I quite agree, Voleron. I'm sorry if my posts were overly loquacious and feel that I have said all I needed to say.. and then some :P

I don't want this to turn into the "a gentle reminder" thread so I will bow out of the debate and allow others to have their say.

I fervently encourage everyone reading this thread and who hasn't already commented to please please contribute your opinions, questions and concerns. :)

I really enjoyed the rebooted "Star Trek" and I think "Into Darkness" looks just as awesome.

I can't imagine him doing both so I can't help but think Star Trek just lost and Star Wars just won. It's an unfortunate turn of events but at least we should get a watch-able Star Wars film finally.

I just hope whoever takes over on Trek does as good a job as JJ.

Quote by Araa

@Todd, my math comes out very, very differently than yours since, as I think the demand side is far smaller than you expect. For example, I haven't had anything from the store in months and don't intend to.

I can respect that. And you raise a good point about how some people don't buy stuff. I would just point out that if we have seven people like you who don't buy anything and one person who buys eight things to fully equip his new ship, my math still works. My math doesn't require each person to buy one thing a month, it just assumes the average demand across all users.

Another issue that I'm surprised hasn't reared its head yet, and which I haven't mentioned because I don't really care about it, is the matter of people camping the store. It has already happened. If we are going to have an open system, then are we saying that we are okay with a return to people camping the projects and the store?

Let's try to keep this discussion on track. I fully recognize that this is a sensitive topic for many people who had strong opinions one way or another, prior to us trialling a new policy with respect to the fleet stores.

That being said, I think that it was important for us to proceed with the trial, because without at least attempting something different, we couldn't be sure exactly in which area or to what extent, we'd face provisioning challenges.

Like Bao, I haven't purchased any fleet weapons for my ship either, nor do I plan to in the near future. I suspect that there are others who don't care to make those sorts of purchases from fleet stores and others yet, who don't have the fleet credits or dilithium to make the purchases they might like. Of the 450-some fleet members in Stonewall, I don't suspect that all are at max level or even know about the fleet stores. It's because of these extraneous variables that a non-gatekeeper trial was the only way to provide those answers to the membership, so that everyone could weigh in with their opinion on how to manage the fleet stores moving forward, while having as much information as possible with respect to the pros and cons of both methods.

I kept a close eye on our provision levels throughout the trial, and it wasn't until my check on December 31st, that we began to encounter challenges in keeping up with demand in the engineering personal provisions. This means that we've been out of provisions for three and a half weeks or so. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a disastrous situation, and it's something we'll be able to recover from in short order. I think that the knowledge we gained in return was worth this minor and temporary inconvenience.

We'd very much appreciate receiving as much input from as many different members of the fleet as possible on this topic, but if the thread degenerates into personal attacks, it's likely going to discourage people from joining the conversation.

Being part of a large fleet means that we reap the benefits of being members of a big community, namely having access to high tier fleet equipment before many other fleets. Sometimes that also means that there is a cost associated with being but one voice in a chorus of 449 others, in that our personal views and desires may not always be reflected in choices that are made by the membership at large.

Let's make sure that we're polite to each other in these discussions and welcome as many others to join this conversation as possible by keeping things civil and not monopolizig the thread, so that our way forward is truly representative of the will of the membership.

I actually feel completely opposite of you on this, Jacien! I really liked the new movie and thought it infused the franchise with a much-needed vitality. As much as the series has been about discovery, it's been even more about solving mysteries, especially with regard to the movies, which Abrams' style is well-matched for.

While Star Wars is more action-oriented, I feel its stories are usually much more simplistic. While I don't doubt that Abrams would do a good job on Star Wars, I'd much rather see him stick to Star Trek.

@Todd, my math comes out very, very differently than yours, as I think the demand side is far smaller than you expect. For example, I haven't had anything from the store in months and don't intend to. What were we running before using the gatekeeper, a demand of 10-20 eng provisions per week max vs. a 160/week supply limit? Seems easy to do, and if demand has shot up, guess what, that could be a sign of the success of the new program. Unless we all believe the shortage is due to fraud/overpurchasing, the lack of that one provision could be a great sign that members are enjoying the base and it's benefits more than they were. Then the simple question is, can we meet demand?

