In retrospect, while looking back at my time playing through "Second Wave" (while I thoroughly enjoyed the episode) I have the feeling that I'm playing a Foundry mission. Let me explain.
I will preface by stating I DID like the episode, I DID have fun. There is a lot I like about this as a setup episode for the series. However, there is a but.
The but being that I didn't get the impression that there isn't anything here (other than the voice acting obviously) that couldn't be done in the Foundry, or part of a Foundry mission.
I have to ask myself, why did it take so long to get this series out, if it is on the level and quality of a Foundry mission. Could Cryptic not just have used the Foundry and made this episode to get it out quickly? It seems like it to me. Other than the voice acting of course, I don't see anything really unique that would require developer tools to do? /shrug
My apologies if this has been brought up already, I haven't had time to read through the forum today.
I guess my main beef is simply, what does this episode have that couldn't be done in the Foundry, i.e. allowing the entire series to be produced more quickly? I just don't get why it took so long, with an episode like this that seems to be on the level of what Foundry can do. I've seen some awesome Foundry missions by players, so why doesn't Cryptic just use the Foundry for making missions, to save time. I wasn't blown away with unique features in this episode that couldn't be done with Foundry tools, given the art assets are there.
I guess what I'm saying is, Cryptic really needs to make these FE series feel separate from a Foundry mission. I got that impression with every FE to date, except this one. To me, The 2800 so far seems like something that someone could have made in the Foundry.
"Walk here, talk to this person, walk over there, and talk to that person."
"Shoot this bad guy."
"Beam up, and begin shooting more bad guys with your space ship"
Don't get me wrong... It is fantastic to have something new to play, and I am thoroughly looking forward to the second episode, but what strikes me as the real short-fall of this episode is that there is no persistent impact on the larger game world.
I'll avoid spoilers here. I couldn't have been the only person to feel slightly weird about the closing events of that episode, only to be able to go right back in to the station as if nothing had ever happened.
There could have been a better way of making this feel like a continuing story, like temporarily moving all necessary mission contacts and vendors to a nearby location(hint hint) until the conclusion of the Series.
If Cryptic had done that, and blocked access to you-know-where, my mind would have been blown.
I guess what I'm saying is, Cryptic really needs to make these FE series feel separate from a Foundry mission. I got that impression with every FE to date, except this one. To me, The 2800 so far seems like something that someone could have made in the Foundry.
Does that make any sense?
I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here my good Doctor, but lets reserve judgment until the entire series is played out. However; I do see your point. Many areas throughout the mission felt like a foundry mission - BUT - keep in mind this is due to the same tools used. STO has MANY limitations, and these limitations can be seen throughout this first FE.
Besides - the writers of these FE are not very good writers, unlike the hidden talents that can be found on the foundry.
the delay was largely due to other issue that have been discussed many time over from atari to free to play.
no the devs cant just use the foundry to make it. it does not work that way. it has to be using devs tools to be part of the game like every other mission, to be part of the journal, the have the rewards and xp, to make sure it stays up at all times regardless of what happens to the foundry.
even if they did use the foundry, if the quality they put in to that episode got a thread calling it a cheap foundry missions, imagine what people would say if they only used the foundry.
the whole episode takes place around ds9. there is not much need for new environments so it does not feel like its showing anything special which pretty much every new FE does. That just the nature of that episode (although the ward room looked great).
if you want a new location then next week is the one for you as it has the new bajor social map and what ever else is in eps 3-5.
there was a lot of cut scene tech in there and VO work. easily more than any other ep. they have said that it takes a lot of work to make cut-scenes and certainly nothing a foundry author can do. its debatable whether people like cut scenes or not but its time consuming.
the little extra side missions inside the mission has never been done before. the doff missions assignments have never been done before, the person who has the kanar can be different depending on the order you do it in and has never been done before, the diplomacy and the accolades, while not new can not be done inside the foundry.
losing your bridge crew and having the diplomats watch your back, while either arming them, or helping the security guard is something you cant do in the foundry.
yes, you could make a much simpler version of this in the foundry and achieve the same end result but the devil is in the detail for this one and perhaps none of these things are very spectacular or wow moments but side missions, and different outcomes are something that i personally love to see. i certainly cant do half of what appeared in this episode and if you put them side by side it would show.
to say it is a cheap foundry ep does not understand what the limitations of the foundry are. i can agree it may not feel much better than a foundry mission because of its largely none combat start but the missions is more complex than it seems.
