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Mindgame - No. Just... No.
jymoward
Member Posts: 29 Arc User
This is my first major issue with LoR.
There are no real player choices in Mindgame - except to proceed or not.
I stopped in the middle. I won't play this one. There are some things I won't do even in a game where I'm shooting everything in sight.
You have to make this in some way resistible - offer an alternative action, even if hidden.
If this does not change when it comes to Holodeck, I'll be skipping this mission every time.
No reward is worth compromising integrity, even in a game.
There are no real player choices in Mindgame - except to proceed or not.
I stopped in the middle. I won't play this one. There are some things I won't do even in a game where I'm shooting everything in sight.
You have to make this in some way resistible - offer an alternative action, even if hidden.
If this does not change when it comes to Holodeck, I'll be skipping this mission every time.
No reward is worth compromising integrity, even in a game.
Post edited by jymoward on
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If you stop in the middle you are missing even more about the story that is being told there.
you are meant to be forced as that is the story. you can delay it but just like la forge was indoctrinated, you are too. there is not choice.
and life is not fair. good people have been forced to do bad things in tv and film, not just sci-fi.
Hence me thinking it ought to have a trigger warning - it's a profoundly disturbing mission. It's brilliant, but profoundly disturbing, and could cause significant trouble to people whose trauma it brushes against.
You're basically saying it's Kobiashi Maru, and like Kirk, I don't believe in the no-win scenario.
I get to make choices. I don't watch Dexter or Saw or the Human Centipede.
Star Trek is about finding a way out of bad situations - turning certain death into a fighting chance to live.
This Mindgames thing is not, and if that's how they move the story I'll not participate.
My choice. Other people may not care.
So I'll just be skipping along.
I respect its your choice and you can do what you wish, its not going to affect anyone else but your arguments are not making a whole heap of sense to me.
1) you point out its not TV, and you are a real person. then follow it up with point out its a game. its fiction. no one is asking you to do anything. they are asking your fictional characters to do something that is part of a specific story, that is well within the realms of science fiction and has even been shown on trek on a number of occasions where characters lose control despite their best efforts.
2) you do get out of it and certain parts of it are not even real. the fact you stopped half way through means you dont even know how it ends.
again if you dont want to do it, then fine but im finding your reasons perplexing.
yeahh, but then its easier for me to kill humans than animals anyway.. Yes, I AM a vietnam vet.. I AM a monster according to a great many people still and not much different than Hakeev ( and i never fired a single shot against another human being ).. Yes, I DID trigger on this mission, badly.. Those military ships? the pirates? all of em? i'll kill them a million times over. they knew the risks and they took their chances, It's they're turn to die.. The epoohs or whatever they are did not know the risks, they did not volunteer, and they do not deserve to die while defenseless and helpless..
This episode caused me to remember. I dont want to remember. That was fourty years ago and i dont want those memories any more. they arent fun, they arent part of a game and they are as offensive as it can possibly get. Just like this mission.
There are some things you won't do even while shooting everything in sight.
Have you considered how many crew die on each ship you blow up? That some ships have family, passengers, and other civilians? That the crew may have spouses elsewhere, siblings, children, parents, grandparents, cousins, friends and other loved ones? What about the crew you lose while fighting? What about the crew when your ship is blown up?
All the folks that you've disintegrated on the ground - do they also not have friends and family?
So the taking of and ruining of countless lives...thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands...is a-okay in your book...
...but the three things in Mind Game require a protest?
Spoiler...
Being forced to shoot a friend/crewmember.
Killing the Epohh with the thalaron weapon.
Installing Borg implants on the prisoner.
.../Spoiler.
As for having a choice - uh - where else do you have a choice? In the majority of MMOs, there is no choice outside of Do It or Don't Do It.
There are few, very few, things where you can actually make a choice about how you're going to proceed. This is Star Trek Online: Guns Blazing...that's never been hidden. It makes JJTrek look like a thinking man's movie by comparison. We lock 'n load and kill stuff.