And rather than get caught up in using very different assumptions to drive our math, it`s easy to test this stuff empirically. We just get rid of the fab bottleneck, issue some guidelines to the fleet ("don't go crazy with the weapons people") and do a few weeks of (not 250k dil) provisioning projects to estimate the latent demand. Simple, and no one gets hurt. Then we check in in a couple of weeks and see what we do next. It's totally normal for these kinds of program changes to need a few iterations and adjustments along the way.

And as a reminder, all the other provisions are working fine and with no admin at all... so let's see if a few tweaks can solve our little problem first.

What does everyone think about this? He's a good director and I kinda feel like maybe Star Wars is more action oriented than Star Trek. He did a good job with Star Trek in making it entertaining and appealing to a mainstream audience but I kinda feel like that he left out the 'soul' of Star Trek which is about wonder and discovery and less about conflict. Star Wars is much more about the conflict between good and evil and I'm sure he'll bring a lot of action to the genre.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/01/j-j-abrams-to-direct-new-star-wars-movie-for-disney/

Star Trek director J.J. Abrams will be helming the next Star Wars movie. “It’s done deal with J.J.,” a source with knowledge of the situation told Deadline today. Argo director Ben Affleck was also up for the gig, the source says. Despite saying publicly that he didn’t want to direct a new Star Wars, Abrams was courted heavily by producer Kathleen Kennedy to take the job. Expected in 2015, Episode VII will be the first new Star Wars movie since 2005′s Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. Michael Arndt is writing the script for the first installment of the relaunch of George Lucas’ franchise by Disney. The company bought Lucasfilm in October for $4 billion, with the Star Wars franchise the jewel in the crown. At the time, CEO Bob Iger said three more Star Wars films were in the pipeline. Abrams’ other space-based franchise sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, comes out May 17. This weekend, the PGA will honor the Lost creator and Revolution producer with its 2013 Norman Lear Award For Television. Abrams is repped by CAA and Oasis Media Group.

I was impressed by the commitment to this class of ships especially with the general move towards smaller more role defined ships.

Very impressive! I'd love to see one of them in person so I hope Britain comes to show off their latest toy to the SA Navy sometime.

Quote by Jacien

Has anyone heard such murmurings and if so could they please provide a link on the STO forums?

You're right. I haven't seen anyone talking about this on the STO forums. Not even people from our fleet. Who from our fleet has gone on the STO forums to complain about our lack of provisions? Not me. Not you. So I guess that having this problem doesn't really guarantee that the result will be a "huge racket" on the forums. After all, if we aren't making a fuss about it in public, then one can reason that other people don't do so, either.

If not, then one can reason that since other fleets get along just fine with balancing their provisioning projects, so too can we.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Your statement is engaging in argumentum ad ignorantiam, which is a informal logical fallacy. Strong suit? Really?

Once we get to tier 5 I'm sure all of this will blow over

You were also sure that opening up the store would lead to no problems. I believe your exact words at the time were that "a valid and apparently popular argument is being made that the system could stand to be reformed without incident". Yet, here we are, debating how to deal with the resulting incident.

specious [ˈspiːʃəs]
adj
1. apparently correct or true, but actually wrong or false
2. deceptively attractive in appearance

Yeahhh... Math was never my strong suit but thankfully logic and reason always have been. Logically, if other fleets our size with our active player base had this problem, best believe they'd have made a huge racket on the forums about it by now. Has anyone heard such murmurings and if so could they please provide a link on the STO forums? If not, then one can reason that since other fleets get along just fine with balancing their provisioning projects, so too can we. Once we get to tier 5 I'm sure all of this will blow over but I really encourage others to please add your opinions as you have been invited to do so and your input is important. :)

Quote by Araa

we're only temporarily out of one provision; not a big deal and a normal part of the growing pains of the process.

Not temporarily. We cannot run enough projects to supply a 500-member fleet. As I said, this is math. So here is the math with greater specificity:

There are 4 different engineering personal provisioning projects. (One costs 200,000 dilithium for 10 provisions and is not getting filled even when we do run it, so I'm not counting that one.)

There are three others, each of which takes 20 hours to complete once we fully fund it. So the MAXIMUM number of times we could run each of those projects in a week is 8.4 times. That assumes that we instantly fund each project as soon as it is available. If we did that, and ran no other projects at all, we would make 378 engineering personal provisions each week.

And those 378 engineering personal provisions would cost us:

15,120 Fleet Marks
1,344,000 Dilithium
1,008,000 Expertise
10,080 Data Samples
6,300 Industrial Energy Cells

Those are the costs per week.

