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Captain's Log: Apologies and Andorian ships in Star Trek Online
Last week I wrote a little bit about festering anger exhibited in the Star Trek Online forums over the recent removal of fleet marks as a reward for undertaking the Foundry mission wrapper. This week, Star Trek Online's executive producer Daniel Stahl added another post to the ever-lengthening forum thread and outright apologized for the "heavy handed" nature of the move. He also outlined the reasons behind the reward's removal. Also, this week a new three-ship pack has been made available for purchase in the game's Cryptic Store: the long-awaited Andorian Kumari class escort. She appears to be a beast of a ship and well worthy of her Andorian heritage. So let's get to it!
Neverwinter Days: Money and knowledge
If you've been following Neverwinter's development closely and combing the internet for every scrap of information about it, chances are that this week's column isn't for you. But if Cryptic's newest D&D dungeon crawler has arrested your interest as of late and you're trying to catch up with the rest of the crowd, I think we can be accommodating. Prior to a game's release, I like to bone up on the basics without crossing over into spoiler-heavy territory (especially guides and extensive video walkthroughs, but that's just me). It's a great time to get into dedicated podcasts on the game as well; I swear that podcasts at pre-launch are always more interesting than afterward. So this week we'll go over a few essential resources that all Neverwinter fans, current and aspiring, should include in their bookmarks, as well as a brief discussion about the game's monetization plans.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online's Foundry foibles
I hate writing about brouhahas in Star Trek Online mainly because they're usually just a passing event that either peters out with time or gets changed so quickly that by the time my column gets posted, everything becomes moot. However, this time around I'm pretty confident that a recent change with regard to The Foundry, the user generated content tool in Star Trek Online, may actually be just the tip of the iceberg. The Foundry has had more than its fair share of technological nightmares to overcome in the two years that it has existed in STO. It is an incredible tool, one that allows authors to create their own playable content, and yet it suffers from some of the most serious flaws in the game, flaws that became apparent when the tool was used with the intention of getting easy rewards instead of the personal satisfaction of play. So where will the Foundry end up in the future?
The Daily Grind: Is powergaming via PGC tools acceptable?
Any game that implements a player-generated content system runs the risk of creating a system that's more fun -- or more lucrative -- than the original game itself. Players of the now-sunsetted City of Heroes, for example, were forever finding ways to turn experience and currency gain within the player-content tool known as the Mission Architect to their advantage. Imagine designing a mission with mobs that deal nothing but fire damage, then bringing your fire Tanker with her anti-fire shields to blaze through a group's worth of mobs while soaking up the levels and loot. Overpowered? Most definitely. Fun? Frequently, especially when you just wanted to level up your 50th alt to get to the good powers. Exploitable? Some people did consider such activities to be expoits, and to pacify them, the developers brought so many nerfhammers down on the system that by the end, it was seldom used except by the most diehard storygoers. This same battle is now being waged on the forums of Neverwinter, which game will also implement a player-generated content system that allows participants to design and play each other's missions. Cryptic plans to curtail potential powergaming by limiting rewards earned through the tool, but there's always a danger of limiting rewards so much they're not worth the bother. Today, let's discuss what you think about the potential dangers of PGC. Are powergaming and farming acceptable uses of PGC tools like the Foundry? Do you prefer studios crack down hard on people who aren't doing it the "right" way? Or do you have a different solution? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Neverwinter Days: Beta blitz
Welcome to Neverwinter Days, a fresh new column that will be pulling on our +1 boots of game exploring while we go tramping through dungeons and fantastic locales. I'm fairly excited about this game and wanted to explore it from top to bottom while bringing you along for company. Neverwinter is a Cryptic title, and with that comes a laundry list of expectations: Players will be pretty divided on it, it'll skew toward "fun" and "buggy," there'll be a lot of visual customization, and "F" always, always interacts with the world. And it's a Dungeons & Dragons title, so there are even more genre expectations. For example, we're going to be laying the smackdown on Kobolds early and often. Poor buggers. Usually we begin a column by showcasing the community resources out there, but we're going to put that off until next time in favor of discussing this past weekend's beta event. Yours truly and several other Massively staffers were on the scene to chow through Neverwinter and see how it's shaping up in these final months prior to release. So what did I get out of it? It's going to cost you one click to find out!
