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Season 8 Dev Blog #36

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  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    Before this, when have they ever remastered any episodes? (Not including the tutorial remakes)

    You're obviously new here. :P


    Stranded got a Transporter Room and Career choices added.

    Diplomatic Orders had the Undine revamped, we got to visit Vulcan than picking up the Ambassador from Orbit.

    Doomsday Machine had a complete and utter overhaul, where content was actually replaced.

    And of course all three had voice overs added.



    But these changes to the Klingon missions aren't remasteries, they are more like tweeks. Because there was no voice work added, NPC groups were removed, and some buildings got tweeked.
  • jheinigjheinig Member Posts: 364 Cryptic Developer
    edited January 2014
    We'd love to keep going and retouch additional missions. As always, that's subject to scheduling. We've constructed lots of new tools over the last several years and it's important to us to use them well! That's why our retouches, even when they don't overhaul the mission on the level of a full remaster, now feature minicontacts, career-specific objectives, and short cutscenes.

    To keep you on your toes, a few of the missions have gained new accolades, often tied to a career-specific objective. Note that the special career-specific objectives in these missions usually feature only a single career -- you might find that in one mission, playing an Engineer gives you a special choice, while in the next episode, it's a result of playing a Tactical officer. We've also sprinkled in a few special dialogs here and there for certain types of captains, where appropriate -- Vulcans, for instance, will sometimes react differently than humans, much like we did in the new Federation tutorial. (In fact, for an upcoming later release I just wrote a short but noticeable special dialog for Bajorans!)

    Our ultimate goal is to smooth the experience for new players, with occasional surprises for experienced players who choose to replay the episodes. Some of the changes are also behind-the-scenes quality of life updates, like tweaking the destination locations for systems in sector space so that your ship gets closer to the system and stops within range to start the mission, instead of stopping some distance away from the destination. We also went through and made sure that the missions display the appropriate mission title card when you warp in -- a little touch that was set up but never fully implemented originally.

    As an added bonus, this is also a great chance for us to fix outstanding bugs in older episodes.

    We hope you enjoy these episodes, whether you're playing them again or for the first time.
  • drogyn1701drogyn1701 Member Posts: 3,606 Media Corps
    edited January 2014
    I don't suppose we could get the ability to do "minicontacts" as you call them in the Foundry? Having the ability to have NPCs say things without a formal dialogue window would be invaluable.
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  • endorfinatorendorfinator Member Posts: 135 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    So we are not ending the war anytime so, eh?
  • organicmanfredorganicmanfred Member Posts: 3,236 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    jheinig wrote: »
    We'd love to keep going and retouch additional missions. As always, that's subject to scheduling. We've constructed lots of new tools over the last several years and it's important to us to use them well! That's why our retouches, even when they don't overhaul the mission on the level of a full remaster, now feature minicontacts, career-specific objectives, and short cutscenes.

    To keep you on your toes, a few of the missions have gained new accolades, often tied to a career-specific objective. Note that the special career-specific objectives in these missions usually feature only a single career -- you might find that in one mission, playing an Engineer gives you a special choice, while in the next episode, it's a result of playing a Tactical officer. We've also sprinkled in a few special dialogs here and there for certain types of captains, where appropriate -- Vulcans, for instance, will sometimes react differently than humans, much like we did in the new Federation tutorial. (In fact, for an upcoming later release I just wrote a short but noticeable special dialog for Bajorans!)

    Our ultimate goal is to smooth the experience for new players, with occasional surprises for experienced players who choose to replay the episodes. Some of the changes are also behind-the-scenes quality of life updates, like tweaking the destination locations for systems in sector space so that your ship gets closer to the system and stops within range to start the mission, instead of stopping some distance away from the destination. We also went through and made sure that the missions display the appropriate mission title card when you warp in -- a little touch that was set up but never fully implemented originally.

    As an added bonus, this is also a great chance for us to fix outstanding bugs in older episodes.

    We hope you enjoy these episodes, whether you're playing them again or for the first time.

    I can't remember the last time a Dev gave us so much in-sight infos directly, without having our dearest cereal do that :D :P

    Thanks to J
  • captaind3captaind3 Member Posts: 2,449 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    I for one am seriously looking forward to the revamp, and I applaud the efforts. You said a while ago and I mean before Legacy dropped that you were planning to revamp all of the old missions and I'm ecstatic that you're following through on this. Two weeks is too long though :P

    But serioiusly why are you removing war is good for business it was a great little mission. Are you guys gonna revamp it later on and reinsert it?
    jheinig wrote: »
    We'd love to keep going and retouch additional missions. As always, that's subject to scheduling. We've constructed lots of new tools over the last several years and it's important to us to use them well! That's why our retouches, even when they don't overhaul the mission on the level of a full remaster, now feature minicontacts, career-specific objectives, and short cutscenes.