I agree but they did put alot of time into the voice work *which was bad* and the Wormhole *Looks awesome* also when the Bug attacks *bad its was pixalated*
My current ranking, from best to worse is as follows:
Cold Call
The Vault
Skirmish
Second Wave
My opinion of course.
the funny thing is cold call and skirmish are easier to make in the foundry than second wave would be. the vault is not doable for a number of reasons and is a fantastic ep. i would actually rate cold call as the worst of the 4. (even though it was still hugely enjoyable, but nothing ground breaking). The introduction of the Breen and a great defera map are what make the ep stand out from any of the others we had at launch, rather than anything innovative.
As a foundry author im always looking at things the missions have that i cant do. My personal order.
I don't really understand why anyone would particularly dislike it (apart from a couple of the voice-overs, and the artificial way people move around in the cut-scenes). My general annoyance with STO's version of DS9 not withstanding, it seemed playable and fun to me.
It might not actually be reasonable to expect every official mission to be superior to the very best the foundry has to offer.
In fact, there are many Foundry missions that are vastly superior.
Yes, while I liked this mission, any of the good Foundry Authors could have done a better job at making the mission flow more smoothly.
Things I didn't like and or found annoying:
- The mission forces you to play Dabo if you don't have enough GPL. While I liked having to go play Dabo, an aspect of the game I don't readily use, I didn't like that the dialog told me, paraphrase "The Dabo table is behind you. Go play". Why? Well, I closed the dialog and ran over to the Dabo table and could not interact with it or Holo Leeta to initiate a game. Quite frustrating until I noticed the "Play Dabo" option in the low priority message area, which could have been clicked at any time upon entering Quarks Bar. Lazy programming here if you ask me.
- Sitting at the conference table to start the conference. The dialog tells you to take a seat in any chair to start the conference. I initially thought how cool, the game actually requires the use of an emote as part of a mission. My initial thought quickly turned to frustration though when the "sit in chair" emote would not allow me to sit in any of the chairs. It would put me hovering above it or hovering off the floor in front of it, and neither allowed the mission to continue. I ended up having to message someone in my fleet to figure out that I had to double-click a chair to sit in it and proceed with the mission. My response to this was, "how stupid of me to use the 'sit in chair' emote when told to sit in a chair." The response, my fleet mate had done the same thing and stuck there a bit himself.
- Discussion options at the conference. When you are asked if you have anything to say and choose one of the diplomats, there is no freaking cancel option. You are forced to pick one of the presented choices, otherwise you fail convincing that selected diplomat to help. Why I found this annoying. There were options in the list that were disabled, which meant to me I should back out and talk to the diplomats in a different order, to try and get the disabled option enabled. It ****ed me off that I got a failed objective for not responding to the selected diplomat at all. Just about any other dialog in the game, you can back out/cancel without doing anything to think about how you may want to proceed differently.
- Escorting diplomats to the shipyard. This was like major fail. Couldn't use half my ground skills. Diplomats had issues with following. I always had to go back and get them.
- Ship battle around DS9. Enemy ships were colliding with DS9, making it problematic to kill them.
- After the battle you are told to proceed to Bajor, and once there, there is nothing to do other than get a popup dialog with a single option, that if clicked gets you yelled at. Not to mention, there is a bug that launches "Stand Off" which I initially thought was part of the mission until I recognized it as the Diplomatic mission that was added to Bajor way back when Diplomatic missions were added to the game.
To sum up, yes, I did like the mission, but yet is was sloppy and poorly implemented, not any where near the caliber of the previous featured episodes. Any good Foundry Author would have done better and had this mission done in 1 day.