TSMC to triple 28nm chip shipment this year, asserts confidence in 20nm demand
At yesterday's investor meeting in Taipei, TSMC's chairman and CEO Morris Chang shared the good news that his company's 28nm chip shipment this year will triple that of last year, which should boost its annual increase in revenue to above the industry's average rate of seven percent. China Times reports that orders for TSMC's 28nm silicon are lined up to as far out as late Q3, courtesy of demand for ARM processors, baseband chips, graphics processors and x86 processors. This is no surprise considering the likes of Qualcomm (Snapdragon 600 and 800), Huawei (HiSilicon K3V2 Pro and K3V3), NVIDIA (Tegra 4), AMD (Temash and Kabini) and possibly Apple will be ordering more 28nm-based chipsets from the foundry throughout the year. TSMC did struggle with its 28nm supply for Qualcomm early last year, but it eventually caught up later on, and Chang stated that TSMC now owns nearly 100 percent of the 28nm process market. Looking further ahead, Chang said his company's already seen enough clients and demand for the upcoming 20nm manufacturing process, which should have a more significant financial contribution in 2014. The exec also predicted that at TSMC, its 20nm production will see a bigger growth rate between 2014 and 2015 than its 28nm counterpart did between 2012 and 2013 -- the former should eventually nab close to 90 percent of the market, said Chang. [Image credit: TSMC]
Captain's Log: Our Star Trek Online year in review plus a look ahead
As I took the time to really go over the past 12 months in Star Trek Online, I began to realize just how much the game had changed between this time last year and now. While some people will never be pleased, I can't say I'm one of those people. I'm utterly delighted by most of the changes in the game and am looking forward to the expansion of the reputation system into 2013. With that said, however, there are improvements that Star Trek Online still needs if it wants to quell some of the harshest (and sometimes deserved) critiques. Join me as I finish up my year in review and then touch on some of Executive Producer Daniel Stahl's answers to player questions in this month's Ask Cryptic post.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online year in review, part one
Here we are again, facing another New Year's Eve and the taking down of the old beat-up calendar and replacing it with a brand-new, pristine one. It's a day to both reflect on the past and celebrate and revel in the exciting unknowns of the future. While we're still a few weeks away from Star Trek Online's third anniversary in February, right now for me it's a time to celebrate two other anniversaries: Last week I celebrated my first anniversary with Massively, and today marks my 18th wedding anniversary! So I figured now was the perfect time to review the amazing changes that have taken place in Star Trek Online. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be going over what worked and what didn't work and try to prognosticate on what the past year may foretell for the future of the game.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online's PvP community steps up
Three weeks away from home and any legitimate connection to the internet can certainly make one feel a bit disjointed. However, I've discovered it can actually be a bit more disconcerting trying to reintegrate into the previous patterns that existed before the break was taken. When I left on my vacation, I seriously anticipated that very little news about Star Trek Online would occur. I expected the news about the 2012 Winter Event to come out, sure, but what I didn't expect was all of the other little bits of news that seemed to blindside me when I got back last week. Join me while I go over a few of the more interesting tidbits -- from the grassroots effort to reinvigorate PvP in Star Trek Online to the changes made to Foundry rewards.
Star Trek Online's Foundry gets a whole lot more awesome
When Star Trek Online's Foundry system fully comes back online after the next maintenance period, players will be treated to a much more robust system than ever before. In a new dev diary, Associate Producer ZeroniusRex explains what the team's been doing to make creating and using the Foundry all that much more enjoyable. Foundry users will discover that the system now includes a Foundry Spotlight in the mission journal. Foundry missions are nominated by players to be potential spotlight candidates. Players have extra incentive to run spotlight missions, as those will have daily rewards attached. Foundry creators will have a few new tools, such as being able to hide and path NPCs, and will be able to access the Mugato enemy type as well as several temporal ships.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online tweaks Season Seven
It's been just over two weeks since Season Seven went live in Star Trek Online, and a lot of tweaks to the new reputation systems have already been implemented. Because of what seems to be low turn-out on the Tribble test servers, the team placed its focus on major performance bug squashing and decided to wait to make changes to the system mechanics until after it could get more solid data from the players on the live (Holodeck) server. Once that information was received, the changes were fast and furious. Star Trek Online's Executive Producer, Daniel Stahl, released two blog posts over the course of the last week, outlining not only the alterations to the Season Seven material but also answers players questions in the November Ask Cryptic. Join me as I go over a few of the changes!
NYCC 2012: Neverwinter panel, Helm's Hold video, Foundry screens
If you're anywhere near New York City this week and you're a fan of Neverwinter or pop culture conventions (or both), the New York City Comic Con is the place to be. Perfect World is hosting a panel called Neverwinter Adventure Zones: From Campaign to MMO World on Saturday, October 13th. It's all happening at 1:30 p.m. EDT in room 1A23 of the Javits Center. To mark the occasion, Perfect World has also released new screenshots, including a couple of images focused on the title's Foundry player content toolset, and a new video tour of Helm's Hold. Check out the gallery below and the Gamespot video after the cut! [Source: Perfect World press release. Thanks to Paul for the tip!] %Gallery-152607%
Everything you wanted to know about Neverwinter's Foundry but haven't asked
Neverwinter has some pretty big shoes to fill. More accurately, it has some pretty elaborate shoe-making tools that it needs to allow players to fill. After all, it's part of a franchise that's legendary for its player-created content. The Foundry system is aimed at giving players all of the user-generated content they could ask for, all of the tools necessary to make great missions, and all of the possible options to get players into player-made content quickly. How will all of this happen? Why, it's outlined in this new development blog! Players will be able to incorporate missions into the overall game world seamlessly or place them in instanced areas depending on the creator's intent. The system will also give players several means of getting into these missions, both from a UI feature showing off popular player-made missions and NPCs highlighting player-made content in any given area. Creators, meanwhile, will receive all the necessary tools to create new maps and new missions even with a minimum of experience. Time will tell how successful the system is in implementation, but it's certainly aiming in the right direction.
