After reading back your topic you seem to have finalised your mission. I'll be planning to do your (finalised) mission preview probably next week.
For other author;
If your mission ended up in the "Replay/Seperate" queue it's up to you to let me know when your mission is finished . *added this line in the first post.
After reading back your topic you seem to have finalised your mission. I'll be planning to do your (finalised) mission preview probably next week.
For other author;
If your mission ended up in the "Replay/Seperate" queue it's up to you to let me know when your mission is finished . *added this line in the first post.
Ah okay, was just wondering how you were running them.
A playthrough mission is written while playing.. This means that if I find something of interest (error/problem/well though out design) OR some kind of emotional experience like an instant *wow* or *aww* reaction I'll write it up as such. The order doesn't always seem logical, but that's how I've played it.
Well, question for you guys... Which ship should I use next? I can choose from; the Oddy (tac, sci), Andy (tac/eng/sci)
Mission starter (including mission description):
- (mission description, grammer) "relatively younger black hole" ==> "relatively young black hole"
- (mission description, grammer) "shorter ranged science" ==> "short ranged science"
- (mission description, naming) "Star Fleet Command" ==> "Starfleet Command"
- (mission description, grammer) "black hole that communication" ==> "black hole, communication"
- (mission starter, typo) "Suttle bay" ==> "Shuttle bay"
- (mission starter, suggestion) It might be better to put the suggestion in [OOC] instead of [Missioninfo] due to the coloring.
- (mission door suggestion) It was pretty darn hard to find the starter door for your mission... It might help if you mention the player beaming on DS9 first, and then look for shuttlebay door.
Map 1; DS9
- (naming) When you need to contact DS9, the button says "Interact".
- (grammer, admiral) "12 hours ago received" ==> "12 hours ago we received"
- (grammer, admiral) "he's a good friend of mind" ==> "he's a good friend of mine"
- (grammer, admiral) "Now it's gone and he might be gone" ==> "Now it's gone, taking him along"
- (note) Nice one!! The U.S.S. Handcock, with periods and all in it's designations! Love it!
- (note) The map feels... empty, there's no life (moving shuttle's, ships on wander, etc) It's still a station you know.
- (bummer, continuity) Even though i've spoken to the admiral, I can speak with her again (interact button). This tells me you've used a normal dialog instead of storyline dialog. You know you can use dialog reached to make the dialog state invisible?
Map 2; Zea
- (interpunctions, dialog frigate) "oh you would like" ==> "Oh, you would like"
- (interpunctions, dialog frigate) "Commander they closed" ==> "[Rank], they closed"
- (genderneutrality) "picking up his warp signature" == "pinking up it's warp signature"
Map 3; Nearby
- (typo) "mightbe" ==> "might be"
- (typo) "pentrate" ==> "penetrate"
- (continuation) The sensors couldn't penetrate the shields... then how does my boff know it was unmanned?
- (grammer) "there weapons" ==> "their weapons"
- (typo) "opponet" ==> "opponent"
- (typo) "humaniod" ==> "humanoid"
- (suggestion) Objects inside this space map is pretty scattered around the map. Unfortunatly there are no visual clues
where to head to when you need to assist the wayfarer.
- (note) After warpout, the unknown frigate is still visible to see.
- (typo) "I ahve" ==> "I have"
- (typo) "cordinates" ==> "coordinates"
Map 4; Mystery M
- (suggestion) "anomalous reading" ==> It sounds strange... These might fit better; "strange reading" or "peculiar reading".
Map 5; On the planet
- (grammer) "proceed of foot" ==> "proceed on foot"
Note inbetween; I see lots of "continue"'s in dialogs, it might help your story if you add a proper reaction the user can click/choose, considering the situation
- (placement) I've been looking around a bunch on this map. Those tents are... Awesome! It's a cool sight when you look at it from the distance.
- (placement, too high) Some tents (mostly on the sides) are placed too high. They're "floating" above the ground (either partly or completely).
- (placement, large building) You've got some cannons coming out halfway of a rock, that's rather... strange. Then there's a space in the middle of the building. If it had a bottom it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunatly, there's no bottom which means you can "look" through the bottom to the other side. I suggest moving this building a bit down, why? When you move the building down a bit, the cannons should come down as well. Their cannons would be covered, but it structure should just emerge above the ground; this way it would look more a part of the whole structure.
- (suggestion) In all your space maps you have the whole map => move to next map. This map is the exception. If you have disconnected or want to return to your mission half a day from now you'd have to walk to the building. It would be nice if you can go to the next map, map-wide.
Map 6; Inside the Tunnels
- (note) First of all, nicely decorated!
- (map limitation) My task was to scan the living area. Well, if you've read my previous reviews I'll be all around the map looking if you've kept rest of the map open. I've found an invisible halfway the long corridor, am I correct?
- (typo) "Somethings" ==> "Something's"
- (suggestion) "single man team" ==> "solo action"
- (typo) "Perhpas" => "perhaps"
- (note) The NPC patrol/walk action!!! I believe I know how you've done it.... YOU DID MAGIC! Awesome! I love details like this... *shout after them*.. Wow.
- (bummer) "Go to next map"... Would love to see some simple description there .
Map 7; Further inside
- (clipping) The "elevator" is clipping with the wall behind. You see a little bit coming through the "elevator".
- (grammer) "all right" ==> "alright"
- (typo) "Expore the compound" ==> "Explore the compound"
- (suggestion) The suspended prisoners are suspended in the exact position on either side. It seems like a duplicate. Try to turn them (one a bit to the right, the other a bit more).
- (clipping) Ok, I'm in the last room... After looking around the map I discovered a (science) console which is clipping through the map own consoles. It's not completely aligned with the wall.
- (grammer) "did we just speak to...?" doesn't sound righy in this sentence; this would be better: "didn't we just speak to...?"
- (typo) "propper" ==> "proper"
- (grammer) "... would kill him and that would take hours and I fear..." ==> "... would kill him. Waking him up would probably take hours, I fear..."
- (continuity) dialog: "they could attack at any time", I can only answer "why would they attack their own ship?". You're talking about my ship, while you probably supposed it to be theirs?...
- (interpunction) "[Rank] there looks..." ==> "[Rank], there looks..." You can change "looks" by "seems"
- (interaction) Was that "Interact" for the certain console?
- (suggestion) "Humanity's" ==> "Humanities"
- (observation) Alright, this was strange; Gepetto defades AND beams in...
- (clipping) The room with all those cargo boxes in it... Bunch of those boxes are clipping with eachother and the walls.
- (note) Combat was reasonable well done.
Map 8; Back to space!
- (typo) "Debrs" ==> "Debris"
- (animation) You haven't made the ship fade out after you've shot down the first group. This means the warp out animation will loop over and over and over.
Map 9; Nebulae!
- (note) Nice effect.. Subtle detail; it's kind of heavy with bloom .
- (note) Great effect with the trico you did there!
Map 10; Back to DS9
- (grammer) I won't go into detail, but it's kind of hard to read what the Admiral is saying. It doesn't seem to fit, grammatically.
- (suggestion) "Will take time." <== It doesn't finish... Did you mean "will take time to analyze"?
Conclusion
Your mission had some great effects, good map makeup and some cool tricks!! Compliments for that! I would ask you though to put a bit more attention to grammer and basic placement issues. Nonetheless... Great job you did there. 4/5 due to effects and map usage.
Yeah, as you can read in my first post; I kind of liked this way of previewing missions, it takes loads and loads of time... But I really think it's worth it; Authors can benefit from it because it's been seen in a different point of view .
Anyway, gotta go again.. Hope to see you in-game again!
