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Bishop's Crook (Ties that Blind trilogy)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
5/14/12 Update: The trilogy has been put on hold pending the upcoming Season 6 Foundry improvements. (To this point it's been on hold because my Real Life got crazy and I just didn't have time to focus on the Foundry.) Once Season 6 is available, Bishop's Crook will get some minor remastering, and then the other two parts will shortly enter development.

Republished! as of 12/7/11

Hello,

I would like to present to you my new mission...

Bishop's Crook

"A Starfleet ship acting on sealed orders in the Romulan Neutral Zone has gone missing. You and your crew has been called up to help it find its way home. But the mission went terribly awry and the consequences threaten to explode into a three-way battle for control of the ship's fate!

Who was the USS Bishop pursuing? A dangerous criminal who leaves chaos and conflict in his wake... but was he really after the Bishop's demise? Or is there some other agenda at play? Will you be able to save the Bishop's crew from an ill fate at the hands of one of the Federation's most vicious enemies? Time is your worst enemy as things spiral out of control."

What this mission offers: Ongoing plot, moderate combat, two puzzle challenges, and two alternate resolutions to the story's climax! May be best played as solo, or as a group with one puzzle solver (I'm not sure how the puzzles will respond to groups).

Additional Info: This is the first in a three-part story that I'm calling the "Ties that Blind" arc, but each mission is written to be a self-contained plot in its own right. Two of my in-game RP characters feature as major NPCs in the arc (though you don't see much of them in the first story). I'm interested in feedback -- this is the first Foundry mission I've published, but I've been practicing on Foundry content for a while now, before I finished a project that seemed worthy of publishing.

Have fun!
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Federation Mission - Bishop's Crook
    Author: Pi-3Orionis
    ST - HLW67F0B5

    Summary: The mission was great. However it appears to only be available for my RADM. It was really well written and your maps were great. The maps only need improvement where indicated below. There were some minor issues with dialog and buttons. I’ve also noted those below. Otherwise the story really drew me in and made me want to know more. That is very important for a mission that is not just a shoot first and don’t bother asking questions mission. Nothing wrong with those types of missions but I also like missions with a story to tell and you did it. I highly recommend this game to other players and I am looking forward to the continuation of the story.

    Mission Description: Good detailed write up.

    Grant Mission Dialog: Well written. Perhaps change "specifically" to "particularly". Good description on where to start.

    Mission Task: Despite the fact you give the location in the Grant Mission Dialog the Mission Task should state the location the player is supposed to go to. It will save confusion later.

    Mission Entry Prompt: The write up is very well done. You give really good story detail.

    MAPS:
    RD-245: Well written dialog and a balanced battle too.
    - Dialog spelling; "fell of" should be "fell off".
    - Dialog post Breen ship fight; "don't you say" should be "wouldn't you say".

    Shuttlebay 2 - USS Bishop: The dialog is well written and the battles were balanced pretty well. I liked the puzzle to shunt the power from the shuttle. Well done.
    - Second dialog; "and our" should be "and are" Re-spawn point too far away.
    - Dialog at turbo lift; third button should read “runabout” vice “runabouat?

    Engineering Section - USS Bishop: The battles were challenging and fun to play. However apparently there is a place inside the lab that triggers a new re-spawn point. When used the second re-spawn point places me on the other side of a door in the lab that I can't get through because of a force field that is in place as part of the story. The BOFFs are not apparently restricted by the walls and finished the fight with the Breen in the lab. However due to the location of the new re-spawn point I was unable to get to the panel to lower the force field and get into the hallway where the new re-spawn put me. The only way around this was to exit and reenter so I could get to the console to continue the mission. Other than that I thought your map design was excellent, especially Main Engineering.
    - The Dialog with Bem about “the Bishop being hard to find” it says my Engineering Officer has a question but it shows my Science Officer.
    - Dialog spelling error; button “prepartions” should be “preparations”.

    RD-245: Dialog spelling error, button; “suspecd” should be “suspend” or “supersede”.