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of some random starship. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange old worlds, to seek out old life and old civilizations, to boldly destroy them like no one has before.
/cough
i'm not sure that's the game fault, I dont think it can tailor itself to every person individual situation, but fine I at least understand your reasoning now. I'll leave it at that.
The whole point of that part is that you were brainwashed and have no way to resist it. The rest of the mission becomes my new favorite mission in STO.
Spoiler: In phase two the Doctor is really a Romulan Republic spy who removes your brainwashing. Then you get the chance to sabotage things in a very creative way before escaping.
This is EXACTLY why I keep arguing that this mission needs a trigger warning. Well, this, and its distinct parallel to... pardon the rather clumsy euphemism, but the filter eats the word that really ought to be used here and the point desperately needs making... non-consensual intimate activity.
This mission is BRILLIANT. It would be a TERRIBLE loss to the game to delete it. But players absolutely need to be warned before playing it, because there are a lot of people who will have very bad reactions to it.
There is a plus to this mission if done right: fan service. Hehe.
During the closed beta I had a sneaky suspicion they were going to add an accolade to this mission and they did, along with a title to display on my character. Out of curiosity after the character wipe, when I replayed the mission I did what I suspected I had to do and whoohoo!
Choose every single green option until you have only the red option(s) left for each 'task' (shooting your bridge officer, prepping a test subject for borg implants, killing epohhs, etc.). Do everything possible to resist the indoctrination. Example: when you are told to pick up a pistol off the table for your first task, keep refusing until the only option you have is to pick it up. And again for shooting your bridge officer, after you pick it up keep choosing the options not to shoot until it is your only option.
In the end, after you have done everything possible to to resist the Tal'Shiar indoctrination you will be awarded the accolade "There are four lights!" and unlock the "Defiant" title to display on your character.
Monkey?/ is there somewhere that tells us how to turn on those titles.. i know i earned the one your talking about....
I couldn't even begin to guess how many rerolls I've done. I almost always skip Vault. I almost always skip the Cardassian/Dominion stuff. I usually skip the Deferi stuff.
You can hit 50 on a toon before even hitting the middle of the second story arc.
If various things in the story are offensive - you don't have to play them.
You can level up without touching any of the story (outside of the tutorials on a fresh account - otherwise, you can skip those too)...
Bring up Character Status.
Click Edit Record.
Click Set Title and select it from the dropdown.
Btw, much like you can get Defiant for resisting...
...you can get Hakeev's Puppet for complying.
They force you to...
Shoot your friend. Bomb fluffy creatures. Implant a republic officer with borg drone parts.
Nothing a normal human person or any Starfleet officer does. The last part is rough even for Klingons.
Basically everything they can do to show just how evil that couple of villains are.
And yes, I feel sorry about the poor epohhs.
Not only they are fluffy, but they are like gold on four legs.
Two epohhs could get me a Hyper plasma torpedo launcher... they took my launcher! Revenge!
For me, I'm still on the fence about whether the accolade or the big fight at the end of the chain was my favorite part
I think the story being told in the mission is a bit.. uncomfortable?.. and becomes a very personal experience as a result of that. It is a bit dark and deals with things outside of the player's control, but the story also continues and you make it out of a very dangerous situation. It reminds me a bit of the episodes of trek(TNG and Voyager) where people get assimilated and then have to escape the Borg's clutches(obviously with a Romulan take on things). It is probably the most memorable mission in the game so far.
Injuring the prisoner during the implantation process only increases his suffering but doesn't change anything regarding what the Tal Shiar wants.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
It gives you an insight into how Tal Shiar get spies to work for them.
I agree that this particular mission needs a trigger warning or at least a general warning about the distasteful aspects of it. IMHO the first half could have been a cut scene and the rest of the mission played by the player that would have been less distasteful to mebut I am not writing the story.
Being distasteful is the whole point of the mission. You are supposed to hate it. A cutscene wouldn't have that effect.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
The warning should still be put in because it can trigger painful memories or experiences for some people
Spoiler, the accolade is:
There Are Four Lights.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe