To be honest, the terminator-like-boss-with-2-eyes-on-one-side-because-the-collectors-were-drunk-this-day made me laugh. Badly. Kinda break the whole ending.
Otherwise, it was fine, so I'm not complaining much, we had Call of Mass effect next.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
14) STOP PUTTING IN CUTSCENES WHEN I AM TRYING TO SHOOT. I don't give a TRIBBLE that the stupid enterprise showing up, I AM TRYING TO KILL UNDINE.
18) Why can't I turn? This is supposed to be a spece combat game, not a rail shooter. I get it, you're trying to create some cinematic effect: STOP THAT. This isn't a TV show, it's a game. Don't take control away from the player.
These are the two that I didn't like. The cutscenes interrupting the battle felt excessive, unneeded and broke the flow. The rail shooter part came without warning and I kept checking my keyboard options thinking my keys got unbound somehow. I almost aborted the mission due to the latter, thinking the game had glitched out.
More warning would be nice. But the rail shooting is ****ing awesome. Cutscenes were awesome.
To distantworlds-FEs are supposed to be like a TV show episode. I care-a lot-about seeing the Bortasqu' or the Enterprise show up. It just solidifies the Star Trek feeling.
1) On the spheres, I admit I didn't catch the USS Gold saying that Scotty's Sphere moved. I remember them being confused that my ship was there and them mostly not wanting to be killed by me.
However, shouldn't the mission have started inside the Solanese Sphere where the gateway to Scotty's sphere is? Starting at the gateway to the Solanese Sphere makes it seem like that's what they were talking about. And the Solanese Sphere is definitely in the Delta Quadrant, so Tuvok waxing poetic about being in the delta quadrant again when he went to Scotty's sphere seemed very odd.
2) On the talking: Here's the thing, IT WAS NOT DIALOGUE. It was MONOLOGUE. And BAD monologue at that. The player has no choice. The player can't say "Shut up Tuvok". The player makes no decisions. The player contributes nothing. You're simply ordered to receive blocks of badly written text, run to the next one and receive more badly written text. And there's no way to skip it. Really, I don't care what the Cardassian ambassador has to say any more than the Breen ambassador, if the breen had sent one.
Dialogue, on the other hand, I like. I remember Neverwinter Nights 2 had a great scene involving a trial of the main character that was all talk, and it was wonderful. The player chose what to say, it referenced past decisions, and the outcome differed depending on what was said.
I'd love to have that in STO. But that's not what we get. Instead, we're spoon fed blocks of text, run to the next guy, more spoon fed blocks of text. And, again, it's really bad blocks of text.
And the later cut scenes in the middle of combat had a similar problem. It's not just that it breaks up the gameplay quite starkly, it does so with such gusto, as if the designers think we're all in awe of the enterprise coming out of warp. And it wasn't just the enterprise, they had to do it repeatedly, a separate cutscene for each new ship to show up. Really, I want to enjoy playing the game in my ship. I'm not awed by Kurland. I care an awful lot more about my ship and my crew. The design seemed there to overemphasize that anything you do or want to do is irrelevant. You don't matter. This isn't your story, it's Kurland and Tuvok's story. I don't mind not being the central hero, but I do mind having my part stomped on repeatedly. It's OK to have a bit part, but it still should be from your perspective, not constantly interrupted for yet another beauty pass of the ship that isn't yours.
3) Just because Tuvok was an annoying prick in Voyager does not mean it's OK to continue to force the annoying prick on us.
4) For those of you that couldn't wrap your brain around it: I'm not Federation. Why would I be bound by their rules. Why would anyone agree to be Tuvok's lackey if they weren't forced to by federation rank?
5) Spacedock was overrun with Undine. All the Undine ships had been destroyed. So wouldn't all the Undine immediately pretend to be injured starfleet so they get rescued and infiltrate starfleet that much further? Or is expecting an enemy to be something other than mindless berserkers too much? It wasn't just a few Undine, but large numbers of boarding parties.
Someone above said a simple scan can detect Undine, but obviously that can't be true or Egon would have been detected long before and the Undine would have given the KDF so much grief.
Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
6) Most people here seem to take it as read that it was immediately obviously an iconian. To me, it looked like a female undine with some fancy armor. But I was so annoyed at that point I had really stopped paying attention. Regardless of what it was, it should have been immediately shot by every KDF and Romulan in the room.
Additionally, the idea of Iconians being able to personally teleport completely breaks everything we know about them. The ancients thought they could, but it was just their use of the gateways. You know, the big doorways that we can look through and anyone can pass through. Not teleportation. I thought that was something that'd been gone over pretty thoroughly.
7) A large group of Klingons and Romulans, and they're really all unarmed? Uh, no. Sure, the feds would be stupid enough to go unarmed. But the Klingons, especially just after dealing with Undine should absolutely be well armed and any Romulan without at least a hidden backup pistol isn't worth the name Romulan.
Of course, I know why it didn't happen: The writers are stuck in saturday morning cartoon mode and they had to have snidely whiplash stroke his mustache in front of the audience.
Haven't you noticed STO is focussed primarily on the Federation? I'm surprised you haven't figured that out yet and left; it is after all where most of their money is generated.
And the canon series was always about the Federation. Other races always took a back seat. Essentially the Federation is pretty much what makes up Star Trek.Therefore STO is about the Federation. Get use to it.
I would however be happy with the multi-dialogue option, but that would make developing STO extremely complicated. Even making it as simple as Fallout 3's multi dialogue would require much more investment into STO than Cryptic or PWE is giving it.
And the last point is STO is based on the canon universe. Star Trek has a huge fan population, majority of who come to STO to play because of that. Therefore the more similarities to canon exist, the happier they are going to be. They don't really care about the playerbase that isn't really into canon.
Beta Antares Shipyards advanced Starship development project.
CLASSIFIED
I have a problem with the last couple missions, in STO, a mmo that you can't play it with friends/fleet-mates.
wth are they makeing single player misssions for a mmo !!
The way I see the whole "Beamed in alone with Tuvok" thing is your ship already sent multiple teams to help fight off the Undine in other areas of the station, and you personally decided to join Tuvok on the main level.
Fine if you're flying an escort or a BoP, but my Avenger has a crew of 750, my Tor'Kaht a crew of 1,500, and my Ha'apax has 2,000 people.
I find it really hard to believe they couldn't spare an armed assault unit to go with their commanding officer.
Seriously, Cryptic, let us use our damn away team next time.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
2) On the talking: Here's the thing, IT WAS NOT DIALOGUE. It was MONOLOGUE. And BAD monologue at that. The player has no choice. The player can't say "Shut up Tuvok". The player makes no decisions. The player contributes nothing. You're simply ordered to receive blocks of badly written text, run to the next one and receive more badly written text. And there's no way to skip it. Really, I don't care what the Cardassian ambassador has to say any more than the Breen ambassador, if the breen had sent one.
Agreed, I merely 'F' bombed this part. What makes a game a game is the ability to interact with the environment, to change it and have an effect upon it. Otherwise we would just read a book or watch TV really.
And the later cut scenes in the middle of combat had a similar problem. It's not just that it breaks up the gameplay quite starkly, it does so with such gusto, as if the designers think we're all in awe of the enterprise coming out of warp. And it wasn't just the enterprise, they had to do it repeatedly, a separate cutscene for each new ship to show up. Really, I want to enjoy playing the game in my ship. I'm not awed by Kurland. I care an awful lot more about my ship and my crew. The design seemed there to overemphasize that anything you do or want to do is irrelevant. You don't matter. This isn't your story, it's Kurland and Tuvok's story. I don't mind not being the central hero, but I do mind having my part stomped on repeatedly. It's OK to have a bit part, but it still should be from your perspective, not constantly interrupted for yet another beauty pass of the ship that isn't yours.
Just like I find it annoying always flying a ship other than mine this also annoyed me. For the simple reason it takes control away from the player with very little payoff. I find the Ent showing up in the Romulan sector missions randomly to be a very welcome sight where as here it simply was, annoying. Because of the implementation not the concept. This is a game, not a movie.