I said this in the other thread by Kirkfat comparing this to a Foundry mission but...
If this had been a part of the missions released at launch, it would be the most epic thing ever.
As it stands, it pales before a lot of Foundry missions and I can't figure out how this one took 5+ weeks to make.
I think what bugs me most is the plot structure. The dialogue is interesting. The cutscenes feel a bit excessive. Most of the VO is engaging although Andiorian guy comes off way too human and Gorn guy comes off way too Klingon.
But the plot doesn't flow. It's just one thing after another. A series of tasks. I realize that's what the gameplay in STO supports but my issue is that the story doesn't really have chapters or rising action. That's how you give a series of events the appearance of meaning. There's no dramatic arc. No Anton Chekov, Syd Fields, or Joseph Campbell kind of structure to it. And while slavish adherence to structuralism doesn't make a story good by itself, Star Trek has a very, very structured form of storytelling.
A teaser and 4 acts. Plot A + Plot B = Plot C. There is a theme (absolution/redemption/revenge/forgiveness/paternal love/romantic love/individual vs. society) in a Star Trek story.
I'm not getting any of that here and Cloaked Intentions made me feel like Cryptic was evolving towards that.
Good Foundry missions build on an understanding of that.
I feel like any who authors with the Foundry was drooling at the complexities here that aren't possible yet:
Actual branching missions (with fail states)
Commendation Level tie-in (FDC)
class objectives
doff integration
cutscenes
voice over
Custom npc randomizer tables
For someone who merely plays Foundry content, it may feel underwhelming.
Those are toys. Some could be very useful toys but they are still just toys.
Some of those toys could be used to further storytelling but I feel like the "story" here exists to show off the toys and doesn't conceal its intentions very well.
Yeah, I especially like how foundry missions have diplomacy, class specific, and doff assignments.
Also cutscenes and voiceovers.
You just reminded me of another point I didn't like about this mission. While all of the above is awesome, requiring me to do a DOFF assignment was a bunch of bologna. Initial thought, awesome, but bologna in that all my DOFFs were out on assignment and I had to cancel a mission to get a DOFF to do the objective. Wasn't too happy about this because just prior to doing this mission for the first time, I had just spent all my time collecting rewards for completed DOFF assignments and reassigned all my DOFFs to new missions. So again, the mission assuming I had DOFFs available to complete a mission objective was bologna.
I feel like any who authors with the Foundry was drooling at the complexities here that aren't possible yet. (Actual branching missions, diplomacy functionality, class objectives, doff intergration, cinematics, voice over).
For someone who merely plays Foundry content, it may feel underwhelming.
There's an overarching issue in that the quality of the cutscenes is... well, I'll be frank... really quite bad.
Take the following as constructive criticism.
Yes, "STO is an RPG, different rules apply", but one only has to look at other RPGs of its peerage to see how short of the mark the presentation in this game feels.
I don't want to bad-mouth STO, I really don't. For all its flaws, I do enjoy the game... But the first of the Featured Episodes yesterday really did leave me unfulfilled. The voice acting, in places, was on par with the stuff that made me cringe during productions I worked on at University with acting students, and the animations that accompanied speech looked like I was watching Power Rangers.
Timing of the action wasn't great either. It really kills immersion when there is an awkard, two second pause in which everyone stands in their seats as someone gets killed by a 'decloaking' Jem Hadar soldier. (Just one example of many...)
Maybe you can't do a lot of this stuff in the Foundry... but looking at it without the tinted shades, honestly, maybe those Foundry authors are better for it.
We've seen that Cryptic is capable of doing great in-game animation through their trailers, and even the community has shown that, referring specifically to RachelGarret's awesome two-year tribute. But for me, that level of polish was absent here. There was nothing challenging to it, no moral consequences for deciding whether or not to do something, how to do it, and most importantly, no lasting impact on persistent game play.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this episode could have been far better if they had simply *SPOILER* removed access to DS9 for anyone who had played the mission, and moved all appropriate mission contacts to Bajor. The idea of this having any bearing on the state of the STO universe when we can all just fly back to DS9 and resume camping in the STF store completely shatters any sense of drama or lasting implications that the episode might have successully conveyed.
