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The all new `Something Wicked this way comes` version 3.0
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Version 3.0 is up and live.
Thankyou to everyone who has played my mission and thanks for the feedback.
As to the costumes of the Aliens - all will be revealed in the Sequel which is called `Your wicked ways`.
Thanks to:
Snakedoc 97 - have sent the cyber monkeys out to eradicate the word `Sir` from the dialogue.
Tlecira - I have re read all the dialogue - hopefully no more typos
Mauare - - Trust me the costumes WILL make sense in the sequel.Also I wasn`t really going for a `Star Trek` kind of dialogue.Tbh I was thinking more of setting up a story and then expanding on it.But thankyou for your review.
Mainly thanks to Nagorak for making me think beyond the `go here and kill 4 klingons` school of mission design.
Oh and thankyou to anyone who contributed to the Starbase UGC site - excellent site
Have fun all
Monkeydude
Thankyou to everyone who has played my mission and thanks for the feedback.
As to the costumes of the Aliens - all will be revealed in the Sequel which is called `Your wicked ways`.
Thanks to:
Snakedoc 97 - have sent the cyber monkeys out to eradicate the word `Sir` from the dialogue.
Tlecira - I have re read all the dialogue - hopefully no more typos
Mauare - - Trust me the costumes WILL make sense in the sequel.Also I wasn`t really going for a `Star Trek` kind of dialogue.Tbh I was thinking more of setting up a story and then expanding on it.But thankyou for your review.
Mainly thanks to Nagorak for making me think beyond the `go here and kill 4 klingons` school of mission design.
Oh and thankyou to anyone who contributed to the Starbase UGC site - excellent site
Have fun all
Monkeydude
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
One thing I did notice, on the mission accept dialogue, it says "have" instead of "has".
er im confused
mmmmm.....
it is done
I'd recommend coming up with a unique name for the mission as I saw someone else has used the exact same name for their mission. Also, I'm treating your mission as a WIP (work in progress), and I wouldn't necessarily promote it yet, if i were you. I think we're getting somewhere now, but I think the mission could use a bit more polish before it's ready for mass consumption.
To put things in perspective, last time around I went to Kinjer, dropped in and found myself blowing up ships, then beamed down and started blasting people. I simply couldn't have cared less about what I was doing in that version and just wanted it to end. Although I didn't rate it, if I had been forced to, I'd have given it one star.
This time, your mission actually has a storyline and presents a mystery. I was actually curious about what was going on and wanted to find out more. I think the current mission has the potential to be pretty good, and I'd say it's approaching a solid three star effort. It's not quite there yet, but with a little bit of work it can be. If you flesh out the story a bit more and add another two maps to the end, where we find out more about what is going on, then I think this has the potential to even make it to four stars (we'll talk about five stars when we get that far). (For what it's worth, keep in mind I'm a pretty tough rater, and have given three stars to some missions that have aggregate ratings of four+ stars.)
Just in general, I thought the mix of combat was about right. You can still safely flesh out the text a bit more without having to add more combat, but at least right now I didn't feel like a one man army, blowing up ships left and right and then mowing down baddies.
Mission Contact
Now on to some more specific criticisms. I don't think you should use Tafeng as your main contact. He's only a commander, and at the end of the mission I was faced with the situation where my Rear Admiral was referring to him as "sir", which didn't make any sense. If you want your character referred to as sir, you need to be sure they are at least an Admiral. Also, it should always be ", sir." (comma space then lowercase sir, followed in most cases by a period). Sir shouldn't ever be capitalized unless you start a sentence with it, like I just did (then it's "Sir, " followed by your sentence).
So, along those lines you can use Marconi on DS9, but in that case you might want to move the mission closer to his "theater". Of course, most players in the game have no idea where Marconi is, so it probably doesn't matter, but personally I don't think he'd be giving orders outside of the Bajoran/Cardassian area. Another minus with using Marconi is you have no control over what other people do with him. Just in the few Foundry missions I've played, Marconi has been a Section 31 operative, he's been captured in compromising positions with orion slavegirls...you get the idea. The only thing I've determined is that Marconi is absolutely nuts, with like 25 different multiple personalities, and you never know what to expect from him.
A better idea, would be to design your own Admiral in the costume editor. You can't use your own costumes in the mission grant dialogue, but what you can do is have Tafeng or someone else tell you that Admiral so-and-so wants to talk to you. Then you can have your Admiral talk to the player in the mission start dialogue. You won't be able to make them go to ESD to talk to the Admiral, but that's not necessarily bad, as it saves the player time from coming back to ESD depending on where they are. Be sure to spend some time coming up with your Admiral's appearance and personality, as they will be your "go to" guy for this mission and future missions.
