage, our vision for UGC is to not just put players in a box and let them make their own content in some corner of the universe, but allow you to create missions that take place in the existing game. Want to make a new mission that takes place on Deep Space Nine? Go for it! Want to make a mission that takes you from P'Jem to Andoria to Vulcan? Go for it! We want you to have the flexibility to use existing locales in your content as well as existing contacts. There's a lot of tech required to make that happen, and we may not even get close by the start of Season 3, but we are going to put a stake in the ground and start making the system.
Another big change we are making internally is focusing less on "big updates" like Season one or Season two and focusing more on the features, fixes, and content you care about. We all agree Sector Space needs to change. So we're working on it. I honestly don't know when we'll be able to release a new sector space to you, but the key is - its a priority and we're working on it. We'll show you progress and even discuss putting up test versions on TRIBBLE so you can give feedback. When we all agree its ready and awesome. Then we'll release it.
Given that switch away from "the next big update", I'm adding a few new sections to the report this time around to give a better idea of what is "In Development" = we have resources working on this now. "In Design Discussion" = we have designers in meetings discussing how to make or improve this feature. "On Hold" = we were in development of the feature and hit a snag or some other tech issue that needs to be resolved before we can move forward.
We look forward to delivering all of the features listed below. As we move forward, you'll see features and issues continue to move around from design to development to testing. I'm also hoping to continue to shrink the number of issues under investigation and the QA and Customer Service departments are renewing efforts to track down your bugs and ensure that we have fixes on the way for anything that is causing you an issue.
The future for Star Trek looks awesome from where I'm sitting and look forward to working together to continually improve the game.
Now on to the report!
In Testing
PVP Queue Updates including revamped Personal Challenge system
Updates to the Assimilated Cruiser PVP Map
Weekly Series 1 Episodes and Daily Missions
Updated Loot item drops for Level 51 enemies
Updates to the camera to reduce jittering
Mission fixes for STF: Undine Terradome
Fixes for Shanty Town PVP map
Fixes to allow Aid the Planet Missions to be continued and repeated if you had completed them before
Fixes to ensure anomalies drop at the correct levels in Star Cluser Unexplored Systems
Fleet Bank UI Revamp
Additional Season 2 Bug fixes
General Performance fixes to address rubberbanding
New wing movement animations for various ships
Excelsior T3 classic design - requires Commander Rank
Fixes for interiors missing ambient audio
Under Investigation
B'Tran Elite Cluster - Teaming, Drops, Anomalies
PVP and other Daily mission issues
Bugs reported in specific STF missions
Bugs reported in specific PVP maps
Buddy Icons showing up as white Squares
Loot Tables for Level 51+ enemies in B'Tran
Reports of STO Mail being returned after deletion
Reports of players unable to load into Star Cluster Unexplored Systems and getting booted to login screen
Reports of players unable to rank up properly
Reports of Klingon Players not receiving the Sword of Kahless reward item after completing the appropriate mission
Eject Warp plasma killing friendlies after the spawning player leaves the map
Ships not displaying correct rank restrictions
Gamma and other graphical issues reported since Season 2 launched
Global Chat Channel Revamp
Remaining reports of anomaly data not dropping at appropriate levels (we're slowly fixing all these)
In Development
Upcoming Content for Weekly Series
New Episodes for Fed and Klingon factions
New locales to visit
Updated Enemy factions (and maybe even some new ones!)