I didn't think it was a bad mission by any means, (bugs were rough though) but I agree with Leviathan that the plot didn't flow very well. Your diplomatic efforts in the first half of the mission had no bearing when the Dominion arrived.
It was great to see elements such as doff system integration included. Things like that allow it to stand apart from Foundry efforts.
It encouraged me to seek out new Foundry missions to play today and there are some great stories to be found there. Hopefully some sort of in game 'Featured Foundry Episodes' will appear with their own dilithium rewards.
- The mission forces you to play Dabo if you don't have enough GPL. While I liked having to go play Dabo, an aspect of the game I don't readily use, I didn't like that the dialog told me, paraphrase "The Dabo table is behind you. Go play". Why? Well, I closed the dialog and ran over to the Dabo table and could not interact with it or Holo Leeta to initiate a game. Quite frustrating until I noticed the "Play Dabo" option in the low priority message area, which could have been clicked at any time upon entering Quarks Bar. Lazy programming here if you ask me.
It doesn't force you. Dabo is only one way of getting the Kanar. There are other NPCs that you can get the kanar from that don't require obtaining latinum. And if you bargain down, you can get it for as little as 100 GPL, which is really, really easy to get in Dabo.
As for interacting with Holo Leeta, why should the devs come up with a new way to interact with her and play dabo when there is already an established way? Go to any dabo table in the game, and they all work the same, with the "Play Dabo" option. Changing it would only confuse people who are used to the way it works, and in fact, should be familiar with it from having played through "Spin the Wheel" early on in the Klingon episode arc.
- Sitting at the conference table to start the conference. The dialog tells you to take a seat in any chair to start the conference. I initially thought how cool, the game actually requires the use of an emote as part of a mission. My initial thought quickly turned to frustration though when the "sit in chair" emote would not allow me to sit in any of the chairs. It would put me hovering above it or hovering off the floor in front of it, and neither allowed the mission to continue. I ended up having to message someone in my fleet to figure out that I had to double-click a chair to sit in it and proceed with the mission. My response to this was, "how stupid of me to use the 'sit in chair' emote when told to sit in a chair." The response, my fleet mate had done the same thing and stuck there a bit himself.
It took me all of 1 second to sit in it. For people new to the STO, right clicking (or double clicking also works) to sit in chairs is pretty common.
For those not new to STO, the sitting-in-chairs tech has been in game for like a year now at least. Just about any seat on your bridge, or on the crew or engineering deck of your ship works like this, as well as most seats you can find in starbases and missions.
- Escorting diplomats to the shipyard. This was like major fail. Couldn't use half my ground skills. Diplomats had issues with following. I always had to go back and get them.
Let me guess, you're an engineer, and you only use kits with generators, turrets, and drones in it? While they should have enabled such kits, from a programming standpoint, I can see how since they were using the DS9 social map, it was easy for them not to realize this would be an issue. Myself, I just used different kits, with such abilities as weapon malfunction.
- Ship battle around DS9. Enemy ships were colliding with DS9, making it problematic to kill them.
Of course, they weren't programmed to do that in the mission. This is more of a general issue with enemy AI, and it doesn't always happen. A valid gripe, but nothing you can hold against this mission specifically.
To sum up, yes, I did like the mission, but yet is was sloppy and poorly implemented, not any where near the caliber of the previous featured episodes. Any good Foundry Author would have done better and had this mission done in 1 day.
As a foundry author...even without the cutscenes, voicework, and all that...no, not a day. Not even close.
Those are toys. Some could be very useful toys but they are still just toys.
Some of those toys could be used to further storytelling but I feel like the "story" here exists to show off the toys and doesn't conceal its intentions very well.
I won't argue if the story is good or not - I believe that to be entirely subjective. You could reasonably argue that many Foundry authors are capable of telling better stories, and that they do so, but in terms of technical execution, I would not say that it is a "cheap foundry mission".