Now, considering that this would get us 378 provisions to be shared by 500 people, what are the chances that we are going to get people to contribute at this level? So we can safely project that we are never going to get anywhere near 378 provisions produced per week. Moreover, the interface doesn't allow us to run those projects that often. Let's say we managed to fund and complete each project 3 times per week (which would only cost 480,000 dilithium per week): that would give us a production of 135 per week.

On the demand side: Let's say each fleet member buys one thing a month from the store. A fleet ship weapon or whatever. That is a demand of 125 per week. Very close.

Now, what if Cryptic comes out with a new ship? Like a couple of Dominion carriers or a Breen cruiser or an Ambassador-class. Crazy, I know, but bear with me. Suddenly, people are buying alot more than one thing a month. Even if people only buy an average of 2 things from the store per month, the demand will consistently be double the available supply. This is why our ability to supply the store with provisions is never going to keep up with demand in a fleet this large. Math.

These numbers are still going to be there even after our other projects are done. It is a permanent condition. Not temporary. And that is why we need permanent controls on the store so that we can regulate access and make sure that provisions are available on a fair basis. This existed and worked before, and it will work again. But it must be permanent and it cannot be less than the full "shopkeeper" system we had before.

You have a simple choice: the inconvenience of finding a fleet captain (or other responsibe empowered party) when you want to get into the store versus perpetual and chronic shortages. There is no magic compromise where you get to avoid both of these, not in a fleet of 500 members.

We'll hopefully be back to normal and supplying everyone

It is starting to feel like it does when you are arguing against climate-change deniers or birthers. We cannot supply everyone! So stop saying that.

Quote by dtjohnsonanimated

...
Andrew Christian models are notorious in LA for a lifestyle that is entirely meaningless and physically dangerous. The worst personification of West Hollywood one could picture.

I lived in West Hollywood at Santa Monica and Kings Rd for 11 years before moving to the Valley, and I've never heard anything like you describe. What is the source of your information that holds that Andrew Christian models are "notorious" for leading lives that are entirely meaningless. Who has said these things? Just curious.

--Rob

Hee hee hee, think we can get an even longer thread? I'll be brief...

@Voleron - Sorry, you're totally right and I used sloppy language. We're not totally open, I was just poorly expressing my feeling that the two week + vetting barrier is lower than I'm really comfortable with. The bigger question is, does anyone think fraud is one of the causes of the problem?? Any weird registrations/departures? If it's not happening, then we can happily ignore the entire concern!

@Traull - Good question... my feeling is that we only put a voluntary quota on the one class of provisions that is limited exhausted. And since that's just ground weapons/shields/armor, I like the idea of returning to a max of 4 items until the provision count is stable. Then we slowly increase the number and ensure no one's using them for their BOFFs. [Edit: Just realized this is pretty much exactly what bullocaj said]

@ToddO - Yes, you do get to do a bit of an 'I told you so' dance, as the most conservative voice in the debate. But I still feel that this was the right decision with a net gain for the fleet. Resources are now being used and enjoyed rather than sitting in a bank, and the administrative burden has been lowered for everyone. And it was kind of a non-event in that we're only temporarily out of one provision; not a big deal and a normal part of the growing pains of the process. We'll hopefully be back to normal and supplying everyone as soon as the fab bottleneck issue is out of the way, potentially with some additional precautionary constraints in place [TBD]. Stay tuned, success is on the way!

As a temporary stop-gap measure I feel it is fine to re-institute the Gatekeeper..Protocol (nodes graciously at Aikune@whitonmyoji) until that department is back up to manageable levels. If it should arise again I would support this measure again if necessary but hope that with a few adjustments it will not need to be. This issue is no ones fault and a simple miscalculation in the supply vs. demand of certain fleet provisions. Now that we know we can adjust our fleet projects according to offset the imbalances.

Crows of righteous victory and vindication from the new system's nay-sayers aside bless their hearts, this truly is not the end of the world and can be attributed to simple oversight and mitigating factors that did not originally exist.

Nick clearly stated that the reason for the shortage was most likely the lack of adequate provisioning due to other active projects in other areas. Only one department of the fleet store had trouble so if statistics can be considered viable math, the new system had far higher percentage rate of success than failure and was not necessarily the result of greedy players.