A playthrough mission is written while playing.. This means that if I find something of interest (error/problem/well though out design) OR some kind of emotional experience like an instant *wow* or *aww* reaction I'll write it up as such. The order doesn't always seem logical, but that's how I've played it.
What do you know... Got a new ship today; the Fleet advanced Escort (Woohoo!); it tanks and turns better then my andy. Thank you Bey and Dez for assisting me with this!
Mission starter (including mission description):
- (mission description, note) No typo or grammar mistake! Wow! You've even pointed the player where to start their mission (in a different color, nice!)
- (mission starter dialog, question) In this sentence "... thus far- though he has much to keep track of, your victories" ==> The "-" looks kind of out of place while reading it. Couldn't it be changed to a "," be more appropriate?
- (mission door, note) Short intro (which is fine!) without any typo's or grammar problems, nice!
Map 1; Celes Space
- (designations) Flying through this map I see subtle differences between ship designation. You've got the I.S.S. Niflheim (or was it the Nilfheim, don't remember) and U.S.S. Triaxa (with the dots), USS Exeter/Gloucester/Newport (without the dots, as well in the dialog).
- (trigger suggestion) You've put a trigger near the spawn point. I've tried to go forward, backwards and sideways, but I didn't reached it. (I've dropped end started your mission again to specifically test this...). I would suggest you to A) make it a bit bigger and put it in front of the player or make it huge and put it over the starbase.
- (note) "The captain sighs." in [OOC], wonderful detail.
- (typo, after the sigh) "particualrly" ==> "particularly"
- (note) I roflolled when I read this = "But I think a Romulan warbird hold them just fine".... *Yes, you're a good birdie birdie, my lovely Advanced Escort* .
- (task, note/suggestion) I nearly have to touch the starbase to retrieve the satellites... You might use a trigger/dialog combination as a possible solution.
- (dialog, naming) In your dialog you're talking about "Tiriull kh'Talok", your answer however is asking this "... tell me about Tiriull kh'Filliit".
- (note) True Romulan... "there is an...incident listed in your record"
- (typo) "preform" ==> "perform"
- (note) Opening hail with his the R.R.W. Saken, that Romulan guy has style O.o ... Or watched Hairspray.
- (additional note) In almost every dialogue I'm able to pick different reactions, either good, bad or just plain ugly. I like that! Oh and I must compliment you for the reaction you've written (from Tiriull, I think) when you show her your lack of confidence. Once again, *thumbs up*.
Map 2; Azure
- (capitalisation) "tarantulas" ==> "Tarantula's"
- (question) I don't understand the reaction '..."Known" ' when you're saying you don't like Tholians either.
- (note) Once again the subtle choice between gentle and arrogant. Nice! They favour Republic ships above other, lol!
- (note) If it would keep going this way it'll probably turn into a mission I recommend others to do (just like Malize's KDF mission).
- (typo) "...specific one one ot be..." <== "to"
- (note) Adding my boff to talk about the Fed ship... and the ability about complimenting or to "punish" her.. Great work, again.
- (note) Adding a part of history to this location in your dialog (2293), nice one.
- (designation) The ship, formerly known as U.S.S. Triaxa is now being called the USS Triaxa.
- (objective) You've used the flashing light as the object to complete, nice one!! For other players; unlike the invisible wall you can fly "through" this object, it has a nice visual cue as well. *Oh the satelite looks nice! On to the next one.*
- (dialog, answer) My reaction to for my boff when he tells me he can't get a lock: "Continue" -- bummer
- (dialog, vor'cha) Your dialog states that I have to report back to the U.S.S. Triaxa, altough I'm not yet finished with placing all the satellites. I would suggest something in the line with "let's continue with our primary objective".
- (placement) When you're placing the satellites, they appear more or less at least 0.3 to 0.5m away from the coordinates. It's not messing with immersion (on the contrary!) but it's one of the details I'm noticing.
- (dialog) After placing all the satellites, you get a hail "Captain, the Triaxa...". I personally prefer the use of [Rank], this is the first time I see the ship's name without its prefix.
- (Object name) "Opposite the Triaxa"; no prefix here as well.
- (dialog) When you allow or deny Tiriull access to the Federation's ship, she calls the ship without it's prefix as well. Oh and there's a "Continue" after allowing her access.
- (dialog) Another "Continue" when the captain is like *what is happening here?!*
- (dialog) When the Boff is confirming; another "Continue".
- (naming) The mob which shows up have standard shipnames, I would love to see it with proper designations (I.S.S. randomname).
- (dialog) My tac boff, no prefix and a "Continue". Nice continuation by the way! Liking the story!
- (note) Seeing the Rom ship appearing with the backdrop and asteroids... Wonderful.
- (continuity) Those 3 vessels already decloaked before the dialog which states it.. Oh and they have standard names as well.
Map 3; Bridge
- (note) The map design! NICE! And that for an outside map..
- (capitalisation, dialog) "mogai" ==> "Mogai"
- (dialog) Most of the answers you have to give are "Continue", which to be honest, is a bummer.
- (note) Instead of the task I need to do (raising the inhibitors) I'm walking around your map.
- (NPC) I walked in to see Uhlan Arriha typing in the air, he's probably on wander and with intermittent jobs to do. Even though your map looks pretty cool, this kind of ... funny.
- (NPC) After that I saw Uhlan Clivirio doing the same thing, while standing on Uhlan Nnmor's head. Too funny.
- (clipping) The wall next to Uhlan Nnmor is clipping quite a bit. Did you try to align two walls to let it seem as one?
- (map design) One thing i am missing in this room, is the "drama" you captured on the bridge. No plasma fires, no smoke fumes, etc, etc.
- (note, naming) You've named every Romulan in this room! Always nice to see that attention to detail!
- (map design) After walking in the second room (with the starmap animation on the floor) I noticed a gap between the floor and the wall where you're able to walk off of.
- (NPC) Subcommand Ervon got the same "ticking on air" disorder.
- (room design) The Core's design when walking in... AWESOME! Although I Have to mention the dirt ground/ceiling seems to be a bit.. off.
- (NPC) Uhlan Nivron, tickle die doo, and she plays air hockey too!
- (objects) The green tubes you put behind all those consoles... They don't have a cap on top.. This means you can look "through" them from the top. You can test this by standing on a console, and change the cam by using your mouse (either press B or hold your right mouse button down).
- (map design) Unfortunatly no map drama here as well, no sparks, stress, fires or anything like that. Try using a trigger with explosives when you walk in a certain room?
- (note) Oh nice... A Vorta.. Oh and yet another "continue". Where you started out pretty darn strong, from the previous map it's kind of declining a bit.
- (grammar) "...would you rather your entire crew..." ==> "...would you rather want your entire crew..."
Map 4; IDC A47
- (note) Hahaha, A47... And the prisoner numbers. Awesome!
- (note) My boffs never do this... But they started shooting balloons in this map .
- (map design) This map is overly green. It does fit the story, but it's just so.. green.
- (map design) Those tubes on the ceiling, wow, nice detail! Looking closer though, it does seem to be a bit too low (like it doesn't hit the ceiling at all).
- (naming) Even though most of the JH's have a standard name (JH Ensign), there's the sitting JH which is called "Jem'Hadar Lieutenant Male 01"
- (map design) Halfway now, still seeing all those tubes on the ceiling, wonderful work you did.
- (map design) That fighting platform you have build, pretty nice! Although I noticed a little bit of clipping with the two circles the second at the top (or how you would call it in English).
- (NPC) Prisoner 720 sits kind of.. akward, I doubt she's sitting comfortably. The same goes for Prisoner 926. You can change their location way more subtle when you disable "snap to grid".
- (typo) I don't know if I've read it properly, but I saw "how to we go about..." <== wasn't that supposed to be "how do we go about..."?