New Daily Missions
More Diplomatic missions
New Accolades
More Loot
New Weekly Series Rewards
Episode Specific Rewards
More Memory Alpha Crafting Items
Redesign for the Remote Contact System
Improve the way you get missions
Provide daily rewards for doing specific missions
Allow players to rate and search for missions by metadata
Redesign for Sector Space
Larger Sectors
Less UI / UI you can Toggle
Contextual Menus for Systems
User Generated Content Tools (beta)
More Minigames
More Ships including
Vor'cha Refit
Vulcan Faction Ship
Orion Faction Ship
Nausicaan Faction Ship
New Crytpic Design - Klingon Ship
TOS Enterprise Refit
Andorian Faction Ship
Enterprise J
Enterprise NX
More Costume Options
ST: The Motion Picture Uniform
More Borg parts for AlienGen
TNG: All Good Things Uniform
PC Gamer Cover - Open Jacket Uniform
T'Pol Jumpsuit
More Skirt options
New Gorn customization options
300 Day Veteran Rewards
Missions features planetary wildlife creatures
In Design Discussions
First Officer System
Converting First Officer to Playable Captain
Redesign for Exploration Sectors
Additional Bridge Officer and Player Species
Aenar
Kzinti
Talaxian
Android
Hologram
Crafting for Klingons
Allowing Episodes to be Replayed
Revamping VO for contacts
Improved Hair Tech
On Hold/Pending Issues
STF: The Hive
Sitting in Chairs
Episode Replay
Upcoming C-Store Releases
Excelsior T5 "Lakota" - Requires Rear Admiral rank
Off-Duty Costume - Mercenary Outfit
Nebula T5 - Requires Rear Admiral rank
7 of 9/T'Pol Jumpsuit Costume Pack
Enterprise Uniform Costume Pack
Just in case you have not seen this over on the STO page, Ive put it here for you to view.
A couple things that caught my eye were:
Redesign of exploration sectors. That perked up my interest a bit. I wonder to what extent they are talking about?
More crafting options in memory alpha- Perhaps some purple quality items?
Enterprise J and Enterprise NX. - Enterprise J as in the one Archer goes to in the future?
Possible playable Androids? No thanks. I feel that this would just cheapen Data's character.
User Generated Content beta tools. In beta, we will see how liberal they are.
Updated loot item drops for level 51 enemies. Does this mean no more batteries? This seems like something that should have been included when they raised the level cap to begin with.
Sorry bout the long post, but I wanted to include it all here for you.
Comments
On Hold/Pending Issues
STF: The Hive
Sitting in Chairs <----- This makes me laugh , it's the most basic function in MMO's , and they can't make it work. To top it off they've given up working on it, for awhile.
Episode Replay
As it turns out there will still be more Fed faction material added then Klingon. Shocking. I guess the Klingons have gotten about all the individual faction specific PvE they'll be getting.
The deeper I read this , I can't help but be astonished by how much fluff they add to this game. Instead of keeping the artist and designers busy with new content and fixing the graphical glitches they currently have they just add fluff.
LOL. Yeah.. the sitting in chairs thing got me laughing to heh heh.
What game has this right? I'm just asking because it's not done right in AoC either. If you click the bench in the pub in Noble District your body melds with the bench.
In LOTRO the chair kinda poofs and a new one appears but you're not sitting at the table it sits you sideways. If I remember right.
All I'm saying is it might just be more into it with the code that makes it hard. I'm no programmer so I'm just guessing. Does it work right in WoW? I don't play WoW so I'm asking.
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Yeah, it works in WOW. You right click a bench or chair and you will sit down on it. Sometimes there is graphical clipping depending on what you have on, but you will sit and you will not appear to be "part" of the chair, nor does it look like you meld with what you are sitting on (at least to me).
sto subscriber: "why cant i sit in my captains chair?"
cryptic staffer: "thats just an incredibly difficult thing to do, maybe with a few years of planning and research, if it works out... sorry."
sto subscriber: "well if i could sit in my chair it would be something to do."
cryptic staffer: "oh, i guess you havent heard... were making a user generated content system, so not only will there be lots more content to do... but even better if you run through that you can take some time to make even MORE content!"
sto subscriber: "you cant manage to make my avatar sit in a chair, but your able to make a user generated content system that is going to work?"
cryptic staffer: "well of course, thats just plain easy, everything else has worked great so far, why wouldnt this?"
edit- i think episode replay is more important, considering how little content there is in sto, they have given up on being able to replay missions?
IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME
Well they did say recently that content for the Klingons was going to be on hold for the time being, outside of those sharable Klingon/Federation missions.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan