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Star Trek Online: Cryptic's Gozer Departs
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Cryptic_Gozer, a content designer on Star Trek Online, delivered his good-bye post on the official Star Trek Online forums, informing players that he will no longer be with Cryptic Studios come May 14th:
I just wanted to let you know that I won’t around on the forums much more after May 14th. May 14th will be my last day with Cryptic. It’s been a tough decision over the last couple of weeks trying to decide what I should do. Working at Cryptic on the STO Team and interacting with you guys has been a large part of my life over the last two years. I didn’t feel right just fading off into the blackness without saying goodbye to you guys as well.
Short story is that I have an opportunity with a new company that I just can’t pass up but believe me when I say it was by no means an easy decision for me to make. I love our game, and there is a lot of personal blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into making it.
You can read Gozer's full good-bye post here.
We here at MMORPG.com wish Cryptic_Gozer the best of luck in all his future endeavors!
Comments
Ahhh...yes, the proverbial jumping ship before she sinks. So it begins. Good luck to Gozer on his new adventure and endeavor - may he have calmer sea's and fairer weather in the future.
His speach is so broken it sounds like and kid wrote it.
No, no, no. The kettle is not black!
Well I can't speak japanese, so they had better translate right.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Content in STO was shallow and repetitive and all round lame, so I don't think Cryptic are losing anything and that other company isn't getting anything special in terms of talent if STO any example of his content creation potential.
Gozer - Epic Fail. The MMO community was looking for a Scifi home and today - May the Fouth be with us.... always.
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
"I love our game" - Gozer.
"I love democracy" - Chancellor Palpatine.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
So your comparing him to a fictional character?seems really silly. Poor STO seems like its losing all its subs and now designers too... pity the game had potential.
The IP had potential. The game never did.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The IP had potential. The game never did.
You never say anything positive do you?The game had potential when it was in development, you can't just be jaded about everything.
I know people like to have scapegoats, but please realize that employees of a game studio are often constrained heavily in what they can do to make a game better.
Sometimes the vision holder is an idiot. Sometimes the team lead is an egotist. Sometimes the design document Must Be Followed even though it's terrible. Sometimes there's just not enough time (or money). Just as often, maybe the Publisher requires you to do things against the spirit of the game, in violation of the original Plan, and contrary to any kind of consistency of common sense, because some bean counter who knows nothing about making a good game thinks a study showed they'd make more money if you do it that way. I've never personally seen that happen, no, of course not.
It's really unlikely that Gozer personally jacked up STO. Go ahead and blame "Cryptic" as a collective, because yes, the studio is indeed collectively responsible for the disaster and should have known (and done) far better. Some good studio managers will own up to screwing up a product. But really, more often than not, failures like STO are the result of inconsistencies in vision and objectives between the major parties involved in crafting the product.
Taking it out on Gozer is very likely wrong and unfair. S/he is just someone trying to do a job. All of us in the industry hope to do work that's fulfilling and creative, that results in a good product that releases well and that people think is fun.
Because of all the pressures and problems this industry has, such happy stories happen far less often than we'd wish.
Have you bothered to look at his name? I would think he probably has a lot of negative to say about most mmo's out there.
To me... STO is just looking like a fully fledged C Store with a half finished game attatched to it. Thats just my opinion though.
Hope he goes to work for En Masse, He was by far their best Dev. imo.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
^^This. Had a company with integrity (read: Not Cryptic) taken the progect and treated it with the seriousness it should have been rather than trying to make some sort of dumbed down arcade shooter out of it STO could have been great. It might have been quite a success due to its fan base, but instead Cryptic decided they wanted to appeal to a 'broader' audience and watered the Trek influences down so much that what they ended up with could hardly be recognized as Star Trek at all.
Ya.. you know those "10 bird of prey omg" missions? Those were the missions he didn't write.
Gozer wrote pretty much every good quest and STF in STO, not the crap you're talking about.
Hmm... so Gozer wrote all the good missions and content... and now Cryptic just lost the guy that wrote all the good stuff. Wonderfull.
Tell me what the potential was.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Hmm. I'll try again, too.
DUh, hey! Why you guys blme Gozer? Dum Cryptic mess up da game! Not have to be Gozer's fault!
Better?
I dont think anybody really blames any individual dev (I know i dont) but i do blame cryptics managment and PR department for rushing out this shoddy product.
I almost feel shame considering myself a part of this "community". far too many rude people here who haven't a clue how to conduct themselves.
Good luck Gozer for the future.
Oh, I think this decision was very easy.
Allow me to translate, "STO has departed aboard the S.S. Failboat and I would much rather not be aboard when it finally plunges into the depths".
I hope he finds a better home.
Robots will kill you!
I'm one of the first to jump on Doubter when I feel he's wrong, but I will also give him credit when he makes a good point and he is right. The IP had potential, the game never did in Cryptics hands. After the release of CO, and them recycling the same broken system, the pre-lifetime-purchase and the pay-to-play beta it was obvious Cryptic planned on recycling what they originally started working on to create with CO and only tweak the system to suit the IP. Star Trek deserved much more development time, and a strong system built from scratch, whereas instead it received a coat of paint and an item store.
Cryptic had many chances to make CO and STO what people wanted, but instead they went another direction. The low cost, for high profit direction, and it shows in every aspect of their games. (Not CoX that game was pretty good even from launch)
Probably the first instance of someone bailing out before the true magnitude (corporately speaking) of the STO failburger becomes well known in gaming circles. In the same way that several longtime SOE designers/programmers have (allegedly) had trouble getting work in the industry because of a terrible company reputation, I expect any reasonably good people at Cryptic will bail before the garbage scow makes them stink any worse, and before it sinks altogether. If they can get a new job before that happens, they'll be lucky.
Quote: Cryptic had many chances to make CO and STO what people wanted, but instead they went another direction. The low cost, for high profit direction, and it shows in every aspect of their games. (Not CoX that game was pretty good even from launch) End Quote
its not like Cryptic had a choice. Atari held the strings as to when the game was released and Cryptic did the best they could with such a short development period. Repeatedly they have said they wished they had more time to develop the game. Thats not how the development cycle works unless your primary source of funds comes from someone like EA whos willing to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into a game, IE SWTOR.
In anycase I personally don't see this game going anywhere anytime soon. They have enough fans of the game to keep it afloat Id guess. Whether it becomes something worth staying in Ill judge in a year. Im patient hehe.*Shrug* Besides Im subed to 3 other games.
way too late for that. other people in industry are following this debacle as a "what we must never do" lesson.
plus you gotta admit, a lot of it is pretty funny, even if it is sad that they ruined the only st mmo thats come out.
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