- (note) The puzzle was one helluva work you've put in! If I must be really honest.. I haven't read it all and halfway went on the guessing tour.. If I have more time I'll certainly try it once again.
- (map design) That's one well designed prison room! Wow.... On a second note though (and most people won't notice) but it seems like parts of the ceiling side parts are clipping through the top cells.
- (tasks) Integrating optional tasks in this way is.. awesome. Well done.
- (note) Engineering officer, how come you know so much..
- (optional task) Even though it's an optional, I would like a visual cue (like a console or something) to see that I have to do something there.
- (placement) When you're finally back where you started, the bad JH is apparently attacking their own (the friendly ones). I don't know if it's true, but that's what it looked like.
- (console) There's no animation when you do the emergency beamout reprogram task.
- (typo) "requip" ==> "re-equip"
Map 5; Surface
- (note) First reaction: *that looks slick*.
- (grammar) "...something west of us" ==> "...something to the west of us"
- (clipping) Couple of those cargo containers are clipping with a building's leg (not having a better word for it). This one is a bit northeast from your spawn point.
- (clipping) I see yet another clipping; you've got some canisters clipping through the main building, it's on top of an archway. You can see it watching south on the top northeast corner of the building.
- (note) I really like the "foggy" kind of environment. Especially with the piece of smoking debris on top (and the tower barely visible after that).
- (note) Prisoner, shopkeeper.. Awesome! Tell me.. how long were you working on this map, including those costumes?
- (note) I guessed right! So cool. Oh and the "Not_in_*****_system_error", too funny.
- (note) I know you can't do anything about it, but still the Interact button. We should create a new thread, specifically mentioning all and every map/button/interaction in every mission we encounter (lol, what do you think :P).
- (note) The candles, nice touch! Oh and it seems the cargo is nicely piled together! Oh I stumbled in the wrong place, nonetheless wonderfuk fireplace.
- (question) "unhurt", does that even exist?
- (note) The lights!! Awesome! More and more authors are using that as a visual cue. Sweet.
Map 6; After Dark
- (note) Ah... I understand the cargo pile! Sweet...
- (note) Now I understand the clipping cargo on the archway..
- (note) Subtle, garden and seats, stools and a table..
- (note) Long live tactical cloak. Did you know about the glitch when you're cloaking, the enemy mob doesnt attack your boffs until attacked?
Map 7; The Facility
- (note) Why do I get the feeling there's something with the guy?
- (note) Those spiderwebs (or cobwebs, whatever they are) on the outside of the windows are having an awesome effect. I would suggest to put them on the inside as well, since you can't see "the other side" (like they're only been painted on one side).
- (note) You're playing with height a lot in your maps.. Really well done. Oh and have I mentioned how well you've made this map?
- (suggestion) "They are quite literally at our side." ==> "They are quite literally knocking on our door"
- (note) Great story telling, the way you did it.
- (note) I expected an ordinary beamover, but this?...
- (placement) After the beamover the console is kind of "floating" above the floor.
- (note) Whoa... I can believe it was an insane ammount of work you've put in.
- (note) Have I mentioned I talked to Zorbane during this preview? He said something which he was right! (Hope you had a good lunch btw).
Map 8; Space
- (note) I really like the space base design you've put together. Oh and I'm glad to be back on board. Letting the cannons do the talking.
- (naming) It's hard to say, but I say it; most ships had standard names (like freighter, repurposed ****, etc)
- (note) The transfer from evil space to good space (and the energy needed, etc), well done!
- (note) Closing credits were great. Possible starting point for the next mission; nice detail!
Conclusion:
I don't have to say much except; well done! It grabbed me and took me through the story. Yes there were bugs, but I didn't care... When you as an auther can pull this off, pretty darn well done.
Hey Stoutes! I have been looking forward to this review so much and I was not disappointed! I really enjoyed reading your review, the detail you put into all of them is just fantastic. Thanks so much for it; I'm actually looking forward to going back in and trying to correct these little details- which, by the way, I'm impressed. I'm really nit-picky about details but the fact that you can go in and pick up on these things that even authors after weeks of work still manage to miss... Not only super awesome, but super helpful as well.
In response to a couple of your comments:
Map 1&2 and the ship namings: There was a reason why I had them separated (U.S.S. vs USS) originally...Now I can't seem to remember what it was. :P Will have to go fix that.
Map 2 Unnamed Ships: My reasoning behind these were that you start off in battle, and may not have time to ID the ships (also for me I tend to think of it as a way of differentiating between good/important ships and more generic enemy ships). I may yet name them, though. EDIT: About the "Known" thing, because I've now found it... the "known' your character responds with is intended to seem sarcastic in this, and imply that you (or the Republic if you prefer) might be suspicious of unknown Tholian activity in the area.
Map 2 Uncloaking Before Dialogue: This is one issue I'm not sure of how to correct, actually, barring perhaps taking the dialogue and making it a popup one... I haven't been in the Foundry to experiment with the new dialogue options so I don't know if I can fix this with that, but I'll probably see if I can figure things out with the other stuff here.
Map 4 Optional Task: If this is the one I'm thinking of (talking to the Warden?) I had intended it to be hard to find. Very tiny Easter Egg, but I suppose if no one ends up finding it, that might just defeat the purpose....;)
Map 5: This was actually the first map I designed, and it was the inspiration for a good chunk of the rest of the mission. And yeah, it was a very long time... Couldn't tell you the specifics, but I'd probably estimate a month minimum, just experimenting and then later putting it all together. And to think later on I might even add more detail...?
And oh my goodness yes, please fix the Interact button, please! :P
Map 6: There is a story with him but it's not immediately apparent and hopefully will become a little clearer once I rework his first dialogue on map 5. It's hardly the focus point, though, just an optional little tidbit that I very much need to do some cleaning up on.
Map 8 Names: This is a little bit like the last, but here I debated adding the names; ultimately I chose to title them generic repurposed whatever for a reason- I figured that for somebody running more quickly through the mission it might really help cement the idea of who's in control and to what extent they're in control, shall we say.
And I think that covers everything I wanted to respond to! Let me just say thanks again for the review and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
INFINITE SHIFT
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Stoutes: I read your review and thought this would be a fun mission to bump up in the ratings. But I've got to say -- I just got the mission start dialog and between the run-on sentences and grammatical errors -- I don't know if I can continue. I wanted a mission to relax with this evening, but I don't think this is it. It's too much work trying to decode the prose. Perhaps I'll give it a try later this week when my concentration is in a better position to be taxed.
And please, folks, I'm not being a jerk here -- I was just expecting a smoother introduction to the mission after reading the review than what I received.
Hey, if you do want a mission to relax with this evening, I don't think my latest one, "Alliances and Alignments", has been reviewed yet. The door is the Ti'okol system, and it's probably ~45 minutes or so to complete.
Author, "Facing the Past" and "Stepping Over the Line" (a duology), "Venus Unveiled", "Worlds of the Federation", and "Alliances and Alignments"
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
Hi Donperk- I'm the author of Infinite Shift and just wanted to give a response to your comment. First of all, thanks for looking at it in the first place! Secondly, I absolutely do not consider you a jerk for voicing your opinion on it; I'm very much open to constructive criticism.
The main thing I want to say is that this is probably not the easy/relaxing mission you're looking for. The one thing Stoutes doesn't mention in his review is that this mission hits over an hour and 30 mins easily- that's on the quickest runthrough. I'm honestly not sure of the numbers for if you thoroughly read the dialogue like Stoutes did, but my estimation is at least 2 hours 30 mins. So it runs a bit more like an entire series (or at least a two or three part episode!) than a single mission, and I didn't feel there were any good points to break it up into two.