You just reminded me of another point I didn't like about this mission. While all of the above is awesome, requiring me to do a DOFF assignment was a bunch of bologna. Initial thought, awesome, but bologna in that all my DOFFs were out on assignment and I had to cancel a mission to get a DOFF to do the objective. Wasn't too happy about this because just prior to doing this mission for the first time, I had just spent all my time collecting rewards for completed DOFF assignments and reassigned all my DOFFs to new missions. So again, the mission assuming I had DOFFs available to complete a mission objective was bologna.
The DOFF assignments were completely optional. You weren't *required* to do it at all. As the Captain said, if you weren't able to help, he would have gotten help from elsewhere.
While I thought there were soe neat tricks used, overall I felt it was average, and I have to say, I have played better foundry missions.
Cloaked Intentions blew me away from start to finish, even without dailies or a special Tribble to breed (they've missed a trick with Ketracel White methinks) and the first ep of the new series isn't close to that. Then again, this is just part one, it may get better and the tricks they've used in this episode could eventually be used better in the future and make for even more fun content. Maybe.
Mini-Rant: Commander Andrews sounds like someone sent a fax describing how a Scottish accent sounds...
You got IRISH out of that? Hmmm... has anyone seen that Robin Hood movie with Russel Crowe...
Sadly, yes... Having said that, Australian accents are some of the most offensive I think I've ever heard whenever they get the Hollywood treatment, so confusion might not be so surprising on the subject of Commander Andrews.
Every time I hear someone saying something to the effect of "I could make a better mission on the Foundry," my stock response is, "Okay. Go do it. I'll play it and then judge if your braggadocio has any merit."
I find the Foundry insanely limited. This came out better and did a lot of things the Foundry can't do, like doff integration.
Comments
In fact, there are many Foundry missions that are vastly superior.
"Walk here, talk to this person, walk over there, and talk to that person."
"Shoot this bad guy."
"Beam up, and begin shooting more bad guys with your space ship"
Don't get me wrong... It is fantastic to have something new to play, and I am thoroughly looking forward to the second episode, but what strikes me as the real short-fall of this episode is that there is no persistent impact on the larger game world.
I'll avoid spoilers here. I couldn't have been the only person to feel slightly weird about the closing events of that episode, only to be able to go right back in to the station as if nothing had ever happened.
There could have been a better way of making this feel like a continuing story, like temporarily moving all necessary mission contacts and vendors to a nearby location (hint hint) until the conclusion of the Series.
If Cryptic had done that, and blocked access to you-know-where, my mind would have been blown.
I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here my good Doctor, but lets reserve judgment until the entire series is played out. However; I do see your point. Many areas throughout the mission felt like a foundry mission - BUT - keep in mind this is due to the same tools used. STO has MANY limitations, and these limitations can be seen throughout this first FE.
Besides - the writers of these FE are not very good writers, unlike the hidden talents that can be found on the foundry.
the delay was largely due to other issue that have been discussed many time over from atari to free to play.
no the devs cant just use the foundry to make it. it does not work that way. it has to be using devs tools to be part of the game like every other mission, to be part of the journal, the have the rewards and xp, to make sure it stays up at all times regardless of what happens to the foundry.
even if they did use the foundry, if the quality they put in to that episode got a thread calling it a cheap foundry missions, imagine what people would say if they only used the foundry.
the whole episode takes place around ds9. there is not much need for new environments so it does not feel like its showing anything special which pretty much every new FE does. That just the nature of that episode (although the ward room looked great).
if you want a new location then next week is the one for you as it has the new bajor social map and what ever else is in eps 3-5.
there was a lot of cut scene tech in there and VO work. easily more than any other ep. they have said that it takes a lot of work to make cut-scenes and certainly nothing a foundry author can do. its debatable whether people like cut scenes or not but its time consuming.
the little extra side missions inside the mission has never been done before. the doff missions assignments have never been done before, the person who has the kanar can be different depending on the order you do it in and has never been done before, the diplomacy and the accolades, while not new can not be done inside the foundry.
losing your bridge crew and having the diplomats watch your back, while either arming them, or helping the security guard is something you cant do in the foundry.
yes, you could make a much simpler version of this in the foundry and achieve the same end result but the devil is in the detail for this one and perhaps none of these things are very spectacular or wow moments but side missions, and different outcomes are something that i personally love to see. i certainly cant do half of what appeared in this episode and if you put them side by side it would show.
to say it is a cheap foundry ep does not understand what the limitations of the foundry are. i can agree it may not feel much better than a foundry mission because of its largely none combat start but the missions is more complex than it seems.
I just don't get the impresion that "Second Wave" holds up in quality to the likes of "Skirmish" or "Cold Call" or "The Vault"
As a first episode of an FE series goes, "Second Wave" ranks below the previous series first episodes, IMO.
My current ranking, from best to worse is as follows:
Cold Call
The Vault
Skirmish
Second Wave
My opinion of course.
the funny thing is cold call and skirmish are easier to make in the foundry than second wave would be. the vault is not doable for a number of reasons and is a fantastic ep. i would actually rate cold call as the worst of the 4. (even though it was still hugely enjoyable, but nothing ground breaking). The introduction of the Breen and a great defera map are what make the ep stand out from any of the others we had at launch, rather than anything innovative.
As a foundry author im always looking at things the missions have that i cant do. My personal order.
The Vault
Second Wave
Skirmish
Cold Call
I said as much in the feedback thread yesterday (response #3): http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=254176
And I completely agree it is sub-par when compared to the other terrific FE episodes out there.
Really kind of sad - I sure hope they are able to wow us from here on out. But with a start like this after a year, that really wouldn't be hard.
Yep, that's how I feel right now. And I've played through it a few times now.
I am hoping the rest of the series improves.
It might not actually be reasonable to expect every official mission to be superior to the very best the foundry has to offer.
I feel like the storyline has been done time and time again...another faction takes control of DS9...
It's the same old thing...dominion comes through the wormhole and takes control of DS9.
You're forced to retreat and find a way to retake the station (presumably).
I dunno, it just seems recycled... anyone agree?
Yes, while I liked this mission, any of the good Foundry Authors could have done a better job at making the mission flow more smoothly.
Things I didn't like and or found annoying:
- The mission forces you to play Dabo if you don't have enough GPL. While I liked having to go play Dabo, an aspect of the game I don't readily use, I didn't like that the dialog told me, paraphrase "The Dabo table is behind you. Go play". Why? Well, I closed the dialog and ran over to the Dabo table and could not interact with it or Holo Leeta to initiate a game. Quite frustrating until I noticed the "Play Dabo" option in the low priority message area, which could have been clicked at any time upon entering Quarks Bar. Lazy programming here if you ask me.
- Sitting at the conference table to start the conference. The dialog tells you to take a seat in any chair to start the conference. I initially thought how cool, the game actually requires the use of an emote as part of a mission. My initial thought quickly turned to frustration though when the "sit in chair" emote would not allow me to sit in any of the chairs. It would put me hovering above it or hovering off the floor in front of it, and neither allowed the mission to continue. I ended up having to message someone in my fleet to figure out that I had to double-click a chair to sit in it and proceed with the mission. My response to this was, "how stupid of me to use the 'sit in chair' emote when told to sit in a chair." The response, my fleet mate had done the same thing and stuck there a bit himself.
- Discussion options at the conference. When you are asked if you have anything to say and choose one of the diplomats, there is no freaking cancel option. You are forced to pick one of the presented choices, otherwise you fail convincing that selected diplomat to help. Why I found this annoying. There were options in the list that were disabled, which meant to me I should back out and talk to the diplomats in a different order, to try and get the disabled option enabled. It ****ed me off that I got a failed objective for not responding to the selected diplomat at all. Just about any other dialog in the game, you can back out/cancel without doing anything to think about how you may want to proceed differently.
- Escorting diplomats to the shipyard. This was like major fail. Couldn't use half my ground skills. Diplomats had issues with following. I always had to go back and get them.