We've also had a tremendous influx of new members (Yay new members! :cheer: ) since we've instituted this change and many of them were not fully aware of the previous Gatekeeper system and the great deliberations we engaged in to change it and why. Since we had so many new members at a time when the provisions were unable to be quickly and easily replenished so lets chock it up to a few growing pains and move forward.

Araa did in-fact propose a longer wait period than was decided and so did I and many others, and we were all a little surprised at how short the period decided was.

Another factor to consider is the fact that maybe so many more players (not necessarily new ones) made use of the fleet store under the new system, who under the old Gatekeeper system apparently did not. It could be considered a clear indication that many of us were uncomfortable in asking for permission from an officer for access, many that did not speak up on the forums for one reason or another.

The fact that only one department is temporarily depleted is no cause for the kind of reactionary, pugilistic rhetoric designed to change people's minds by scaring them into a more conservative stance bless their hearts. But I suppose we're all products of our environment in one way or another. I am very happy to have been invited to offer my opinion on this matter along with the rest of our wonderful community and have full confidence in our ability to solve this minor but still important issue.

That's ok Keioel, I may or may not have had a little tryst with John Blaine from the Cho Show to get back at a manipulative ex-boyfriend. ;)

We ought to all go kick it out in WeHo sometime. :)

Quote by Araa

Personally, I always prefer taking the more cautious approach, so my recommendation hasn't changed from our previous discussion, which is that, after rebuilding our stocks, we should try the open store approach with both of the above precautions (i.e., voluntary guidelines and a waiting period) and see if that will slow down demand sufficiently.

You favor the more cautious approach? Not the way I remember it. In our last round of this debate, there were calls for caution and you were having none of it. The more cautious approach was to avoid this eminently-forseeable state of affairs in the first place. We can debate what got us here, but your overabundance of caution wasn't one of them! LOL.

In any case, does this mean that this discussion has finally moved on from "trust and egalitarianism and liberty" and "allow anyone in the fleet to buy directly from the stores" and "I'd totally leave the door open" then? Thank the gods!

And, always thinking of our desire to continually improve the fleet, there may be a lesson in this outcome.

Ya think? You were the one who said "I tell ya, whenever the lowering of the gates eventually does happen, it'll be the biggest non-event there ever was." Just dying to hear what lesson you think there is in all of this...

As you may recall, every member involved in our previous discussion was concerned about this happening and suggested ways to avoid it.

That's not how I recall it at all. Luckily, we don't have to rely on our recollections, we can go back and read what people wrote. And that is not the way it was. People were saying things like "you can't walk in to the provision store and empty it" and "because our provisions continue to increase over time, so we don't really need the quotas" and "I do not see the harm [] if we opened up access to the fleet store" and "personally, I feel there's so little actually worth buying in fleet stores that it shouldn't be [a problem]". Oh, look at that, we can also cut-and-paste what they actually wrote! The wonders of modern technology!

While I was highly impressed to see the leadership team take a much more bold and risky decision than any of the members were comfortable taking

Baloney. They did exactly what you demanded they do.

I am glad we have gone back to the "gatekeeper" system, because it eliminates the risk of raids on the store and and discourages over-consumption. Also, it was working just fine before and didn't need fixing. I hope and pray that we keep it that way for good. We cannot run enough projects to provision a fleet of 500 people without strict controls. That is not opinion, that is math. Supply will never, ever meet the demand in a fleet this large. And that, John, is the lesson in this outcome, in case you were unclear on that point.

Oh, and just one more time for fun...

Quote by Araa

I tell ya, whenever the lowering of the gates eventually does happen, it'll be the biggest non-event there ever was.

I think it might be a good idea to start out with limitations on some items, just so we can build up our supply of engineering provisions. Once we're stable again we'd be able to lift some of those restrictions. My 2!

Holy Shit, he debased himself in front of the entire company and he still has a job? ::mindblown::

On a side note I may or may not have made out with Bobby Trendy before he was Bobby Trendy.

I was specifically referring to having a sense of ambition or desire to better oneself, I find OC to have far more of them in the gay community then LA. Now the I can see why you had a much worse experience in OC then LA when it comes to the "scene." It's gotten better, especially in Santa Ana thanks to Vlvt, but if you attend any of the "mainstream" gay community parties or clubs it's even worse then LA.

I don't agree with your post about Laguna and Costa Mesa being where the current generation is headed, we don't know what they're going to be like at that age because their experiences have been radically different.