As for the opening, I'll admit the purple prose is at least partially my writing style; however, in this case, I also wrote the way I did because I felt it fit the Romulan people better. Just my opinion that long, convoluted sentences go well with their history of subterfuge. For the Romulan Republic specifically, I personally wanted to write them in such a way that they didn't... lose all of what makes them feel Romulan, I guess you could say.
I admit I don't know what you mean by grammatical errors, but if you'll point them out, I'll take a look at them along with when I go to correct what Stoutes noted in his review.
That being said, I would welcome any more input you have to give; the only thing I would ask is that you post it in my thread for Infinite Shift over in the mission database forum. I don't want to take over Stoutes' thread.
INFINITE SHIFT
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Stoutes: I read your review and thought this would be a fun mission to bump up in the ratings. But I've got to say -- I just got the mission start dialog and between the run-on sentences and grammatical errors -- I don't know if I can continue. I wanted a mission to relax with this evening, but I don't think this is it. It's too much work trying to decode the prose. Perhaps I'll give it a try later this week when my concentration is in a better position to be taxed.
And please, folks, I'm not being a jerk here -- I was just expecting a smoother introduction to the mission after reading the review than what I received.
Hi Donperk, you're certainly no jerk here. I'd like it when someone gives their honest opinion!
I review most missions on multiple points of interest. Grammar (<= again thank you for correcting me ), map design, playability, continuity and overall feel.
Map design, continuity, playability and overall feel was pretty darn good with this mission.
Yes, there were couple of little things that were a mild annoyance (which honestly I didn't found worth mentioning it), the overall mission feel was good enough to compensate for that.
Some missions I already reviewed have much, much more grammar mistakes and much less time and effort invested in their maps; this mission was very well created and thought out, even thought it still has it's irks and mistakes.
Anyhow, thanks for the input! Hope to get more of it, keeps me on my toes :cool:.
That being said, I would welcome any more input you have to give; the only thing I would ask is that you post it in my thread for Infinite Shift over in the mission database forum. I don't want to take over Stoutes' thread.
Please do! We're here to help eachother!
Oh and my runthrough, with all the details, dialogs and reallife running through... it took me around 5 or 6 hrs (on and off that is... I'm still married you know :P) .
Oh and my runthrough, with all the details, dialogs and reallife running through... it took me around 5 or 6 hrs (on and off that is... I'm still married you know :P) .
5-6 hours?! God, at this rate I have a feeling my biggest challenge for my next mission will be writing it in such a way that it can be broken up into something more managable. :eek:
And as seeing as Stoutes doesn't mind, I'm perfectly fine with staying here. Again, open to crits!
INFINITE SHIFT
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Thanks for being so understanding, guys. I was worried about coming off gruff there -- almost to the point of not posting.
I'm honestly intrigued from stoutes' review, because the story and set designs sound interesting. I was just a bit disappointed when I saw "no grammatical errors" and I found myself re-reading sentences. Sundays are draining on me and the idea of a couple hours spent in a cleanly-written mission seemed like a good way to cap off the day.
I'm still going to play it! And if you'd like me to apply my own brand of microscope to the process, aceofintuition, I'm more than willing to take the time to do so.
And yes, depending on the content, a 90-minute mission can take six or more hours to review if you are doing a detailed review. If you just play it and give your impressions, it doesn't take too long. But taking notes and helping people re-craft and improve at a detailed level, while still trying to play the mission, takes a long time.
Stoutes -- in the last review you said a couple of things that made me wonder if English is a second language to you. (One of them was when you wrote that you didn't know how to describe something in English.) If so, I've got to say "Bravo!" I would have never guessed it from your reviews, and I've read a lot of them. If not, well, still "Bravo!", since a lot of native English speakers could not make the corrections that you do.
I know that your brand of review is really meant for the author more than anyone else, but I've found them interesting to read, nonetheless.
If you want to, Donperk, then by all means be my guest. However, I know it is a long mission, and going through it so thoroughly does make it that much longer. So as I've said in my thread; please, only take on such a review if you're really interested! I haven't posted it in any review threads (drogyn's or evil70th's for instance) because I know how long it is. The only reason it ended up here is because Stoutes offered to. :P
INFINITE SHIFT
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Mission: Of Morals and Ethics
Faction: Fed
Author: @voporak
Level: 31+
Description: Do the ends justify the means? To what lengths would you go to accomplish a goal? In this twisted alternate reality where choices and compromises must be made, which end of the moral spectrum will you favor?
5-6 hours?! God, at this rate I have a feeling my biggest challenge for my next mission will be writing it in such a way that it can be broken up into something more managable.
Just build your mission the way you did! It's a mission I liked pretty much and if it needs to be long to be a good story, who cares?!
I'm honestly intrigued from stoutes' review, because the story and set designs sound interesting. I was just a bit disappointed when I saw "no grammatical errors" and I found myself re-reading sentences. Sundays are draining on me and the idea of a couple hours spent in a cleanly-written mission seemed like a good way to cap off the day.
I haven't said there were no grammer errors, hahaha. As i've stated in my conclusion (Yes there were bugs, but I didn't care... When you as an auther can pull this off, pretty darn well done.) it was something that was easier to overcome, due to the whole package .
I'm still going to play it! And if you'd like me to apply my own brand of microscope to the process, aceofintuition, I'm more than willing to take the time to do so.
That would be sweet! I would like to know what I've missed and what I could learn from you!
And yes, depending on the content, a 90-minute mission can take six or more hours to review if you are doing a detailed review. If you just play it and give your impressions, it doesn't take too long. But taking notes and helping people re-craft and improve at a detailed level, while still trying to play the mission, takes a long time.
Stoutes -- in the last review you said a couple of things that made me wonder if English is a second language to you. (One of them was when you wrote that you didn't know how to describe something in English.) If so, I've got to say "Bravo!" I would have never guessed it from your reviews, and I've read a lot of them. If not, well, still "Bravo!", since a lot of native English speakers could not make the corrections that you do.
I know that your brand of review is really meant for the author more than anyone else, but I've found them interesting to read, nonetheless.
English is my second language indeed! Can't speak it as well though (due to couple of reasons). If you would like to know; I'm from Holland.
Oh, and thank you for those compliments! I've started this kind of reviews because I missed this kind of feedback myself (and thanks to Zorbane asking others to do mission reviews, he sparked the thing), therefore I know how valuable this kind of feedback can be for an author. Because let's be honest; how much time are they investing in their mission, simply for others to enjoy? From my own experience; a lot. This is my "thank you" for creating such stories.
And on a sidenote; thank you for telling me my reviews are read and valued. That is letting me know my efforts aren't futile .
Screenshots have been uploaded for five different foundry missions:
Star Trek: Saturn: Ep. I - (Album) *black water is probably caused by a memory bug*
MAYHEM EP 1 - Cute, Fuzzy Things - (Album)
Fluidic Relations - (Album)
Epoch: existence - (Album)
Infinite Shift - (Album)
Hi Stoutes, Just a heads up that I did some editing of A time to search the other night so if you want to review it make sure to drop it and pick it up again so it is the latest publish.
A TIME TO SEARCH: ENTER MY FOUNDRY MISSION at the RISA SYSTEM Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Thank you for the heads-up! Have dropped & picked your mission back up for review, as usual real-life is taking more time then necessary so the review is taking a bit longer.
I'm 1/3 through your mission and hope to finish it today .
@ashkrik; your final playtest mission review will be done after lincolninspace's mission.
Thank you for the heads-up! Have dropped & picked your mission back up for review, as usual real-life is taking more time then necessary so the review is taking a bit longer.
I'm 1/3 through your mission and hope to finish it today .
@ashkrik; your final playtest mission review will be done after lincolninspace's mission.
