Awen IRC chat Sep 28

Here is the transcript of the IRC chat with Awen from Sept. 28, 2009:


Cryptic_Awen: OK - Let me preface this by stating that this is not a complaint session.

Cryptic_Awen: This isn't about what you want in the game either.

Cryptic_Awen: This is about you and I communicating with each other and you telling me what you'd like to see in terms of community efforts.

deerang: Awen the caption contests goin around have been fun, is there any chance we can have something like that on the official page on a regular basis, perhaps a caption contest every month ?

Cryptic_Awen: Yes - contests are starting back up.

Cryptic_Awen: We will be having large monthly contests, we'll continue with the trivia contests every Wednesday, we'll have Twitter contests and do 2 smaller contests each month.

<Nichodeamus> I have a suggestion for community efforts... It's the same as what I posted in the big ideas thread... Which is simply to show us a wider variety of game development that simply combat system.

Cryptic_Awen: Nichodeamus, we're currently working on an outline skeleton that will give you more relevant information on the game. Also - you'll be getting answers back on those questions / suggestions thst you put in the big thread.

<grinch> is it possible to get at least 2 pictures per week ?

Cryptic_Awen: Grinch - no

Cryptic_Awen: But I do promise to start making sure that anything that we've sent out and is being seen on other websites go into our gallery

* Karrie would like to see an example of the character creator on the site. so we can make the chars from the site while waiting. like for example to make a new species added to the game at launch.

Cryptic_Awen: Karrie, that isn't something that I can promise, but it may be something that they do as a promotion later in anticipation of launch. I just don't know

Cryptic_Awen: Awen : will cryptic be supporting 3rd party websites related to STO - This is a really good question

Cryptic_Awen: I'd like to talk about fansites and 3rd party sites for a minute

Cryptic_Awen: so listen up

Cryptic_Awen: Right now we're having issues with getting the legal nonsense sorted out between us and CBS to actually support fansites. CBS has policies right now that don't allow us to support or encourage fansites.

Cryptic_Awen: I will say that we're working REALLY hard on trying to push this through. I know that you guys want support for your RP sites and community websites. We want to support you. We just can't right now. We've been trying to push this through for months.

Edit for Brevity: More Information will be coming soon regarding fleet fansites and forums. Let's wait for Awen to present this info when it's ready, and not speculate on information that isn't finalized yet.

<[BOK]Khorol> sorry if this was already answered: can we get links back in our forum sigs?

Cryptic_Awen: No

Cryptic_Awen: Khorol people were getting viruses because of them.

<WebGuest63> 1 last question, How come CO gets images for sigs and we get stuck making pretty Ascii art on STO forums? Because if we're not getting them because of Virus' then Why not take the CO ones down, or are they allowed a virus or 4?

Cryptic_Awen: I'm currently trying to get rid of sigs on CO forums as well

Cryptic_Awen: so we've talked about fansites, we've talked about fleets, we've talked about contests.

Cryptic_Awen: As for the IRC, I'm afraid that it has to stay for now. We're looking into other options but we're not going to be able to implement a video chat feed anytime soon but I could ask about a webcam around the office occasionally so you can see the devs at work

Cryptic_Awen: So our web team is working really hard right now and implementing a totally new redesign of the website

<Dragonmonk> Awen if an aspiring fan wanted to help out on forums/community relations on a non paid volunteer status how would we go about that?

Cryptic_Awen: Dragonmonk that's a good question - let me get back to that

Cryptic_Awen: Dragon I want to talk about this at length. So we're going to save it for the end

Cryptic_Awen: Ok - With the redesign there will be better flow of information. We're creating a skeleton that is wiki like with information on the game as well.

<bean> Awen - Something I've enjoyed during previous betas (when I wasn't lucky enough to get in them) is beta diaries from selected beta testers that show writing skill in their forum posts.

Cryptic_Awen: We will be doing beta diaries Bean.

Cryptic_Awen: Ship class tier list is coming

Cryptic_Awen: Oooh oooh I just heard that Rekhan has the ship class tier ready, it just needs to be approved.

Cryptic_Awen: Let's talk about how we as a community can improve visibility and communication between ourselves, new players and developers

Cryptic_Awen: I ran a little thing while I was at JGE that had community emissaries.

Cryptic_Awen: These guys were mentors in the community, they helped new community members, they kept me updated on what the "real" issues where, being able to read between the troll and flame hate. They also helped spread the word of the game to other communities.

Cryptic_Awen: How we got these emissaries was that they were nominated by the community and selected by myself and other developers on the team.

Cryptic_Awen: I'd like to do something similar here. I think that there are quite a few of you that have great potential to be not only community leaders but also Ambassadors for this game.

<Dragonmonk> my only problem with that Awen is while i read the forums a lot I don't post a lot as 80% of the post are nonsense anyways lol

Cryptic_Awen: Yeah Dragon we know. Let's just say it out loud, 85% of our community doesn't post on our forums, whether they're afraid to, they just aren't posters or they get lost and confused, it's a challenge.

Cryptic_Awen: So we need people who can help sort through the nonsense and let us know what's really going on. Help newcomers avoid flamewars and ensure that everyone gets the most out of this community that they can.

Cryptic_Awen: There's only one of me but there are over a hundred thousand of you right?

<tamgros> Awen, what's the difference between an emissary and someone who jsut goes around to various sites talking about STO and being helpful in new threads? How will you be directing the emissaries?

Cryptic_Awen: We'll call them Ambassadors Tamgros and I'll put up the information on it as soon as I can get it approved. But they will have a special forum to communicate with me.