    To keep you on your toes, a few of the missions have gained new accolades, often tied to a career-specific objective. Note that the special career-specific objectives in these missions usually feature only a single career -- you might find that in one mission, playing an Engineer gives you a special choice, while in the next episode, it's a result of playing a Tactical officer. We've also sprinkled in a few special dialogs here and there for certain types of captains, where appropriate -- Vulcans, for instance, will sometimes react differently than humans, much like we did in the new Federation tutorial. (In fact, for an upcoming later release I just wrote a short but noticeable special dialog for Bajorans!)

    Our ultimate goal is to smooth the experience for new players, with occasional surprises for experienced players who choose to replay the episodes. Some of the changes are also behind-the-scenes quality of life updates, like tweaking the destination locations for systems in sector space so that your ship gets closer to the system and stops within range to start the mission, instead of stopping some distance away from the destination. We also went through and made sure that the missions display the appropriate mission title card when you warp in -- a little touch that was set up but never fully implemented originally.

    As an added bonus, this is also a great chance for us to fix outstanding bugs in older episodes.

    We hope you enjoy these episodes, whether you're playing them again or for the first time.

    Brilliant. Thanks for speaking on this, and I love the species and career specific dialogue. If you could add that to the Foundry, it was jarring during a dialogue sequence to see my Vulcan first officer smile. All these additions are great for immersion.

    A suggestion on the destination system for sector space. Please make sure that you account for the additional speed of the transwarp engines out there. I have found my MACO engines overshooting a system very often.
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  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    I'm glad to see this. To get the rest up to par like the KDF and Romulan. I hope to try them out when I can. If not it will give me an excuse to do the Science Federation Captain I been wanting to do. I can see myself running around as a Vulcan or Trill. Both of those are really up on Science scale. To see how the new story goes.
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  • worffan101worffan101 Member Posts: 9,518 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    One word:

    AWESOME.

    Thanks, devs! If I could marry you all, I would.
  • dukedom01dukedom01 Member Posts: 462 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    jheinig wrote: »
    [...]
    To keep you on your toes, a few of the missions have gained new accolades, often tied to a career-specific objective.[...]

    Can you spare some time to check what happened to 'Mining Survey', 'Mended Wing' and possibly 'Above and Beyond'?

    'Mended Wing' (save the crew of the uss eagle) was reported MIA from Task Force Hippocrates on tribble.

    'Mining Survey' is a bit trickier. Works fine for true feds but somehow we are no longer able to get it on fedroms because the earliest part those can join the mission currently is when it progressed to the azura interior map. There are some fedroms who have the accolade but nobody remembers for sure if they were able to enter the first space map on Stranded in Space or if they got it while flying through the donut 'roid on the second space map.

    And 'Above and Beyond'. Well, that was moved to 'replay stranded in space' when the mission was remastered first, but broke soon thereafter so it has been gone for a long long time.
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  • organicmanfredorganicmanfred Member Posts: 3,236 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    worffan101 wrote: »
    One word:

    AWESOME.

    Thanks, devs! If I could marry you all, I would.

    You have dropped Brandon really fast, haven't you?

    Well, he is to good for you anyway

    :P
  • jheinigjheinig Member Posts: 364 Cryptic Developer
    edited January 2014
    dukedom01 wrote: »
    Can you spare some time to check what happened to 'Mining Survey', 'Mended Wing' and possibly 'Above and Beyond'?

    'Mended Wing' (save the crew of the uss eagle) was reported MIA from Task Force Hippocrates on tribble.

    'Mining Survey' is a bit trickier. Works fine for true feds but somehow we are no longer able to get it on fedroms because the earliest part those can join the mission currently is when it progressed to the azura interior map. There are some fedroms who have the accolade but nobody remembers for sure if they were able to enter the first space map on Stranded in Space or if they got it while flying through the donut 'roid on the second space map.

    And 'Above and Beyond'. Well, that was moved to 'replay stranded in space' when the mission was remastered first, but broke soon thereafter so it has been gone for a long long time.

    During retouching some accolades may move, change, or be temporarily disabled. In general, though, our intent is to either update how they are gained (such as in Researcher Rescue) or move them to a different mission or means of acquisition (as with Mended Wing, which is currently unavailable because we have removed the U.S.S. Eagle portion of Task Force Hippocrates).
  • walshicuswalshicus Member Posts: 1,314 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    drogyn1701 wrote: »
    I don't suppose we could get the ability to do "minicontacts" as you call them in the Foundry? Having the ability to have NPCs say things without a formal dialogue window would be invaluable.

