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Three Year Problems
Captain's Blog Stardate 90700.6
Happy Birthday STO!! I can't believe its 3 years already. There are a couple of things I want to talk about this week, so let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.
As most of you probably know, Cryptic had some server issues on Monday the 28th. A lot of players weren't able to open the launcher and log into the game including me. At first I thought it was my connection so I did some basic troubleshooting then headed over to the forums where I saw that other people were having a similar problem. At least I wasn't alone!
Let me clear something up about this whole thing before proceeding. This has nothing to do with Monday's patch to the game. It happened before the patch and was completely server related. I heard that even Champion's Online was having the same problem and they weren't patched. To simplify what happened, think about the server as a major city and people from all over are trying to reach it. Some of these people experienced road blocks while others didn't. So some were able to log into the game while others weren't.
Now onto what really got on my nerves. While it was a bit frustrating not to be able to log into the game (especially since I had things to do), the number of people complaining, and whining, and !@#$%ing about Cryptic and how they pay money for this game, that they're going to quit, blah blah blah blah blah really bothered me. Then when Cryptic asked people to perform a tracert and post the results people were saying things like "when am I getting my paycheck for helping" and "I shouldn't have to do the work for you". My mind was blown.
Then on Thursday during the patch Cryptic performed some tests and a lot of people who were originally affected were affected again, including me. The downtime lasted longer than it should have and people were getting annoyed. The same posts were popping up as before and I just couldn't believe it. Someone even said "do this on your time Cyrptic, not mine". The only thing I could think of was, this is their time because they work during these hours. Besides if they do it at a different time they'll be interrupting someone else's gameplay. This is a 24/7 live MMO and someone will get affected somewhere. Just please deal with it and move on.
So why bring this up? What's my point in all this? It's not to complain about Cryptic or to complain about these people (ok maybe just a little), but my true point is to ask all of you to be patient in the future. I understand your frustration because as I said, even I was affected and I had things to do for my fleet. Being patient and helpful will go a long way, plus it is better for your health. Complaining and whining incessantly won't make things move quicker it just infuriates others and possibly even the devs. Remember they are humans too and no one likes being told they suck. It’s just something to think about.
Ok let's move on to happier things! The three year anniversary is here and the new mission, Temporal Ambassador is AMAZING! I had so much fun playing through it. I'll try not to spoil anything by talking about it so let me just say make sure you talk to all the people in the mess hall and explore the Jefferies Tube completely. If you haven't played it yet then hurry and go play it. Even if you get the ship and leave it in the box (like I did) that's fine, because you'll enjoy the mission. One suggestion, at the end of the mission you'll need to put your bridge officers back into their correct slots. This should fix any tray issues. It worked for me so hopefully it works for you.
What about Q's mission? I enjoyed finding the mini Q's and playing with them. Although it was kind of easy to find which box they are hiding in since you can see Q running across from box to box. Although I'm sure it's not meant to be too challenging, just a bit fun. The party popper you get from it is the best one yet. I really enjoy shooting out balloons! Cryptic has out done themselves this time. Great work and hopefully you'll be reading my 4 year anniversary blog!
Written by Attilio on February 04, 2013 at 08:17 am
Comments
February 04, 2013 at 10:51 am
Morning all. After reading your blog I can't agree more on those issues and all the complaining. But after 30 years in the military I have a daily saying 'if their not complaining then their not happy and we have a problem'.
Thank for the explaining of the server issue, I think the Iranians (Cyber Attack) did it.
Caller
February 05, 2013 at 08:18 am
Star Trek has always had very 'opinionated' fans who are quick to speak out about what they believe in, unfortunately there are a number of them who are not the most polite about giving constructive criticism.
I thought that the 3rd Anniversary event has been great, and I think Cryptic did a great job with it. (I'm still enjoying it.)
I do think that the week started off with a bit of a shadow because of so many 'flames' on the PWE Forums.
I appreciate that the developers, and the PWE staff take the time to read most of the forums, and don't just loose heart because of the loud complainers.
-Chris
February 10, 2013 at 05:24 am
I just wish that the PWE Tech Support people would read their help requests before they send a response that is the same "Thank you for your input..." message that they send to everyone in all their games. If they're not going to answer questions about problem in the game, why have Tech Support in the first place?
My experience with Cryptic Tech Support has been good for the most part. They try to be helpful if the problem is something they can assist with.
That said, I too was irritated at the amount of really nasty posts on the forums about the login problems on Monday. I don't know how many people were trying to get into the game, but at one point I was number 5 in a queue of about 1200. I accidentally hit "Exit" and, by the time I could get back on (about five minutes or less), there were over 5000 people in the queue. I was impressed with how fast the numbers went down once the initial surge was over. Given the torrent of people who were trying to get on once the Monday Downtime ended, Cryptic moved people into the game very quickly.