Globalfoundries unveils 14nm-XM chip architecture, vows up to a 60 percent jump in battery life
Globalfoundries wants to show that it can play the 3D transistor game as well as Intel. Its newly unveiled 14nm-XM (Extreme Mobility) modular architecture uses the inherently low-voltage, low-leak nature of the foundry's FinFET layout, along with a few traces of its still-in-development 20nm process, to build a 14-nanometer chip with all the size and power savings that usually come from a die shrink. Compared to the larger processors with flat transistors that we're used to, the new technique is poised to offer between 40 to 60 percent better battery life, all else being equal -- a huge help when even those devices built on a 28nm Snapdragon S4 can struggle to make it through a full day on a charge. To no one's shock, Globalfoundries is focusing its energy on getting 14nm-XM into the ARM-based processors that could use the energy savings the most. It will be some time before you find that extra-dimensional technology sitting in your phone or tablet, though. Just as Intel doesn't expect to reach those miniscule sizes until 2013, Globalfoundries expects its first working 14nm silicon to arrive the same year. That could leave a long wait between test production runs and having a finished product in your hands.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online's Daniel Stahl's Q&A at Raptr
The past week was met with such interesting Star Trek Online news that I'm postponing my advice series: STO launched a formal affiliation with gaming social media site Raptr, and Cryptic Studios' Executive Producer Daniel Stahl spent a majority of the day answering questions posed to him in the site's community threads. Stahl revealed quite a few tasty tidbits of information and even though the thread can be accessed by non-members members (the link is below in the comments section), I am taking the liberty of reporting on some of his responses. Join me after the break to read what's in store for the future of STO.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online, story, and 'new Trek'
This week, I'd like to give a short overview of some of Star Trek Online's latest happenings, including news that STO fiction has once again been published outside of the game and that Cryptic has once again begun to feature player-made missions on a weekly basis. Join me past the jump to learn more!
Some Assembly Required: Directing your own Star Trek episodes with the Foundry
To boldly go where no SAR has gone before... but not for a lack of trying, I assure you! Yes, folks, I have actually attempted to explore the topic of Star Trek Online's Foundry for Some Assembly Required on numerous occasions since this column debuted over a year ago, but I was thwarted each time. This mission generator, which offers STO players the chance to infuse the game with their own stories, has had a very rocky life; there have been extended stretches when the feature has been in, shall we say, a less-than-working form. Hopefully, that is all in the past now. Luckily for fans of player-generated content, the Foundry has recently come back online. And with the revelations the in the July state-of-the-game letter and the recent Foundry Season 6 dev blog, it appears the system is getting some real attention from the developers. Soon players will have more tools and better customization to compose their missions and tell their own stories. Do you have a story you want to tell? Keep reading for quick guide to the nuts and bolts of this feature that allows you to create your own bit of personal Star Trek lore.
Star Trek Online's player-created content receiving interstellar love
While Star Trek Online players were nonplussed when Cryptic took the Foundry offline for an extended period of time, it should do them some good to hear that the team is committed to improving the mission creation system as the game moves forward. Assistant Producer Zero said that the Foundry has been a strong success for the game, boasting over 60,000 player-created missions so far. To date, Cryptic has added triggers, branching dialogue, costume customization, and Dilithium tips, but Zero says that is only the start. Cryptic's plans for the future of the Foundry include a bevy of tools such as new character behaviors, multi-select, patrols, 3-D image previews, and a more streamlined process for creating new missions. The team's also including several new props and maps from other areas of the game. Finally, Zero says the studio is looking into ways to promote excellent STO player missions even further.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online in Las Vegas
This weekend, Massively, along with Trek Radio, hosted the formal Star Trek Online Discussion with the Devs panel at the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. And if I judge by the personal feedback received and the unanticipated (yet much appreciated) turn-out from players who attended the panel, all seems to have been very well received. Join me past the jump to learn more about what the STO developers said in response to questions posed by Massively and those in attendance at the convention and on the game's forums.
Captain's Log: The state of Star Trek Online
This past week, Star Trek Online's developers proved they're listening to community feedback. STO Executive Producer Daniel Stahl has released this month's state-of-the-game letter, Foundry missions are playable again, and a few of the game's developers began preparations for their appearance at the upcoming Discussion with the Devs panel, which will be co-hosted by Massively and Trek Radio at the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. Still, there are some outstanding issues that haven't been addressed by Cryptic or Perfect World, and some players are beginning to wonder whether PvP has been laid to rest in STO. Also, the addition of a new EV suit to the ZEN Store has ruffled quite a few feathers, including mine. Join me while I sift through what happened in STO over the past week!