Looking forward to your final review. Hope you enjoy all the polishing that has gone into it since the initial playthrough.
Thank you for the heads-up! Have dropped & picked your mission back up for review, as usual real-life is taking more time then necessary so the review is taking a bit longer.
I'm 1/3 through your mission and hope to finish it today .
@ashkrik; your final playtest mission review will be done after lincolninspace's mission.
Cool, hope you like. I cannot change some of the default interact text in the mission, And a bug prevents me from capitalizing the title y'know foundry bugs....
A TIME TO SEARCH: ENTER MY FOUNDRY MISSION at the RISA SYSTEM Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Cool, hope you like. I cannot change some of the default interact text in the mission, And a bug prevents me from capitalizing the title y'know foundry bugs....
Yeah I know, foundry bugs...
The interact, yup; got it in the review *had to do it :P*.
There was one particular thing that threw me a bit off though; those forcefields + walls above that. I know why you did it, but you know those walls aren't "capped" at the bottom, right? (you can see through the structure)
I've found the coordinates to make an *almost* smooth forcefield from ceiling to floor.. I'll write up the coordinates (or the difference) for you to use. If you want to see what I mean; try CSG 2 (click on my sig) and take the safe approach on the Far'Rokh.
EDIT; I'm pretty proud at my sig, what do you guys think :cool:
Looking forward to your final review. Hope you enjoy all the polishing that has gone into it since the initial playthrough.
If I must be honest, I've seen parts of the video playthrough from Commadore (if I'm correct) and already saw some great improvements , looking forward to it as well!
Yeah I know, foundry bugs...
The interact, yup; got it in the review *had to do it :P*.
There was one particular thing that threw me a bit off though; those forcefields + walls above that. I know why you did it, but you know those walls aren't "capped" at the bottom, right? (you can see through the structure)
I've found the coordinates to make an *almost* smooth forcefield from ceiling to floor.. I'll write up the coordinates (or the difference) for you to use. If you want to see what I mean; try CSG 2 (click on my sig) and take the safe approach on the Far'Rokh.
EDIT; I'm pretty proud at my sig, what do you guys think :cool:
You mean on map #1? yes I know, this was my first mission and I thought it looked more like what was already there as opposed to adding a wall door. Let me know if you see floating objects as some don't render in preview.
The Sig is very cool besides the lower text fading out too much. Is CSG 1 up for play?
A TIME TO SEARCH: ENTER MY FOUNDRY MISSION at the RISA SYSTEM Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Comments
After reading back your topic you seem to have finalised your mission. I'll be planning to do your (finalised) mission preview probably next week.
For other author;
If your mission ended up in the "Replay/Seperate" queue it's up to you to let me know when your mission is finished
Ah okay, was just wondering how you were running them.
A playthrough mission is written while playing.. This means that if I find something of interest (error/problem/well though out design) OR some kind of emotional experience like an instant *wow* or *aww* reaction I'll write it up as such. The order doesn't always seem logical, but that's how I've played it.
Well, question for you guys... Which ship should I use next? I can choose from; the Oddy (tac, sci), Andy (tac/eng/sci)
Mission starter (including mission description):
- (mission description, grammer) "relatively younger black hole" ==> "relatively young black hole"
- (mission description, grammer) "shorter ranged science" ==> "short ranged science"
- (mission description, naming) "Star Fleet Command" ==> "Starfleet Command"
- (mission description, grammer) "black hole that communication" ==> "black hole, communication"
- (mission starter, typo) "Suttle bay" ==> "Shuttle bay"
- (mission starter, suggestion) It might be better to put the suggestion in [OOC] instead of [Missioninfo] due to the coloring.
- (mission door suggestion) It was pretty darn hard to find the starter door for your mission... It might help if you mention the player beaming on DS9 first, and then look for shuttlebay door.
Map 1; DS9
- (naming) When you need to contact DS9, the button says "Interact".
- (grammer, admiral) "12 hours ago received" ==> "12 hours ago we received"
- (grammer, admiral) "he's a good friend of mind" ==> "he's a good friend of mine"
- (grammer, admiral) "Now it's gone and he might be gone" ==> "Now it's gone, taking him along"
- (note) Nice one!! The U.S.S. Handcock, with periods and all in it's designations! Love it!
- (note) The map feels... empty, there's no life (moving shuttle's, ships on wander, etc) It's still a station you know.
- (bummer, continuity) Even though i've spoken to the admiral, I can speak with her again (interact button). This tells me you've used a normal dialog instead of storyline dialog. You know you can use dialog reached to make the dialog state invisible?
Map 2; Zea
- (interpunctions, dialog frigate) "oh you would like" ==> "Oh, you would like"
- (interpunctions, dialog frigate) "Commander they closed" ==> "[Rank], they closed"
- (genderneutrality) "picking up his warp signature" == "pinking up it's warp signature"
Map 3; Nearby
- (typo) "mightbe" ==> "might be"
- (typo) "pentrate" ==> "penetrate"
- (continuation) The sensors couldn't penetrate the shields... then how does my boff know it was unmanned?
- (grammer) "there weapons" ==> "their weapons"
- (typo) "opponet" ==> "opponent"
- (typo) "humaniod" ==> "humanoid"
- (suggestion) Objects inside this space map is pretty scattered around the map. Unfortunatly there are no visual clues
where to head to when you need to assist the wayfarer.
- (note) After warpout, the unknown frigate is still visible to see.
- (typo) "I ahve" ==> "I have"
- (typo) "cordinates" ==> "coordinates"
Map 4; Mystery M
- (suggestion) "anomalous reading" ==> It sounds strange... These might fit better; "strange reading" or "peculiar reading".
Map 5; On the planet
- (grammer) "proceed of foot" ==> "proceed on foot"
Note inbetween; I see lots of "continue"'s in dialogs, it might help your story if you add a proper reaction the user can click/choose, considering the situation
- (placement) I've been looking around a bunch on this map. Those tents are... Awesome! It's a cool sight when you look at it from the distance.
- (placement, too high) Some tents (mostly on the sides) are placed too high. They're "floating" above the ground (either partly or completely).
- (placement, large building) You've got some cannons coming out halfway of a rock, that's rather... strange. Then there's a space in the middle of the building. If it had a bottom it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunatly, there's no bottom which means you can "look" through the bottom to the other side. I suggest moving this building a bit down, why? When you move the building down a bit, the cannons should come down as well. Their cannons would be covered, but it structure should just emerge above the ground; this way it would look more a part of the whole structure.
- (suggestion) In all your space maps you have the whole map => move to next map. This map is the exception. If you have disconnected or want to return to your mission half a day from now you'd have to walk to the building. It would be nice if you can go to the next map, map-wide.
Map 6; Inside the Tunnels
- (note) First of all, nicely decorated!
- (map limitation) My task was to scan the living area. Well, if you've read my previous reviews I'll be all around the map looking if you've kept rest of the map open. I've found an invisible halfway the long corridor, am I correct?
- (typo) "Somethings" ==> "Something's"
- (suggestion) "single man team" ==> "solo action"
- (typo) "Perhpas" => "perhaps"
- (note) The NPC patrol/walk action!!! I believe I know how you've done it.... YOU DID MAGIC! Awesome! I love details like this... *shout after them*.. Wow.
- (bummer) "Go to next map"... Would love to see some simple description there
Map 7; Further inside
- (clipping) The "elevator" is clipping with the wall behind. You see a little bit coming through the "elevator".
- (grammer) "all right" ==> "alright"
- (typo) "Expore the compound" ==> "Explore the compound"
- (suggestion) The suspended prisoners are suspended in the exact position on either side. It seems like a duplicate. Try to turn them (one a bit to the right, the other a bit more).