Mission Start
Now, as far at the mission plot line. I like that you provided some reason to encourage the player to go to Kinjer. That said, I don't think you need to mention the war with the Klingons and the Borg. That was sort of irrelevant to what was going on, and if a ship went missing even during the peaceful TNG era, that still would be a big deal. Instead I'd say something like "Several ships were sent to the Kinjer system to investigate some unusual spatial anomalies that were detected in the area, but they didn't check in at the scheduled time and haven't been responding to hails. Starfleet is concerned that something may have happened to them." (I'm just guessing about the spatial anomalies thing based on how the alien cruiser appeared in front of me, you can put whatever works for the storyline, just so long as it is something unusual that they were investigating. It could even be a satellite in the system that had stopped transmitting.)
Kinjer System
When you get to the Kinjer system, let me start out by saying I like how the first enemy appeared using the Q effect. It took me by surprise, and I totally wasn't expecting it (maybe silly that I wasn't, but still). However, after that point there are a couple of problems.
One thing for certain is you need to have a pop-up dialogue after each individual objective. I shouldn't have to wait until after checking both the satellite and the cruiser to find out there were no life signs on the cruiser. I need a pop-up informing me about the results of the cruiser scan, after I defeat the alien vessel. Also, something needs to be said about the surprising appearance of the alien cruiser. (ex: Tactical "I don't understand, sir. We didn't detect anything on sensors before the vessel attacked. Could they have been cloaked." then Science: "I'm detecting some strange subspace emissions...", etc.)
In addition, I'm not sure that a multiple objective is right for that situation. It would be better, IMO, to make them sequential so that you know what order the player will complete them. The reason being, the first alien vessel would be a complete surprise, but the second one would be more along the lines of: "Another ship appeared out of nowhere just like the last one." and "I've got more readings on the subspace emissions, sir. It seems that the aliens are...<insert whatever technobabble explanation>". Also, don't spawn both enemy ships at the same time, wait to spawn the second one until you scan the satellite.
Now, as far as reporting to Tafeng. I didn't like that part at all. I've just come across a Starfleet vessel (I'd make it multiple vessels because from the debris it looked like more than one) that has been destroyed, and all hands aboard have been lost. Starfleet is going to want to know about that right away. Plus, I was just attacked out of the blue by an unknown alien vessel. I would be concerned about the safety of my own ship, and want to let Starfleet know I was having some issues. That way they'd either send some backup or at least know that I had been attacked, so they'd have some idea what happened if my ship failed to check in (that I was disabled or destroyed).
That was a situation that warranted a "That's not good, let me dispatch a couple more ships to your area!" response, rather than a "What are you bothering me for?" response.
Also, I think you could maybe have some survivors detected. Maybe you detect some impulse emissions and find a shuttle managed to escape with someone alive on board. They wouldn't necessarily be able to tell you anything useful. Instead you could have them build up more of the mystery. ex: "We were scanning the spatial anomaly, when suddenly the U.S.S. Whatever was attacked. We didn't even see the aliens coming, they just appeared out of nowhere. The ship was destroyed before they even had a chance to raise shields. I only survived because I was in a shuttle craft at the time, and the aliens apparently didn't detect me." Upon further questioning it could be revealed that the shuttle pilot detected a strange satellite that might be related to the aliens somehow (move the satellite further into the system so it's not right there next to the cruiser).
Maybe a little more info about what the satellite is doing would be good. Is it scanning for vessels in the area. Is it a scientific satellite. Is it generating some weird subspace field that could explain the aliens appearing out of nowhere? You get the idea. The basic idea is whenever you encounter something, flesh it out a bit more both to give us an idea about what is going on, and also make us wonder more about what we don't know.
This map was ok, but I had some minor gripes. First of all, I think the "guard dogs" should be spawned immediately, rather than after you scan the structure. If they're going to spawn after the structure is scanned then you need to put in some explanation like: "Captain, I'm detecting a spike in <insert type> emissions, similar to what I detected when the alien ships appeared. It's possible we've been detected." Considering the ships spawned out of nowhere, it's believable the dogs could too, but it needs to be explained with at least a little bit of fluff. I'd also put the dogs so that they wandered a little bit, rather than sitting in one place.
