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Season 6
Captain's Blog Stardate 90143.91
So Season 6 has been talked about a lot for a while now and it has finally been released. Am I happy it is here? Of course!! I've been waiting for fleet's to get starbases ever since they announced it. Am I happy with the way Season 6 was released? Not exactly.
Let's start with the 7 hour down time. I really don't have a problem with it because I knew Cryptic was making a lot of changes. What did annoy me was the server instability after they came back up. People were having trouble logging in (including myself). Once I finally got in, I found that I couldn't add projects to my fleet's starbase! That was really annoying.
Of course the servers went down 1 more time so that Cryptic could fix the instability. When they came back up, I logged in again and was almost number 1500 in the log in queue. What ever happened to Gold members getting preferred login? Again, I went to add projects for my fleet, and couldn't.
Eventually Cryptic took the servers down a third time to fix this little problem (I was asleep at the time). I honestly think this was the worst Season release ever. It just caused too many problems. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Exchange isn't working correctly. All the server down time, the bugs, etc. really makes me feel like they rushed it out.
Some of you may know from my past blocks that I believe it is better to wait and have higher quality, then rush and have lower quality. I do think Cryptic rushed this out and perhaps should have waited another week or two. What are your thoughts on all this? Also, if this is your first look at Season 6, I'm interested to know what you think of it!
Written by Attilio on July 15, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Comments
July 16, 2012 at 05:48 am
I like it for the most part, it's just frustrating since there are only two of us active in my fleet. I really need to figure out how to get fleet marks.
Reply to RTK142July 16, 2012 at 07:32 am
This was my first experience of a new season release, I was surprised it happened with no warning and after a limited time on Tribble. I like the content and feel it has added another diamension to the game experience. The server stability and bugs in various areas, some effecting previous content, is disappointing. Overal though I think the game is going in the right direction.
Reply to Blake7July 16, 2012 at 07:55 am
By and large I think it's a good update. The downtime didn't bother me as much as others, it seems (perhaps I'm too used to League of Legends..) but some aspects of the starbases distress me a little - particularly the new ships and particularly the 'fleet' variants. I'm concerned about power creep appearing with these new Tier 5 badasses, which are almost all very powerful ships AND all require a substantial investment of both starbase time/resources and your own money.
By and large I'm very happy though. More missions to run, goals for fleets to work towards, and more opportunities to team up? Great stuff.
July 16, 2012 at 08:25 am
RTK142 you need to do PvE missions like No Win Scenario, Colony Invasion, etc. which are in the PvE queue.
Blake7 we did know about 24 hours before that the servers were going down. We just didn't know for certain if Season 6 was coming.
July 16, 2012 at 02:31 pm
I'm excited about season 6, and like the new content.
I'm also looking forward to season 7, and I think they can really do some interesting story building on what they have built with the fleet framework.
I am disappointed that PWE/Cryptic would play it so close to the vest when they are updated web pages, changing forums, and releasing full Seasons in that they don't really tell us about it until it's happening.
I'm sure my friends wouldn't be happy if I did things like that...
July 16, 2012 at 03:13 pm
I'm personally glad Season 6 is out. Granted I knew it was gonna have its bugs when it came out, but what major content release doesn't? The downtime was annoying, but when compared to the release of Season 5 and Free to Play, I'd say the release of Season 6 has so far faired a bit better. How quickly we forget the hours and hours of downtime and stability issues that lasted for weeks to over a month when Free to play first came out. Downtime was almost a daily occurrence for 2-3 hours of the day.
Yes Season 6 has its bugs (quite a few of them), and I'm sure more downtime will follow to fix them, but so far I think some lessons have been learned, and Cryptic tries to make the best of the downtime, by patching early to maximize the use of downtime to keep it to a minimum, and they are getting better at warning us ahead of time when downtime is coming.
As for the Starbases, they are a interesting new concept, and the Tholian Invasion Zone is well done in terms of the environment, but some of the missions are bugged, and as for the Starbases, the materials and time needed for each starbase project is a bit steep even for a large active fleet, let alone smaller fleets, making Starbases more of a sink then anything. It will be interesting to see if we finally get to see the Iconians this season or next. As well as the last Borg STF (Into the Hive) if we ever get to see it. Season 6 has its promises to improve the game, but I fear that we may also be in for some disappointments. Only time will tell.
Udimir
July 16, 2012 at 05:12 pm
Overall I am very happy with Season Six. I agree they should have spent a bit more time working out the bugs before releasing it, but the new content is worth a few bugs here and there.
I hadn't noticed that th Exchange is bugged (any more than it has been since a month or two before the release of F2P), but I did notice two other problems. I can no longer get the Foundry to work at all and I'm having major problems getting DOFF recruitment missions. One of my characters has been trying for four days to recruit DOFFs and others have had mixed results. I don't know what the problem is, but it's frustrating.
July 16, 2012 at 06:22 pm
Is there a blog post about new releases anywhere on here that isn't just full of complaints?
Reply to HumanixJuly 16, 2012 at 06:24 pm
I didn't have a problem with the release. Why all the whining?
Reply to CheRojJuly 18, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Im always glad when cryptic get new stuff out, after some time Ive learnt that STO isnt a standard MMO and what rates as content here is different to the mainstream. Starbases are awesome sauce and sadly i Have a big BUT, Im a lifer and bough most ships, and Ive always had the opinion that id rather give money than not or pay 5 bucks more than i think rather than not having STO, but as we get further into SBs I have to say im starting to feel a bit like a cash cow, Im aware i dont HAVE to but EVERYTHING is attached to either zen points or Dilithium 200000 for 5 quick ship provisions then 20 bucks for modules then then then and it just keeps going....I know there has to be change and change for STO is good the economy needs to change, so I guess Ill wait and see, but Im having doubts and we are only on to tier 2 stuff
Reply to Jedi