Cryptic_Awen: The best thing we can do as a community is 1. don't feed the trolls. Avoid them and let them putter themselves out. I try to ignore them as much as I can. 2. Stop flaming each other. We're mostly intelligent adults here and yes, we're going to have disagreements but they should be tactical, not flamy

<Nelson> ok is Awen looking for some of us to moderate the Forums?

Cryptic_Awen: I'm not going to ask you to mod.

Cryptic_Awen: I'm asking you to change the way you interact with bad community members.

Cryptic_Awen: We have them, every game has them. Griefers, trolls, flamewar starters, doomsayers, kneejerkers..the whole realm.

<Suricata> There was something Daron at PE told us at STOnet, "post in the threads you want to see more of and 'never' post in threads you don't want to see more of"

Cryptic_Awen: That is absolutely true Suricata.

Cryptic_Awen: Daron was wicked awesome and he is absolutely right.

Cryptic_Awen: There are guidelines for our forums. There always have been.

Cryptic_Awen: someone who sees something that they don't like and go into chicken little mode of "The sky is falling and this game is going to suck!"

Cryptic_Awen: that's a kneejerker

<BlackJack> It can be hard to tell if someone is a Troll or just confused

Cryptic_Awen: Right - if they're confused, they won't try to start an argument with you BlackJack.

Cryptic_Awen: Yes there are tons of them on every forum in existence. Our job is to be better than that.

Cryptic_Awen: Our community can be the best community in the world if we work together to make it so.

<Zander> There will always be rotten apples, Awen.

Cryptic_Awen: Of course.

Cryptic_Awen: But a. we turn rotten apples into applesauce or we ignore them and they go away.

Cryptic_Awen: The new mods will be supervised by myself. I believe in being firm in making sure that the rules are obeyed but not being overly harsh.

Cryptic_Awen: Simply stated, mods don't have to be jerks if the community is acting right.

Cryptic_Awen: OH I know it's hard. I know things about the game that you can only guess at but I can't speak of yet. Can you imagine how hard it is for me to not defend against them? Sheesh I think I have an ulcer by now LOL

<SlingBlade> Now that CO is out will information about STO be coming out at a faster rate? Is there a new way you guys are approaching the release of information?

Cryptic_Awen: Yes there will be more information

<HittingSmoke> Awen Can we get an official sticky with current news on the Console development so we can stop getting tons of threads asking about it? Even if it's just "We're working on it, Don't ask"

Cryptic_Awen: Console development, the bane of my existence. I'll put something up

Cryptic_Awen: One thing that I'd like to prepare you for in terms of forums - when this game goes live, you will only be able to post if you are subscribed to the game.

<[LF]Stevens> what about new people who might want to get info about the game before paying?

Cryptic_Awen: They can read the forums. they won't be able to post

Cryptic_Awen: You will never lose your forum name. We don't delete accounts

<HittingSmoke> Awen, sometimes people check out boards to ask people about a game before they subscribe. One public board might help newcomers who are hesitant to pull out the wallet

Cryptic_Awen: That's an option HS

<WebGuest20> Awen - Any word on if we will have in-game polls to vote on popular issues?

Cryptic_Awen: I'm sorry I don't have any information on polls yet.

Cryptic_Awen: Ok guys, I have to prep for a meeting.

Cryptic_Awen: We'll do this again later this week or next. I'll give you a time.

Addendum:

In the edited part there was also talk about changing the fleet registration part of the forum. Nothing has been decided yet but this change will probably take place end of the week.

Cryptic_Awen: I'll give you guys the rest of the week to copy any messages that you want to keep. Then I'll archive the existing Fleet Registration Forum and we'll create a new one.

In a few days most likely a sticky will be created on the STO forum to inform us of this change, so keep your eyes pealed and start saving messages you want

Nice read. Lots of good suggestions about improving the quality of the STO forums, I like it. There's a lot of junk out there.
Awen seemed a little agitated in the beginning of the chat though or is that just my imagination?

More like interested in keeping the topic of the meeting to what was stated at the very top. Probably thought if he got caught up answering those questions he wouldn't have gotten to say the things that he really wanted to say.

Coco wrote:Addendum:

In the edited part there was also talk about changing the fleet registration part of the forum. Nothing has been decided yet but this change will probably take place end of the week.

Cryptic_Awen: I'll give you guys the rest of the week to copy any messages that you want to keep. Then I'll archive the existing Fleet Registration Forum and we'll create a new one.

In a few days most likely a sticky will be created on the STO forum to inform us of this change, so keep your eyes pealed and start saving messages you want

Does this mean a reboot of the Fleet Forum Thread?

dru_mcd wrote:

Coco wrote:Addendum:

In the edited part there was also talk about changing the fleet registration part of the forum. Nothing has been decided yet but this change will probably take place end of the week.

Cryptic_Awen: I'll give you guys the rest of the week to copy any messages that you want to keep. Then I'll archive the existing Fleet Registration Forum and we'll create a new one.

In a few days most likely a sticky will be created on the STO forum to inform us of this change, so keep your eyes pealed and start saving messages you want

Does this mean a reboot of the Fleet Forum Thread?

Does this mean that you figured out your logon problem?

And yes. That very likely means a reboot of all of the fleets forum threads.

Esyphelon wrote:
Does this mean that you figured out your logon problem?

Sadly, no. Coco suggested to try to log on by an anonymous proxy (anonymouse.org) and it worked.

I'm not really sure what that means yet but I'll be looking into this later this week as I rebuild my computer back up from the HDD wipe I did to try to fix the problem.

Interesting.

Coco wrote:

Cryptic_Awen: One thing that I'd like to prepare you for in terms of forums - when this game goes live, you will only be able to post if you are subscribed to the game.

Pay us money or you can't post on are fourm. It's one way to stop random posts from people who don't actually play the game.