    And race/class specific dialogue. And branching stories!
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  • amosov78amosov78 Member Posts: 1,495 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    jheinig wrote: »
    During retouching some accolades may move, change, or be temporarily disabled. In general, though, our intent is to either update how they are gained (such as in Researcher Rescue) or move them to a different mission or means of acquisition (as with Mended Wing, which is currently unavailable because we have removed the U.S.S. Eagle portion of Task Force Hippocrates).

    To simplify the U.S.S. Eagle part of the mission, could you not streamline it more and add it to the space map where you have to escort the Vulcan ship? The Eagle could have become crippled there by the Klingons, with you arriving and fending off the attackers and aiding the ship with repairs, could give you the accolade instead. Then you continue on as the Vulcan ship's escort until you reach the planet.
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  • wayofderawayofdera Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    This is probably not really related, but I'll just go ahead and state it.

    I'm a huge Romulan fan.:) I was desiring to play the Romulans before the STO launch in Feb. 2010, and was absolutely stoked, when the faction released in May 2013. That said, after putting many Romulan toons through the ranks, ?I thought I would try a Klingon toon.


    I was very, very, disappointed when I found that the majority of missions for the Klingons are not unique, but rather the same missions created for the Romulan expansion.:( In fact I stopped levelling my character due to this.

    What i would like to see is unique missions for every playable faction, from 0-50. Having a few missions that overlap from faction-to-faction is great, by giving a friendly wave in story lines, and encouraging players to play a toon through another faction. For example, if the Klingons faction only did the missions for "Lost Paradise" then you would know of the potential issue with the Romulan Empire/Republic, but not take over Romulan content, that does not seem directly related. Rather, I would like to see the Klingon Empire have more themed mission content, say dealing with events leading to the Federation Klingon war, or species 8472 trying to attack within the Empire.

    Whether this falls on listening or deaf hears at Cryptic, so be it. I simply wanted to post this, so I can say I have done my part on explaining why I still do not play Klingon content.

    Cheers,
  • majortiraomegamajortiraomega Member Posts: 2,214 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    With the episode revamp ongoing, are there any plans to revamp Terradome (the Undine STF)? That mission had a bug preventing completion (which is presumably why it was removed recently), but it was a very enjoyable mission while it worked.
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  • trek21trek21 Member Posts: 2,246 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    wayofdera wrote: »
    This is probably not really related, but I'll just go ahead and state it.

    I'm a huge Romulan fan.:) I was desiring to play the Romulans before the STO launch in Feb. 2010, and was absolutely stoked, when the faction released in May 2013. That said, after putting many Romulan toons through the ranks, ?I thought I would try a Klingon toon.


    I was very, very, disappointed when I found that the majority of missions for the Klingons are not unique, but rather the same missions created for the Romulan expansion.:( In fact I stopped levelling my character due to this.

    What i would like to see is unique missions for every playable faction, from 0-50. Having a few missions that overlap from faction-to-faction is great, by giving a friendly wave in story lines, and encouraging players to play a toon through another faction. For example, if the Klingons faction only did the missions for "Lost Paradise" then you would know of the potential issue with the Romulan Empire/Republic, but not take over Romulan content, that does not seem directly related. Rather, I would like to see the Klingon Empire have more themed mission content, say dealing with events leading to the Federation Klingon war, or species 8472 trying to attack within the Empire.

    Whether this falls on listening or deaf hears at Cryptic, so be it. I simply wanted to post this, so I can say I have done my part on explaining why I still do not play Klingon content.

    Cheers,
    Your view is close, but somewhat off in one area: the missions that are shared by the Klingons are currently either Feature Episodes (which are made for all factions by design), or were originally copied from the Feds. That last part includes the Romulans too.

    So really, each faction has a unique beginning only, and the rest is shared at this time.

    This can change in the future though, whether over time or all at once
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  • senatorvreenaksenatorvreenak Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    To be honest I have a strong dislike to retouching missions in any MMORPG.
    Why?
    Because its just just a refresh that replaces existing content and does not actually add "more" content to the game.
    And if there is anything STO needs its more fresh new content to play through.
  • reximuzreximuz Member Posts: 1,172 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    jheinig wrote: »
    We'd love to keep going and retouch additional missions. As always, that's subject to scheduling.

