Dan Stahl beams back aboard Cryptic Studios

Heh, I remember the uproar from when he first left. From what I recall hearing, people were upset to see him go because I guess lots of good changes were made under his watch. Don't play or pay much attention to STO so I wouldn't know personally. But if so, this is great news.

With hat in hand, no doubt.

That's great to hear, Glad the guy's working on STO again, He clearly cares a lot about the game.

Why would he leave Zynga? Richard Garriott told me that social, facebook games were the future!!

Zynga bloated number are starting to show and all their new games are not basically duds right now so people like Stahl are jumping ship while they can

So very glad to hear this news. Daniel Stahl was the lead dev who led the game beyond the mess it was at launch.

If he comes back to STO in a creative role, there's hope for the future of that game yet.

Wait, Dan left for Zynga? Really? I'm glad he came back! Hopefully that company didn't suck the soul out of him.

Dan "Give me more money"
Cryptic "No"
Dan "Fine, I'm off to Zynga"
Cryptic "Go on then"
.......
Cryptic "So, turns out now you count as a new employee we can afford you"
Dan "Cool"

Good to see that Dan finally saw the light.
I guess that grass was not greener on the other side.

I read it differently honestly. Dan was a lot of negative things in STO (as a lifetime sub holder, trust me) but I got the impression he left over principles. The game has completely veered into full on monetization since he left. I'm pretty sure he objected to what the new overlords were telling him to do and was given an ultimatum (if not outright forced to resign).

The community absolutely hates what is going on with the game right now. Long time kool-aid drinkers (like The Grand Nagus) have finally realized what many of us saw months and months ago and are now negative about the game. They are adding loads of grind, forcing you to play through missions you'd rather skip, not adding anything new for content, and forcing everyone (including "Gold subscribers") to the cash shop.

Looking at the info they've given, I estimate it will cost $30-$50 a month to achieve the same level of play as prior to the impending switch, on top of subscription fees. They are also gutting some of the best features of the game.

My only hope is that they begged Dan to come back and help them salvage the train wreck that it has become.

What does the term Kool-aid drinker mean?, I'm not American.