- Ship battle around DS9. Enemy ships were colliding with DS9, making it problematic to kill them.
- After the battle you are told to proceed to Bajor, and once there, there is nothing to do other than get a popup dialog with a single option, that if clicked gets you yelled at. Not to mention, there is a bug that launches "Stand Off" which I initially thought was part of the mission until I recognized it as the Diplomatic mission that was added to Bajor way back when Diplomatic missions were added to the game.
To sum up, yes, I did like the mission, but yet is was sloppy and poorly implemented, not any where near the caliber of the previous featured episodes. Any good Foundry Author would have done better and had this mission done in 1 day.
If this had been a part of the missions released at launch, it would be the most epic thing ever.
As it stands, it pales before a lot of Foundry missions and I can't figure out how this one took 5+ weeks to make.
I think what bugs me most is the plot structure. The dialogue is interesting. The cutscenes feel a bit excessive. Most of the VO is engaging although Andiorian guy comes off way too human and Gorn guy comes off way too Klingon.
But the plot doesn't flow. It's just one thing after another. A series of tasks. I realize that's what the gameplay in STO supports but my issue is that the story doesn't really have chapters or rising action. That's how you give a series of events the appearance of meaning. There's no dramatic arc. No Anton Chekov, Syd Fields, or Joseph Campbell kind of structure to it. And while slavish adherence to structuralism doesn't make a story good by itself, Star Trek has a very, very structured form of storytelling.
A teaser and 4 acts. Plot A + Plot B = Plot C. There is a theme (absolution/redemption/revenge/forgiveness/paternal love/romantic love/individual vs. society) in a Star Trek story.
I'm not getting any of that here and Cloaked Intentions made me feel like Cryptic was evolving towards that.
Good Foundry missions build on an understanding of that.
Also cutscenes and voiceovers.
Bingo!
I feel like any who authors with the Foundry was drooling at the complexities here that aren't possible yet:
For someone who merely plays Foundry content, it may feel underwhelming.
I thought the Doff assignment was interesting as an example of tech. I enjoyed the voiceovers.
But story trumps polish or tech for me. I feel like the story implementation here was haphazard.
And Foundry missions do have diplomacy and optional tasks. It isn't just run and gun "kill 5" in any Foundry mission worth its salt.
Those are toys. Some could be very useful toys but they are still just toys.
Some of those toys could be used to further storytelling but I feel like the "story" here exists to show off the toys and doesn't conceal its intentions very well.
Its because the other FE had new Environments designed.
This FE was on DS9 that have already experienced so there was no wow factor.
Also, a couple of thing I encountered raised an eye brow....
Having said all that, I am looking forward to the next one.
You just reminded me of another point I didn't like about this mission. While all of the above is awesome, requiring me to do a DOFF assignment was a bunch of bologna. Initial thought, awesome, but bologna in that all my DOFFs were out on assignment and I had to cancel a mission to get a DOFF to do the objective. Wasn't too happy about this because just prior to doing this mission for the first time, I had just spent all my time collecting rewards for completed DOFF assignments and reassigned all my DOFFs to new missions. So again, the mission assuming I had DOFFs available to complete a mission objective was bologna.
There's an overarching issue in that the quality of the cutscenes is... well, I'll be frank... really quite bad.
Take the following as constructive criticism.
Yes, "STO is an RPG, different rules apply", but one only has to look at other RPGs of its peerage to see how short of the mark the presentation in this game feels.
I don't want to bad-mouth STO, I really don't. For all its flaws, I do enjoy the game... But the first of the Featured Episodes yesterday really did leave me unfulfilled. The voice acting, in places, was on par with the stuff that made me cringe during productions I worked on at University with acting students, and the animations that accompanied speech looked like I was watching Power Rangers.
Timing of the action wasn't great either. It really kills immersion when there is an awkard, two second pause in which everyone stands in their seats as someone gets killed by a 'decloaking' Jem Hadar soldier. (Just one example of many...)
Maybe you can't do a lot of this stuff in the Foundry... but looking at it without the tinted shades, honestly, maybe those Foundry authors are better for it.