    It would be awesome if the Cardassian Front got some work, IMO it has always been the worst section of the game, and now compared to the Romulan and KDF missions, and Featured Series, it really shows how bad it is. The flow is terrible, and the story is weak, and many of the maps just go on and on and on forever. And since all 3 factions play through this part of the story, it would get the most benefit from the time spent.
  • origcaptainquackorigcaptainquack Member Posts: 614 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    are we going to lose any existing accolades that we already have? what I mean is if we already completed and have the accolade, are they going to disappear and be taken away?
  • zeuxidemus001zeuxidemus001 Member Posts: 3,357 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    Yeah some of these fronts need some changes more so a little bit leveling up but then either close it out to where at or by end game you either remove the threats like say the true way or either something at end game to where they are actually some kind of threat. Right now its like we order a cadet or an ensign to hold the top of their head while we let a targ chew on them for their threat level.
  • tuskin67tuskin67 Member Posts: 1,097 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    wayofdera wrote: »
    For example, if the Klingons faction only did the missions for "Lost Paradise" then you would know of the potential issue with the Romulan Empire/Republic, but not take over Romulan content, that does not seem directly related.

    Cheers,

    The Nimbus missions were made for all 3 factions, not just the Romulans. So it isn't 'reused' for the KDF, it was just 'used'.

    Nimbus leads into the Romulan FE series which was made for the KDF and FED before the Romulan faction even existed.
  • sfc#5932 sfc Member Posts: 992 Bug Hunter
    edited January 2014
    tuskin67 wrote: »
    The Nimbus missions were made for all 3 factions, not just the Romulans. So it isn't 'reused' for the KDF, it was just 'used'.

    Nimbus leads into the Romulan FE series which was made for the KDF and FED before the Romulan faction even existed.
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  • imadoctornotaimadoctornota Member Posts: 469 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    My faaaavorite thing from the whole post is this:

    "we?ve snuck in a few cases where your species or career can alter the dialog, and cases where your choice of dialog can affect the outcome of the mission."

    That is wonderful news!! Personally, I'd love to see an entire expansion that focuses on adding more of that throughout the story progression for each race! To the end that leveling each race will be a very different experience, and that leveling each class of that species would be different as well.

    In any case, I really hope that you continue to make improvements like these. I would love to have totally different dialog options with Damar Kahn when I'm playing my Joined Trill (or any Trill for that matter). Really? Thank you for telling me about symbionts, I had no idea! ;)
    Thanks for the expansion that had "as much content as the last"
    9 Episodes = 30+ episodes...?
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  • imadoctornotaimadoctornota Member Posts: 469 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    To be honest I have a strong dislike to retouching missions in any MMORPG.
    Why?
    Because its just just a refresh that replaces existing content and does not actually add "more" content to the game.
    And if there is anything STO needs its more fresh new content to play through.

    They need both. If a new player comes in and starts playing archaic content, it isn't going to hook them. While I agree for the need of getting fresh content out quicker for those of us that have been here since beta is very important, it also needs to look appealing to new players, and a lot of those early missions just don't.
    Thanks for the expansion that had "as much content as the last"
    9 Episodes = 30+ episodes...?
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  • john98837john98837 Member Posts: 761 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    These mini contacts I take it is where the "Cloak Friendly" part comes from, if so could we please get this done in current end game PvE content, especially the borg STFs. I cannot tell you how annoying it is to have tovan pop up to tell me something I don't even want to hear and decloak me TRIBBLE up my ambush in the process.

    The whole bridge officer saying hello and decloaking you has been a long standing issue, glad to see it finally getting some attention.
  • stuart1965stuart1965 Member Posts: 691 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    Instead of updating old ground,how about new content. Thats whats needed.
  • thomaselkinsthomaselkins Member Posts: 575 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    stuart1965 wrote: »
    Instead of updating old ground,how about new content. Thats whats needed.

    Like this?

    http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=1079141
  • greendragon527greendragon527 Member Posts: 386 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    I almost thought this was about adding more episodes regarding the war, but good stuff anyway! I agree with those saying this stuff needs to be revamped for new players. Glad to see race specific options too.
  • cookiecrookcookiecrook Member Posts: 4,536 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    To be honest I have a strong dislike to retouching missions in any MMORPG.
    Why?
    Because its just just a refresh that replaces existing content and does not actually add "more" content to the game.
    And if there is anything STO needs its more fresh new content to play through.

    I completely agree!
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  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited January 2014
    The dialogue has been updated so it looks we're in command?! That might be trivial on one side, but I think pretty serious for enjoyment of the story. Sounds promising.
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