- (clipping) Ok, I'm in the last room... After looking around the map I discovered a (science) console which is clipping through the map own consoles. It's not completely aligned with the wall.
- (grammer) "did we just speak to...?" doesn't sound righy in this sentence; this would be better: "didn't we just speak to...?"
- (typo) "propper" ==> "proper"
- (grammer) "... would kill him and that would take hours and I fear..." ==> "... would kill him. Waking him up would probably take hours, I fear..."
- (continuity) dialog: "they could attack at any time", I can only answer "why would they attack their own ship?". You're talking about my ship, while you probably supposed it to be theirs?...
- (interpunction) "[Rank] there looks..." ==> "[Rank], there looks..." You can change "looks" by "seems"
- (interaction) Was that "Interact" for the certain console?
- (suggestion) "Humanity's" ==> "Humanities"
- (observation) Alright, this was strange; Gepetto defades AND beams in...
- (clipping) The room with all those cargo boxes in it... Bunch of those boxes are clipping with eachother and the walls.
- (note) Combat was reasonable well done.
Map 8; Back to space!
- (typo) "Debrs" ==> "Debris"
- (animation) You haven't made the ship fade out after you've shot down the first group. This means the warp out animation will loop over and over and over.
Map 9; Nebulae!
- (note) Nice effect.. Subtle detail; it's kind of heavy with bloom
- (note) Great effect with the trico you did there!
Map 10; Back to DS9
- (grammer) I won't go into detail, but it's kind of hard to read what the Admiral is saying. It doesn't seem to fit, grammatically.
- (suggestion) "Will take time." <== It doesn't finish... Did you mean "will take time to analyze"?
Conclusion
Your mission had some great effects, good map makeup and some cool tricks!! Compliments for that! I would ask you though to put a bit more attention to grammer and basic placement issues. Nonetheless... Great job you did there. 4/5 due to effects and map usage.
Gosh, you became quite known in Foundry circles!
Yeah, as you can read in my first post; I kind of liked this way of previewing missions, it takes loads and loads of time... But I really think it's worth it; Authors can benefit from it because it's been seen in a different point of view
Anyway, gotta go again.. Hope to see you in-game again!
A time to search
by lincolninspace
ST-HLFRSWRPV
Federation
16+
....
Thank you.
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Thank you for your question, your mission was already in the list, so i'll get to it pretty quickly!
A playthrough mission is written while playing.. This means that if I find something of interest (error/problem/well though out design) OR some kind of emotional experience like an instant *wow* or *aww* reaction I'll write it up as such. The order doesn't always seem logical, but that's how I've played it.
What do you know... Got a new ship today; the Fleet advanced Escort (Woohoo!); it tanks and turns better then my andy. Thank you Bey and Dez for assisting me with this!
Mission starter (including mission description):
- (mission description, note) No typo or grammar mistake! Wow! You've even pointed the player where to start their mission (in a different color, nice!)
- (mission starter dialog, question) In this sentence "... thus far- though he has much to keep track of, your victories" ==> The "-" looks kind of out of place while reading it. Couldn't it be changed to a "," be more appropriate?
- (mission door, note) Short intro (which is fine!) without any typo's or grammar problems, nice!
Map 1; Celes Space
- (designations) Flying through this map I see subtle differences between ship designation. You've got the I.S.S. Niflheim (or was it the Nilfheim, don't remember) and U.S.S. Triaxa (with the dots), USS Exeter/Gloucester/Newport (without the dots, as well in the dialog).
- (trigger suggestion) You've put a trigger near the spawn point. I've tried to go forward, backwards and sideways, but I didn't reached it. (I've dropped end started your mission again to specifically test this...). I would suggest you to A) make it a bit bigger and put it in front of the player or
- (note) "The captain sighs." in [OOC], wonderful detail.
- (typo, after the sigh) "particualrly" ==> "particularly"
- (note) I roflolled when I read this = "But I think a Romulan warbird hold them just fine".... *Yes, you're a good birdie birdie, my lovely Advanced Escort*
- (task, note/suggestion) I nearly have to touch the starbase to retrieve the satellites... You might use a trigger/dialog combination as a possible solution.
- (dialog, naming) In your dialog you're talking about "Tiriull kh'Talok", your answer however is asking this "... tell me about Tiriull kh'Filliit".
- (note) True Romulan... "there is an...incident listed in your record"
- (typo) "preform" ==> "perform"
- (note) Opening hail with his the R.R.W. Saken, that Romulan guy has style O.o ... Or watched Hairspray.
- (additional note) In almost every dialogue I'm able to pick different reactions, either good, bad or just plain ugly. I like that! Oh and I must compliment you for the reaction you've written (from Tiriull, I think) when you show her your lack of confidence. Once again, *thumbs up*.
Map 2; Azure
- (capitalisation) "tarantulas" ==> "Tarantula's"
- (question) I don't understand the reaction '..."Known" ' when you're saying you don't like Tholians either.
- (note) Once again the subtle choice between gentle and arrogant. Nice! They favour Republic ships above other, lol!
- (note) If it would keep going this way it'll probably turn into a mission I recommend others to do (just like Malize's KDF mission).
- (typo) "...specific one one ot be..." <== "to"
- (note) Adding my boff to talk about the Fed ship... and the ability about complimenting or to "punish" her.. Great work, again.
- (note) Adding a part of history to this location in your dialog (2293), nice one.
- (designation) The ship, formerly known as U.S.S. Triaxa is now being called the USS Triaxa.
- (objective) You've used the flashing light as the object to complete, nice one!! For other players; unlike the invisible wall you can fly "through" this object, it has a nice visual cue as well. *Oh the satelite looks nice! On to the next one.*
- (dialog, answer) My reaction to for my boff when he tells me he can't get a lock: "Continue" -- bummer
- (dialog, vor'cha) Your dialog states that I have to report back to the U.S.S. Triaxa, altough I'm not yet finished with placing all the satellites. I would suggest something in the line with "let's continue with our primary objective".
- (placement) When you're placing the satellites, they appear more or less at least 0.3 to 0.5m away from the coordinates. It's not messing with immersion (on the contrary!) but it's one of the details I'm noticing.
- (dialog) After placing all the satellites, you get a hail "Captain, the Triaxa...". I personally prefer the use of [Rank], this is the first time I see the ship's name without its prefix.
- (Object name) "Opposite the Triaxa"; no prefix here as well.
- (dialog) When you allow or deny Tiriull access to the Federation's ship, she calls the ship without it's prefix as well. Oh and there's a "Continue" after allowing her access.
- (dialog) Another "Continue" when the captain is like *what is happening here?!*
- (dialog) When the Boff is confirming; another "Continue".
- (naming) The mob which shows up have standard shipnames, I would love to see it with proper designations (I.S.S. randomname).
- (dialog) My tac boff, no prefix and a "Continue". Nice continuation by the way! Liking the story!
- (note) Seeing the Rom ship appearing with the backdrop and asteroids... Wonderful.
- (continuity) Those 3 vessels already decloaked before the dialog which states it.. Oh and they have standard names as well.
Map 3; Bridge
- (note) The map design! NICE! And that for an outside map..
- (capitalisation, dialog) "mogai" ==> "Mogai"
- (dialog) Most of the answers you have to give are "Continue", which to be honest, is a bummer.
- (note) Instead of the task I need to do (raising the inhibitors) I'm walking around your map.
- (NPC) I walked in to see Uhlan Arriha typing in the air, he's probably on wander and with intermittent jobs to do. Even though your map looks pretty cool, this kind of ... funny.
- (NPC) After that I saw Uhlan Clivirio doing the same thing, while standing on Uhlan Nnmor's head. Too funny.
