Foundry Missions vs. Official

khreg

Got halfway thru "Project Gamma" or "Operation Gamma" whatever it was called. Then I stopped. It was simply not fun to play. I thought back to all the missions I had played up to that point, and I had a hard time picking one that I really thought was fun. Really the last time I enjoyed a dev team mission was probably the Nimbus III/Tal Shiar episodes. The one where I was floating around in the giant Romulan "Vault" was pretty good too. Felt like I was exploring V'ger. Can't really think of anymore.

I've played about 9 Foundry missions and they've all been really effin good. I simply can't go thru another dev mission. They just lack fun and Trek spirit. Sure, they refer to the source material to death, but the balance is bad, the plotting is really not interesting, and don't get me started on the horrid voice acting.

They may not have 100% balance, but at least with the Foundry missions, you don't have to hear these 'actors' phone it in.

Viva le Foundry!

kirksplat

I appreciate the sentiment of this thread, but there are some really great dev episodes. The overall story is kind of a mess, but that comes with the territory of lock boxes, shoot em up adventure zones, and the need to sell new ships. And we have to remember that the devs were under the gun to get a lot of that early game content out. If you were here at launch (since I'm assuming you weren't), you would see a vast improvement in the Cryptic content compared to the original game. I shudder just thinking about the patrols that were a big part of leveling.

The new FE is a pretty good story mission, with characters and some humor. And the devs can do so many things, while we're trying to build a ship interior out of random props from season 1, which is why so many of our maps are just look like hallways from Doom or some crazy attempt to make a transporter pad out of lamps and whatnot.

But, yeah, I'd say that many of the missions that feel the most Trek to me are Foundry missions. Check out the Purity series if you haven't. And if you find an author that you like, please please please do a custom search for all of our missions.

Nobody can find most of them. The search UI is broken. The lists are half-full of shooting fish in a barrel. For some unknown reason, they don't want to players to find what is out there, since they limit the listings without providing something as simple as Google's page 2 of search results.

And there is virtually no dev support for the tool, beyond fixing it if updates break it and adding in a few costumes and ships here and there. We asked Geko who was in charge of it, and he pointed the finger at the boss of the game.

So, clearly it's way, way, way, way down on any kind of a list of priorities. The metrics are probably in their favor, because this is a mmo with a very big casino and souvenir store.

Cryptic devs are probably proud of what many of us have done in our free time, to add meaningful content to their game. I wish it made it on their schedule more.

It's also sad to watch the Foundry crash and burn at NW due to some terrible choices and how much of our feedback was ignored.

Thanks for the thread.

captainhunter1

Another really good official episode is "Colosseum" in the Romulan Mystery line of episodes. Man this one (once you get past the 'puzzle' start) just screams Star Trek.

I have to agree with what Kirkfat has said above, Perpetual really did a number on STO before Cryptic got the license. That forced the development team to rush everything to beat the deadline before the license expired. They crammed 5 years worth of work into 2 - - and it really showed. Thankfully that trend is going the opposite direction. Just look at "Surface Tension" for an example. It is a superb, exciting mission.

But I also have to agree that the Foundry has a LOT of outstanding content. It is made all the more so considering how limited the authors are by the tools provided.

But Kirkfat is absolutely right, the Foundry is in a sad state right now with no Dev assigned to it and the crippling UI that makes it next to impossible to find missions other than those on the Spotlight or Top Rated lists. A simple proposal (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=943411) incorporating ideas by all Foundry authors would really help here, but without the Foundry being anyone's responsibility or on the 'schedule', it will simply sink further into oblivion.

And that's a sad loss for both players AND Cryptic.

jockey1979

khreg wrote: »

Got halfway thru "Project Gamma" or "Operation Gamma" whatever it was called. Then I stopped. It was simply not fun to play. I thought back to all the missions I had played up to that point, and I had a hard time picking one that I really thought was fun. Really the last time I enjoyed a dev team mission was probably the Nimbus III/Tal Shiar episodes. The one where I was floating around in the giant Romulan "Vault" was pretty good too. Felt like I was exploring V'ger. Can't really think of anymore.

I've played about 9 Foundry missions and they've all been really effin good. I simply can't go thru another dev mission. They just lack fun and Trek spirit. Sure, they refer to the source material to death, but the balance is bad, the plotting is really not interesting, and don't get me started on the horrid voice acting.

They may not have 100% balance, but at least with the Foundry missions, you don't have to hear these 'actors' phone it in.

Viva le Foundry!

Right then, lets see your missions then, lets hear your voice acting.

paxfederatica

The Romulan Republic storyline has some really good and challenging missions, especially in the Elachi arc. It's worth playing straight through again, as I recently did to build up my XP, and to get multiple copies of special gear like Caustic Plasma cannons that they offer as rewards. One of the missions even offers a Field Generator, something that doesn't exactly come cheap in the Exchange.