It would be a good opportunity for some sort of text based puzzle when we try to access the base. However, it can be tough coming up with good puzzles, so if you can't think of anything then don't worry about it. Going back to the spatial anomaly thing, you could have something about how the base is slightly out of phase without reality, and if we can adjust our tricorder to the right frequency we might be able to bring it back into phase so we can access it (you'd have to reveal this back when the base was initially scanned).
Interior Map
Let me start with some general issues:
I liked the general idea of this map, but once again the multi objective didn't work at the beginning. First of all, rather than scanning 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 and then finally getting some feedback, just have me scan the one right in front of me, give me a dialogue with some info, and "we need to scan more to get more information", then you can do a scan 1/2, 2/2, if you want, and more details afterward.
I also need details on the scan results before I check the console. Either scanning the console should just come after the scans, or you should put in pop-ups after each of the multi-objectives, and then another pop-up that shows after both objectives have been completed which says to move on to the next room.
On the part where it turns out the captured beings are in pain, that is pretty serious, and as a Starfleet officer I'd want to try to rescue them. Some sort of explanation needs to be given as to why I can't shut down the pain stimulation devices. Something like "I wish we could, sir, but this is alien technology. Without first gathering more information I'm afraid we could end up killing the captives."
In general it would be nice to be able to attempt to identify each of the captives. This could just be optional interacts, and not part of the main objectives. Probably we couldn't figure out info on the Jem'Hadar or Gorn, but might be able to identify the Ferengi, maybe the Orion, and so on. Information on where these individuals disappeared from could also provide some more to the mystery about what the aliens are doing.
I think you could do a lot with this section in terms of looking into who has been abducted (even as much as saying "it looks like almost every species in the Alpha and Beta quadrants is here.")
The Starfleet cadet in particular needs to be identified. That is a member of Starfleet in training and I wouldn't just walk on by without trying to determine who he is, and how he got there. I'd go so far as to put a reach marker around the cadet and either make it an objective, or at least make a map pop-up dialogue that appears when I get close to him that says "Sir, I think I see a Starfleet cadet in that chamber! It seems like the aliens have even been abducting members of Starfleet."
In terms of the look of the aliens. I wasn't sure whether the formal attire was warranted. If a strange alien species from some other dimension (or whatever the story is behind them) showed up and started abducting people, I'd expect them to be dressed in a bit more of an alien fashion, rather than in a business suit. That's your call though. Maybe you have a good explanation for it as part of the story.
When the aliens detected me, I think it would be warranted at that point to be "jumped" by one of the groups (beams in after completing the dialogue) rather than not encountering them until I went deeper into the base. Some people don't like that sort of thing, but in that case I think it was warranted.
The force field disabling is another opportunity for a text-based puzzle if you can come up with something.
Mission End
At the end of the base map map, it's absolutely mandatory to say something about how Starfleet is dispatching some more vessels to investigate what is going on with the base, and to try to free the captives.
Also, at the end when I scan the computer core, I think I should find out some more details about the species and what they are up to. In fact, I would not end the mission there, I would keep it going with another 1-2 maps. I know a lot of people try to keep their missions really short, but I'd rather play a mission that's a bit longer, rather than having to play two short two parters. Now, understand that my own mission is 2-3 hours long, which I would not recommend. However, I do think it's safe to extend the mission up to around 45 minutes to an hour, provided it's a good quality hour.
What I'd do is have you check in with your Admiral at the end of the map, and inform them what is happening, and the continue on to the next system for further investigation.
I think if you flesh out what you have, and then add another map or two, you can get this up to about 45 minutes to an hour. In that time you can allow the player to discover a fair amount of information about what is going on, while still leaving enough hanging for a part two.
I do think you need to be sure to develop in your own mind exactly what is going on before going too much further. A story works best when you can hint at what is happening from the very start, which you can't do if you come up with it all on the fly, and basically don't know yourself where the mission is going until you get there.
TOTALLY rewritten.Final version published.
it is complete.
Thank you to everyone who has played part one of my `Wicked` series. I am presently playing around with some ideas for part three (possibly the final part??). A couple of people have suggested a `big reveal` with some kind of Uber-Villian. I shall give it some serious thought, although I dont want to end up with some pantomime bad guy who just comes across as silly.
Anyhoo I have made a short trailer for part one which I hope you enjoy.
Monkeydude
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_rqoLtE4uQ
Btw this SHOULD (?) have sound but there seems to be an issue with Audioswap on Youtube.
It's fairly short, so if you only have a half hour to spare, it's a good mission for you, unlike Dereliction Duty.