- (clipping) The wall next to Uhlan Nnmor is clipping quite a bit. Did you try to align two walls to let it seem as one?
- (map design) One thing i am missing in this room, is the "drama" you captured on the bridge. No plasma fires, no smoke fumes, etc, etc.
- (note, naming) You've named every Romulan in this room! Always nice to see that attention to detail!
- (map design) After walking in the second room (with the starmap animation on the floor) I noticed a gap between the floor and the wall where you're able to walk off of.
- (NPC) Subcommand Ervon got the same "ticking on air" disorder.
- (room design) The Core's design when walking in... AWESOME! Although I Have to mention the dirt ground/ceiling seems to be a bit.. off.
- (NPC) Uhlan Nivron, tickle die doo, and she plays air hockey too!
- (objects) The green tubes you put behind all those consoles... They don't have a cap on top.. This means you can look "through" them from the top. You can test this by standing on a console, and change the cam by using your mouse (either press B or hold your right mouse button down).
- (map design) Unfortunatly no map drama here as well, no sparks, stress, fires or anything like that. Try using a trigger with explosives when you walk in a certain room?
- (note) Oh nice... A Vorta.. Oh and yet another "continue". Where you started out pretty darn strong, from the previous map it's kind of declining a bit.
- (grammar) "...would you rather your entire crew..." ==> "...would you rather want your entire crew..."
Map 4; IDC A47
- (note) Hahaha, A47... And the prisoner numbers. Awesome!
- (note) My boffs never do this... But they started shooting balloons in this map
- (map design) This map is overly green. It does fit the story, but it's just so.. green.
- (map design) Those tubes on the ceiling, wow, nice detail! Looking closer though, it does seem to be a bit too low (like it doesn't hit the ceiling at all).
- (naming) Even though most of the JH's have a standard name (JH Ensign), there's the sitting JH which is called "Jem'Hadar Lieutenant Male 01"
- (map design) Halfway now, still seeing all those tubes on the ceiling, wonderful work you did.
- (map design) That fighting platform you have build, pretty nice! Although I noticed a little bit of clipping with the two circles the second at the top (or how you would call it in English).
- (NPC) Prisoner 720 sits kind of.. akward, I doubt she's sitting comfortably. The same goes for Prisoner 926. You can change their location way more subtle when you disable "snap to grid".
- (typo) I don't know if I've read it properly, but I saw "how to we go about..." <== wasn't that supposed to be "how do we go about..."?
- (note) The puzzle was one helluva work you've put in! If I must be really honest.. I haven't read it all and halfway went on the guessing tour.. If I have more time I'll certainly try it once again.
- (map design) That's one well designed prison room! Wow.... On a second note though (and most people won't notice) but it seems like parts of the ceiling side parts are clipping through the top cells.
- (tasks) Integrating optional tasks in this way is.. awesome. Well done.
- (note) Engineering officer, how come you know so much..
- (optional task) Even though it's an optional, I would like a visual cue (like a console or something) to see that I have to do something there.
- (placement) When you're finally back where you started, the bad JH is apparently attacking their own (the friendly ones). I don't know if it's true, but that's what it looked like.
- (console) There's no animation when you do the emergency beamout reprogram task.
- (typo) "requip" ==> "re-equip"
Map 5; Surface
- (note) First reaction: *that looks slick*.
- (grammar) "...something west of us" ==> "...something to the west of us"
- (clipping) Couple of those cargo containers are clipping with a building's leg (not having a better word for it). This one is a bit northeast from your spawn point.
- (clipping) I see yet another clipping; you've got some canisters clipping through the main building, it's on top of an archway. You can see it watching south on the top northeast corner of the building.
- (note) I really like the "foggy" kind of environment. Especially with the piece of smoking debris on top (and the tower barely visible after that).
- (note) Prisoner, shopkeeper.. Awesome! Tell me.. how long were you working on this map, including those costumes?
- (note) I guessed right! So cool. Oh and the "Not_in_*****_system_error", too funny.
- (note) I know you can't do anything about it, but still the Interact button. We should create a new thread, specifically mentioning all and every map/button/interaction in every mission we encounter (lol, what do you think :P).
- (note) The candles, nice touch! Oh and it seems the cargo is nicely piled together! Oh I stumbled in the wrong place, nonetheless wonderfuk fireplace.
- (question) "unhurt", does that even exist?
- (note) The lights!! Awesome! More and more authors are using that as a visual cue. Sweet.
Map 6; After Dark
- (note) Ah... I understand the cargo pile! Sweet...
- (note) Now I understand the clipping cargo on the archway..
- (note) Subtle, garden and seats, stools and a table..
- (note) Long live tactical cloak. Did you know about the glitch when you're cloaking, the enemy mob doesnt attack your boffs until attacked?
Map 7; The Facility
- (note) Why do I get the feeling there's something with the guy?
- (note) Those spiderwebs (or cobwebs, whatever they are) on the outside of the windows are having an awesome effect. I would suggest to put them on the inside as well, since you can't see "the other side" (like they're only been painted on one side).
- (note) You're playing with height a lot in your maps.. Really well done. Oh and have I mentioned how well you've made this map?
- (suggestion) "They are quite literally at our side." ==> "They are quite literally knocking on our door"
- (note) Great story telling, the way you did it.
- (note) I expected an ordinary beamover, but this?...
- (placement) After the beamover the console is kind of "floating" above the floor.
- (note) Whoa... I can believe it was an insane ammount of work you've put in.
- (note) Have I mentioned I talked to Zorbane during this preview? He said something which he was right! (Hope you had a good lunch btw).
Map 8; Space
- (note) I really like the space base design you've put together. Oh and I'm glad to be back on board. Letting the cannons do the talking.
- (naming) It's hard to say, but I say it; most ships had standard names (like freighter, repurposed ****, etc)
- (note) The transfer from evil space to good space (and the energy needed, etc), well done!
- (note) Closing credits were great. Possible starting point for the next mission; nice detail!
Conclusion:
I don't have to say much except; well done! It grabbed me and took me through the story. Yes there were bugs, but I didn't care... When you as an auther can pull this off, pretty darn well done.
In response to a couple of your comments:
Map 1&2 and the ship namings: There was a reason why I had them separated (U.S.S. vs USS) originally...Now I can't seem to remember what it was. :P Will have to go fix that.
Map 2 Unnamed Ships: My reasoning behind these were that you start off in battle, and may not have time to ID the ships (also for me I tend to think of it as a way of differentiating between good/important ships and more generic enemy ships). I may yet name them, though.
EDIT: About the "Known" thing, because I've now found it... the "known' your character responds with is intended to seem sarcastic in this, and imply that you (or the Republic if you prefer) might be suspicious of unknown Tholian activity in the area.
Map 2 Uncloaking Before Dialogue: This is one issue I'm not sure of how to correct, actually, barring perhaps taking the dialogue and making it a popup one... I haven't been in the Foundry to experiment with the new dialogue options so I don't know if I can fix this with that, but I'll probably see if I can figure things out with the other stuff here.
Map 4 Optional Task: If this is the one I'm thinking of (talking to the Warden?) I had intended it to be hard to find. Very tiny Easter Egg, but I suppose if no one ends up finding it, that might just defeat the purpose....;)
Map 5: This was actually the first map I designed, and it was the inspiration for a good chunk of the rest of the mission. And yeah, it was a very long time... Couldn't tell you the specifics, but I'd probably estimate a month minimum, just experimenting and then later putting it all together. And to think later on I might even add more detail...?
And oh my goodness yes, please fix the Interact button, please! :P
Map 6: There is a story with him but it's not immediately apparent and hopefully will become a little clearer once I rework his first dialogue on map 5. It's hardly the focus point, though, just an optional little tidbit that I very much need to do some cleaning up on.