On the other hand, if it's variety and deep story content you seek, you could play one Foundry mission a day for the next several years and still barely scratch the surface of what's available - as pointed out above, you just have to know where to look for the really good stuff, which is sadly the hard part.

It is worth noting that kirksplat (@Kirkfat in-game), captainhunter1 (@Captain.Hunter) and yours truly (@NCC-89471) are all Foundry authors ourselves, so our missions aren't bad places to start.

ashkrik23

Cryptic missions are slowly becoming better as they rework many of the outdated ones.

khreg

ashkrik23 wrote: »

Cryptic missions are slowly becoming better as they rework many of the outdated ones.

Let's hope so. I'll run out of Foundry missions at the rate I am going.

jockey1979 wrote: »

Right then, lets see your missions then, lets hear your voice acting.

C'mon....what are we? Twelve?
I'm not a voice actor nor a mission designer. Glad we settled that.



And yes Kirkfat, I agree wholeheartedly....the "Purity" series was as a whole an INCREDIBLE experience to play out. Top-shelf stuff!

gogereaver

the main issue with the voice acting this is not a live set its a voice booth and it can show sometimes.

senatorvreenak

Foundry missions hold Zero interest to me because they do not contribute to the games storyline or lore.

So yeah, Official > Foundry

ashkrik23

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Foundry missions hold Zero interest to me because they do not contribute to the games storyline or lore.

So yeah, Official > Foundry

You will end up limiting your gameplay options.

captainhunter1

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Foundry missions hold Zero interest to me because they do not contribute to the games storyline or lore.

So yeah, Official > Foundry

There are a large number of Foundry missions which contribute to the storyline. Though they may not be listed in on the 'Episodes' tab, they definitely contribute.

I'll toot my own horn here for just one - spotlighted by Cryptic - that explains the whole 'Divide et Impera' disaster. It's called "Divide ut Regnes". Check it out. You may just enjoy redeeming your murderous actions from the official mission. :P

(with a caveat - the last patch made some 'dead' people on the ground stand up - but still be dead - lol. It's something the Dev team is looking into, but I, as an author, have no control over at the moment. )

senatorvreenak

Except they aren't "official"
They are still just fan made stories, and while they may be interesting fan interpretations they hold absolutely no relevance to the development of future content and the events that will "officially" unfold.

captainhunter1

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Except they aren't "official"
They are still just fan made stories, and while they may be interesting fan interpretations they hold absolutely no relevance to the development of future content and the events that will "officially" unfold.

:P The same could be said for some 'official' missions as well - just look at what happened with the Borg/Undine missions retcon. :P

gogereaver

foundry carried this game threw a very bad time when we had no new missions and it was being sold to atri then to pwi then f2p. if it was not for that something tells me this game would have died long ago. so don't diss it.

khreg

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Except they aren't "official"
They are still just fan made stories, and while they may be interesting fan interpretations they hold absolutely no relevance to the development of future content and the events that will "officially" unfold.

STV: TFF was "official" and it was TRIBBLE.

Any episode of the fan series ST: Phase II beats it to death with its own belt.


BTW.....I loved you in "In The Pale Moonlight". You rock.

starswordc

khreg wrote: »

STV: TFF was "official" and it was TRIBBLE.

Any episode of the fan series ST: Phase II beats it to death with its own belt.

Pretty much this. Just because it ain't official doesn't mean it's worse than Cryptic. Even with the limits we have to put up with, I daresay our best is better than the devs.

drogyn1701

It doesn't have to be "official" to have "happened" to your character. You just have to have a little imagination.

And why does everything have to advance the overall storyline. Until DS9 came along, Star Trek was basically built off self-contained one-off stories.

khreg

drogyn1701 wrote: »

It doesn't have to be "official" to have "happened" to your character. You just have to have a little imagination.

And why does everything have to advance the overall storyline. Until DS9 came along, Star Trek was basically built off self-contained one-off stories.

Nice. Very true.

starswordc

drogyn1701 wrote: »

It doesn't have to be "official" to have "happened" to your character. You just have to have a little imagination.

And why does everything have to advance the overall storyline. Until DS9 came along, Star Trek was basically built off self-contained one-off stories.

As were 90% of the Cryptic missions until they started doing featured episodes.

gurugeorge

Some of the Foundry missions I've played have been brilliant, especially for a more authentic Star Trek feel sometimes. But I love most of the dev missions as well - disagreeing with the OP, they're usually better at the combat aspect, and I find they tend to flow better on the whole. The voice acting is variable, sometimes it sounds phoned in or badly directed or recorded, but sometimes it's great an adds a lot.