Beta Update from the Dev's - 01/18/10

[ThrillaGorilla]

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/899

or

Where’s Sulu?
The first week of Open Beta has been amazing!
We have seen more signups and players than we ever imagined we could. So very many people have shown interest in Star Trek Online and logged in to play that we've actually had to scramble to support everyone. Our core engineers are this very second working like crazed technology wielding madmen to improve performance and stability across the board. We're also adding a lot more hardware to accommodate our players.
p.s. Sulu is right behind you in Quinn’s office. Right there, behind the other desk.
Stability and Performance
Where the heck did you all come from!?!
Reality has exceeded even our wildest expectations. We looked at numbers from Closed Beta, numbers from games we've worked on in the past, and some numbers that float around the games industry. Based on those numbers, we predicted that about 65% of the keys we generated would eventually turn into active players (some keys never get delivered, others are lost in spam boxes, some are never redeemed, etc.). And, we predicted about 1/6 of those redeemed keys would turn into players that game at the same time. It's what we call our concurrent users or CCU, for short.
The actual numbers crushed our predictions.
So, we tore apart our logs and began doing a lot of extra optimization work even while we stumbled upon some truly bizarre crashes that can only appear with this sort of load. The result? The shard has been steadily improving over the first few days of Open Beta. Given the hardware we're adding and a couple more fixes we have in the pipe, shard performance and stability should continue to improve over the coming week.
Space Combat Alpha Strikes
There appears to be an issue with enemies performing devastating Alpha strikes in space -- all ships will target the first player, take him out, and move through the rest of the squadron. This makes space combat, when you’re teamed up, very difficult.
We’re addressing this in the next major patch. For now, flying in a tighter formation with your team will help.
Klingon, Klingon, Klingon
Better stores are coming to Qo’noS. You’ll be able to purchase disruptors, consoles, and all the things a proper warlord needs to improve his starship and clobber his pathetic, cowering enemies.
Your ship's starter gear is getting an upgrade as well. You won’t be able to sell this to the store for as much as you used to, but it packs a meaner punch out of the gate.
PvP maps and queues are getting a lot of attention. We’re working on all the queue and map issues we've seen reported and we're jamming as many fixes as possible into the game.
Bridge Officers
Starting at Lt. Grade 6, new and sometimes strange recruits from Starfleet and the KDF will periodically ask to be transferred to your starship. Every few Grades, you’ll automatically receive more Bridge Officers.
By popular demand, Bridge Officers can now be immediately renamed and tailor when they join your crew. Sex and species are still off the customization block, but pretty much everything else can be meddled with.
UI
The build you are playing does not feature an enormous amount of work the UI team has done.
For instance, the mini-map, team window, away team controls, and many of the HUD elements have all received an overall look and feel pass. The sector maps are way more useful and the galaxy map now tells you where you are, too. A gigantic number of small fixes have also gone in to tighten up the overall HUD experience.
Klingon UI is also looking great. Icons, buttons, FX and everything else has been re-styled in true Klingon fashion. The next major patch will have you piloting a Bird of Prey using a HUD General Martok would be proud of.
Finally, and most importantly, the crew bar on the space HUD now looks like little people... But it's so sad when they get depleted!
Exploration Improvements
We’ve fixed many bugs in star cluster missions. We’re finding and crushing them. You target 'em and we fire the torpedoes. So keep those bugs coming, please.
More alien races and stranger alien races will appear with greater frequency in those clusters now. Some are friendly and in need of assistance... Others, not so much.
Scanning
Due to popular demand, we’ve added in-game scanning FX.
On ship and on ground, pressing the scan button located near the mini-map will point you to the nearest object that you can interact with.
Looking for that last alien artifact on a bizarre and unfriendly alien world, but you just can’t seem to find it? Hit the scan button! Looking for a particularly hard to find spacial anomaly in a far-off star system? Hit the scan button! Looking for Sulu? ... Look out! He’s right behind you!
Level Cap
Have no fear! The current level cap will be removed sometime this week.
We’re really looking forward to opening up the entire game for our testers. You’ll get to visit DS9, Memory Alpha and advance your characters past Lt. Commander.
Again, thank you so much for showing an interest in our game and helping us to improve the experience for all. We really appreciate the feedback and we look forward to hearing more and more and more as we continue to develop and improve Star Trek Online far past its February launch.
-Zn

[LordOfMadness]

Good stuff. Thanks for the link.

Woot about the level cap lift. I might have to start leveling a little harder again. :p

[California]

I hope they lift the lvl cap soon, I'd like to try out the Tier 3 ship.

[GannorAton]

I'm only excited about Memory Alpha and lvl cap increase...T3 ships are amazing

[Plaxidia]

I'm exited about them making scanning what it should be.. I mean come on a scanner should at least point you in the general direction of what your scanning for LOL Everything else looks good too.

[Nishka]

It's a nice update yeah, but I'm also very interested in the UI updates.

I've made a lot of UI related reports and it's a critical element that needs to be done right to prevent player frustrations and prevent rage quits because stuff isn't working like it's supposed to.

I must say though that since the closed beta days the UI has been improved greatly, but it's still not perfect either.

I'm also happy about the scanner update, it's a minimal thing you'd expect from a scanner (once again this is also an UI issue if you ask me).

[Workshop2]

Lvl cap isn't too important for me as im taking it slow and doing all the content (im only lvl 8) but its a good sign its getting removed. Also the scanner thing is GREAT news, as last night i went to do a mission which involves finding alien artifacts....i got bored and gave up.

Cant wait for the patch, BRING IT ON

[Nishka]

Lvl cap isn't too important for me as im taking it slow and doing all the content (im only lvl 8) but its a good sign its getting removed. Also the scanner thing is GREAT news, as last night i went to do a mission which involves finding alien artifacts....i got bored and gave up.

Cant wait for the patch, BRING IT ON

Hmm.. in general I don't have too much trouble finding it, but sometimes it is a bit tricky and requires some back tracking. Luckily full impulse makes it go a lot faster. You can also see it in space before even seeing the red visual thingy, sometimes you see a yellow cloud in space, or something else out of the ordinary. That's usually the visual clue that it's something that needs a little investigating.

[Workshop2]

Hmm.. in general I don't have too much trouble finding it, but sometimes it is a bit tricky and requires some back tracking. Luckily full impulse makes it go a lot faster. You can also see it in space before even seeing the red visual thingy, sometimes you see a yellow cloud in space, or something else out of the ordinary. That's usually the visual clue that it's something that needs a little investigating.

This was a ground mission, a very hilly ground mission with the mini-map not showing anything and nothing to point me in the right direction. My crew also kept going missing and stuck

Just a buggy planet methinks!

[Nishka]

Ah, I had some problems with that too.

Planets with sandstorms or myst are also horrible for finding objects at. I love the visual effects, but it really hinders you to find stuff. I guess that also adds some realism though, but with the new update we have at least an indication of where to look.