    End Report

    Great job and again thanks for authoring.
    Brian
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    One other note, please be careful about re-spawn points. There was a room fairly early on where you had to fight 3 groups of klingons to progress I died in there but I respawned on the other side of a closed door and because of the fact those mobs were an objective kioll mob I could not progress so just be aware of that.

    Re-spawn points have a wide area.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Cool thanks for the feedback you too. I especially appreciated the exhaustive list of typos -- I can't believe so many crept into my project even after I did my own readthrough!

    I moved the respawn point on the Engineering deck to within the lab (and somewhere safe) to prevent respawning from breaking my mission. I also added a respawn point on the shuttlebay map before the last combat.

    Thanks again, I really appreciate the input :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Cool thanks for the feedback you too. I especially appreciated the exhaustive list of typos -- I can't believe so many crept into my project even after I did my own readthrough!

    I moved the respawn point on the Engineering deck to within the lab (and somewhere safe) to prevent respawning from breaking my mission. I also added a respawn point on the shuttlebay map before the last combat.

    Thanks again, I really appreciate the input :D

    No problem. I'm looking forward to more of your missions.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Pi-3Orionis, It seems your mission now is suffering from a Foundry bug not sure what you want to do with it but as it stands now you can accept the mission but you can't even enter the first map.

    This is a general foundry bug that exists for recently published missions so you may want to withdraw the mission all together until the foundry get fixed as your rating wcould be severely hammered by people 1 starring it.

    Also I'd like to invite you over to www.starbaseugc.com . A site dedicated to STO's foundry and we've built quite a decent community with our own IRC channel. It's the home of PodcastUGC (a podcast about STO an the Foundry) and most recently BroadcastUGC. A weekly live event where the hosts (I'm one of them) play through a foundry mission.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Shoot, I'm not able to log in today. What's the nature of this bug? Is it the same one that caused Own Worst Enemy to be pulled down?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Shoot, I'm not able to log in today. What's the nature of this bug? Is it the same one that caused Own Worst Enemy to be pulled down?

    Basically the bug appears to affect missions that have interact objects in them. It's possible that there may be other issues as well, but I found I was able to play my missions in the editor if I withdrew the objects from the entire project. Then I was able to play individual maps and the entire mission in the editor. Unfortunately most missions need interact objects to be played.

    There are more details available in the "The Foundry for Star Trek Online - Bug Reports" under the topic "internal Genesis System error generating map". The DEV's are aware of the issue and are working on it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2011
    Yeah, I was tried a republish after the patch, then playtested my mission and I ran into exactly that. So for now, it's withdrawn. :( I'll republish as soon as it the bug is dealt with, though. And I'm really busy IRL but have started laying the ground work for the next part of the story, "Buried Treasure" :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2011
    And after a long time out of commission... the mission is back up! I'm so glad Cryptic got Foundry running properly again. Thanks guys! I am now working on Part 2 of the trilogy.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2012
    So I know this topic has aged a bit but I wanted to give people who've played Bishop's Crook and are waiting for the next part of the story an update. I started working on Part 2 quite a while ago, and had to put it down do to RL issues. At present, I'm holding out for the Season 6 release before I proceed with the story arc -- the Devs have indicated there will almost certainly be new content at least, probably new tools for controlling triggers and dialog, and possibly even specific facilities for presenting a set of missions as a UGC "featured episode series" of sorts.

    Once S6 is out, I do intend to remaster Bishop's Crook (none of the story will change, it will probably just be improvements to the environments and some additional alternate dialog choices... I got some very fair critiques that most of the environments are plain and several people would prefer alternative dialog options to the colloquialisms I used when I made the mission) and then bear down on part 2, Buried Treasure. Part of the thing holding me back is how to implement a very complicated puzzle in part 2, so I'm holding out for S6 goodies. :)

    I will however still release standalone missions (and I have an idea for a sort of "reverse story arc," which are standalone missions that actually tell a story arc when you think about the events in the reverse order as you experienced them)... so in the event I actually do have fans who are really really interested in my missions (one can only hope) I will ramp up my output of UGC content now, even before S6 releases.
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