We've seen that Cryptic is capable of doing great in-game animation through their trailers, and even the community has shown that, referring specifically to RachelGarret's awesome two-year tribute. But for me, that level of polish was absent here. There was nothing challenging to it, no moral consequences for deciding whether or not to do something, how to do it, and most importantly, no lasting impact on persistent game play.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this episode could have been far better if they had simply *SPOILER* removed access to DS9 for anyone who had played the mission, and moved all appropriate mission contacts to Bajor. The idea of this having any bearing on the state of the STO universe when we can all just fly back to DS9 and resume camping in the STF store completely shatters any sense of drama or lasting implications that the episode might have successully conveyed.
I hope they lift the bar with Episode 2.
It was great to see elements such as doff system integration included. Things like that allow it to stand apart from Foundry efforts.
It encouraged me to seek out new Foundry missions to play today and there are some great stories to be found there. Hopefully some sort of in game 'Featured Foundry Episodes' will appear with their own dilithium rewards.
It doesn't force you. Dabo is only one way of getting the Kanar. There are other NPCs that you can get the kanar from that don't require obtaining latinum. And if you bargain down, you can get it for as little as 100 GPL, which is really, really easy to get in Dabo.
As for interacting with Holo Leeta, why should the devs come up with a new way to interact with her and play dabo when there is already an established way? Go to any dabo table in the game, and they all work the same, with the "Play Dabo" option. Changing it would only confuse people who are used to the way it works, and in fact, should be familiar with it from having played through "Spin the Wheel" early on in the Klingon episode arc.
It took me all of 1 second to sit in it. For people new to the STO, right clicking (or double clicking also works) to sit in chairs is pretty common.
For those not new to STO, the sitting-in-chairs tech has been in game for like a year now at least. Just about any seat on your bridge, or on the crew or engineering deck of your ship works like this, as well as most seats you can find in starbases and missions.
Let me guess, you're an engineer, and you only use kits with generators, turrets, and drones in it? While they should have enabled such kits, from a programming standpoint, I can see how since they were using the DS9 social map, it was easy for them not to realize this would be an issue. Myself, I just used different kits, with such abilities as weapon malfunction.
Of course, they weren't programmed to do that in the mission. This is more of a general issue with enemy AI, and it doesn't always happen. A valid gripe, but nothing you can hold against this mission specifically.
As a foundry author...even without the cutscenes, voicework, and all that...no, not a day. Not even close.
Foundry missions can't actually check the player's Diplomacy skill though, and not give them the option for diplomacy options if it isn't high enough.
I won't argue if the story is good or not - I believe that to be entirely subjective. You could reasonably argue that many Foundry authors are capable of telling better stories, and that they do so, but in terms of technical execution, I would not say that it is a "cheap foundry mission".
The DOFF assignments were completely optional. You weren't *required* to do it at all. As the Captain said, if you weren't able to help, he would have gotten help from elsewhere.
Cloaked Intentions blew me away from start to finish, even without dailies or a special Tribble to breed (they've missed a trick with Ketracel White methinks) and the first ep of the new series isn't close to that. Then again, this is just part one, it may get better and the tricks they've used in this episode could eventually be used better in the future and make for even more fun content. Maybe.
Mini-Rant: Commander Andrews sounds like someone sent a fax describing how a Scottish accent sounds...
This might explain why I thought she was Irish.
You got IRISH out of that? Hmmm... has anyone seen that Robin Hood movie with Russel Crowe...
Sadly, yes... Having said that, Australian accents are some of the most offensive I think I've ever heard whenever they get the Hollywood treatment, so confusion might not be so surprising on the subject of Commander Andrews.
A lot of that wouldn't be as troublesome if the story was better structured and they planned more than 10-12 episodes this year.
I find the Foundry insanely limited. This came out better and did a lot of things the Foundry can't do, like doff integration.
Northern Irish, specifically.
I've had pretty extensive coaching on that specific accent.
It's supposed to sound a bit like a Scottish accent but not quite.
http://youtu.be/Y-6KN28Qk2E