Map 8 Names: This is a little bit like the last, but here I debated adding the names; ultimately I chose to title them generic repurposed whatever for a reason- I figured that for somebody running more quickly through the mission it might really help cement the idea of who's in control and to what extent they're in control, shall we say.
And I think that covers everything I wanted to respond to! Let me just say thanks again for the review and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Stoutes: I read your review and thought this would be a fun mission to bump up in the ratings. But I've got to say -- I just got the mission start dialog and between the run-on sentences and grammatical errors -- I don't know if I can continue. I wanted a mission to relax with this evening, but I don't think this is it. It's too much work trying to decode the prose. Perhaps I'll give it a try later this week when my concentration is in a better position to be taxed.
And please, folks, I'm not being a jerk here -- I was just expecting a smoother introduction to the mission after reading the review than what I received.
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
Hi Donperk- I'm the author of Infinite Shift and just wanted to give a response to your comment. First of all, thanks for looking at it in the first place! Secondly, I absolutely do not consider you a jerk for voicing your opinion on it; I'm very much open to constructive criticism.
The main thing I want to say is that this is probably not the easy/relaxing mission you're looking for. The one thing Stoutes doesn't mention in his review is that this mission hits over an hour and 30 mins easily- that's on the quickest runthrough. I'm honestly not sure of the numbers for if you thoroughly read the dialogue like Stoutes did, but my estimation is at least 2 hours 30 mins. So it runs a bit more like an entire series (or at least a two or three part episode!) than a single mission, and I didn't feel there were any good points to break it up into two.
As for the opening, I'll admit the purple prose is at least partially my writing style; however, in this case, I also wrote the way I did because I felt it fit the Romulan people better. Just my opinion that long, convoluted sentences go well with their history of subterfuge. For the Romulan Republic specifically, I personally wanted to write them in such a way that they didn't... lose all of what makes them feel Romulan, I guess you could say.
I admit I don't know what you mean by grammatical errors, but if you'll point them out, I'll take a look at them along with when I go to correct what Stoutes noted in his review.
That being said, I would welcome any more input you have to give; the only thing I would ask is that you post it in my thread for Infinite Shift over in the mission database forum. I don't want to take over Stoutes' thread.
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Hi Donperk, you're certainly no jerk here. I'd like it when someone gives their honest opinion!
I review most missions on multiple points of interest. Grammar (<= again thank you for correcting me
Map design, continuity, playability and overall feel was pretty darn good with this mission.
Yes, there were couple of little things that were a mild annoyance (which honestly I didn't found worth mentioning it), the overall mission feel was good enough to compensate for that.
Some missions I already reviewed have much, much more grammar mistakes and much less time and effort invested in their maps; this mission was very well created and thought out, even thought it still has it's irks and mistakes.
Anyhow, thanks for the input! Hope to get more of it, keeps me on my toes :cool:.
Please do! We're here to help eachother!
Oh and my runthrough, with all the details, dialogs and reallife running through... it took me around 5 or 6 hrs (on and off that is... I'm still married you know :P) .
5-6 hours?! God, at this rate I have a feeling my biggest challenge for my next mission will be writing it in such a way that it can be broken up into something more managable. :eek:
And as seeing as Stoutes doesn't mind, I'm perfectly fine with staying here.
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
I'm honestly intrigued from stoutes' review, because the story and set designs sound interesting. I was just a bit disappointed when I saw "no grammatical errors" and I found myself re-reading sentences. Sundays are draining on me and the idea of a couple hours spent in a cleanly-written mission seemed like a good way to cap off the day.
I'm still going to play it! And if you'd like me to apply my own brand of microscope to the process, aceofintuition, I'm more than willing to take the time to do so.
And yes, depending on the content, a 90-minute mission can take six or more hours to review if you are doing a detailed review. If you just play it and give your impressions, it doesn't take too long. But taking notes and helping people re-craft and improve at a detailed level, while still trying to play the mission, takes a long time.
Stoutes -- in the last review you said a couple of things that made me wonder if English is a second language to you. (One of them was when you wrote that you didn't know how to describe something in English.) If so, I've got to say "Bravo!" I would have never guessed it from your reviews, and I've read a lot of them. If not, well, still "Bravo!", since a lot of native English speakers could not make the corrections that you do.
I know that your brand of review is really meant for the author more than anyone else, but I've found them interesting to read, nonetheless.
my first and currently only Foundry mission is up on the Fed side, intended for a Romulan audience.
Faction: Fed
Author: @voporak
Level: 31+
Description: Do the ends justify the means? To what lengths would you go to accomplish a goal? In this twisted alternate reality where choices and compromises must be made, which end of the moral spectrum will you favor?
I've also got a thread about it here.
No worries there, I personally favour people who are straight to the point.
I haven't said there were no grammer errors, hahaha. As i've stated in my conclusion (Yes there were bugs, but I didn't care... When you as an auther can pull this off, pretty darn well done.) it was something that was easier to overcome, due to the whole package
That would be sweet! I would like to know what I've missed and what I could learn from you!
Here here!
English is my second language indeed! Can't speak it as well though (due to couple of reasons). If you would like to know; I'm from Holland.
Oh, and thank you for those compliments! I've started this kind of reviews because I missed this kind of feedback myself (and thanks to Zorbane asking others to do mission reviews, he sparked the thing), therefore I know how valuable this kind of feedback can be for an author. Because let's be honest; how much time are they investing in their mission, simply for others to enjoy? From my own experience; a lot. This is my "thank you" for creating such stories.
And on a sidenote; thank you for telling me my reviews are read and valued. That is letting me know my efforts aren't futile
Added!
EDIT: I've got a bunch of screenshots which I'll be once again uploading a.s.a.p. (now at work).
Star Trek: Saturn: Ep. I - (Album) *black water is probably caused by a memory bug*
MAYHEM EP 1 - Cute, Fuzzy Things - (Album)
Fluidic Relations - (Album)
Epoch: existence - (Album)
Infinite Shift - (Album)
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Thank you for the heads-up! Have dropped & picked your mission back up for review, as usual real-life is taking more time then necessary so the review is taking a bit longer.
I'm 1/3 through your mission and hope to finish it today
@ashkrik; your final playtest mission review will be done after lincolninspace's mission.
Looking forward to your final review. Hope you enjoy all the polishing that has gone into it since the initial playthrough.
Cool, hope you like. I cannot change some of the default interact text in the mission, And a bug prevents me from capitalizing the title y'know foundry bugs....
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Yeah I know, foundry bugs...
The interact, yup; got it in the review *had to do it :P*.
There was one particular thing that threw me a bit off though; those forcefields + walls above that. I know why you did it, but you know those walls aren't "capped" at the bottom, right? (you can see through the structure)
I've found the coordinates to make an *almost* smooth forcefield from ceiling to floor.. I'll write up the coordinates (or the difference) for you to use. If you want to see what I mean; try CSG 2 (click on my sig) and take the safe approach on the Far'Rokh.
EDIT; I'm pretty proud at my sig, what do you guys think :cool:
If I must be honest, I've seen parts of the video playthrough from Commadore (if I'm correct) and already saw some great improvements
You mean on map #1? yes I know, this was my first mission and I thought it looked more like what was already there as opposed to adding a wall door. Let me know if you see floating objects as some don't render in preview.
The Sig is very cool besides the lower text fading out too much. Is CSG 1 up for play?
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
I wanted to make the 2nd part of the rom thing as invisible as possible, will change it.
CSG1 is playable, but it's the old verdion; the thing is getting a revamp which I plan to publish next november.
CSG2 is playable as well, although it's the playtest version (working on it as well; a bit more polish and NPC's around)