Of course, I know why it didn't happen: The writers are stuck in saturday morning cartoon mode and they had to have snidely whiplash stroke his mustache in front of the audience.
The sheer amount of silly 'for the plot/trope' events destroys immersion completely. This FE had more plot holes than JJ Trek and more silliness than an original Trek episode.
Now I understand many players still enjoyed it. I realize that the great many hardcore Trek fans are so starved for content with no new TV shows or movies aside from the two JJs that they feel the need to turn into fanboys gobbling up anything remotely story related and praise it as gold. That's fine, you are entitled to your opinion.
But when a player leaves their feedback detailing how they personally felt about the mission and everyone goes complete rabid fanboy attack mode on them for valid criticisms that could lead to the next one being a bit better I find it pathetic.
That is the title of the thread. The new mission lacks meaningful dialog, takes control away from the player multiple times (cut-scenes/rail shooter mode) disrupting the flow and pacing of the gameplay, has contrived reasons for preventing the player from using their own team on the ground, and finally portrays both the current monster of the week as morons (planet killer giant ship when 6 of their standard ships can toast a planet of which I killed a dozen I think not to mention the planet killer doesn't even fire on the planet etc etc), and the big bad as morons (could easily kill all high ranking everyone but doesn't because reasons).
Some of the above would be fine for the payoff, like the rail shooter bit at the end if we didn't have a dozen cut scenes, but in the end many parts of the design are less than ideal.
But when a player leaves their feedback detailing how they personally felt about the mission and everyone goes complete rabid fanboy attack mode on them for valid criticisms that could lead to the next one being a bit better I find it pathetic.
That is the title of the thread. The new mission lacks meaningful dialog, takes control away from the player multiple times (cut-scenes/rail shooter mode) disrupting the flow and pacing of the gameplay, has contrived reasons for preventing the player from using their own team on the ground, and finally portrays both the current monster of the week as morons (planet killer giant ship when 6 of their standard ships can toast a planet of which I killed a dozen I think not to mention the planet killer doesn't even fire on the planet etc etc), and the big bad as morons (could easily kill all high ranking everyone but doesn't because reasons).
Some of the above would be fine for the payoff, like the rail shooter bit at the end if we didn't have a dozen cut scenes, but in the end many parts of the design are less than ideal.
I'm afraid this is where I must say no.
The OP no doubt agrees with everything he said... the problem is, he worded it badly enough that many people assumed. That's kinda on us, but the fact still remains: what the OP (seems to) point out as fact is not universal fact, just his.
Many of us legitly enjoyed the FE. Not just because it was new content, not just because we liked the story progression, but for real. We enjoyed the cinematics, the fights, the way things went on, even the dialogue - all in varying degrees of course. And no doubt some didn't like some of those elements either
What you call a lack of meaningful dialog, the majority opinion seems to be that it works, if nothing else. You don't like control being taken away, others do in certain situations. And the list goes on and on and on
So yes, they are valid criticisms, definitely - but that doesn't mean we're rabid fanboys simply because we legitly disagree with them
And on a side note, villian confidence/arrogance that they are superior, and that no one can stop them (even after repeated evidence to the contrary)... very, very common, so no one was entirely surprised. I can see how the OP groaned at this, but at this level of hatred? Funny imho XD
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Fine if you're flying an escort or a BoP, but my Avenger has a crew of 750, my Tor'Kaht a crew of 1,500, and my Ha'apax has 2,000 people.
I find it really hard to believe they couldn't spare an armed assault unit to go with their commanding officer.
Seriously, Cryptic, let us use our damn away team next time.
ESD is, by best estimates, home to millions of people, maybe as much as three quarters of whom are civilians. I think that could keep 1,500 people busy.
You want to kill Tuvok (for not killing his friend because he might be an Undine).
You refuse to listen to the talky bits or follow objectives because you're too busy killing, and thus have only a vague idea of where you are and what you are doing.
You want to kill god-only-knows how many civilians and officers, including the highest ranking officer in Starfleet, because they had contact with Undine.
You think the Klingons are going to invite the people who saved their homeworld to the Hall of Heroes and then murder them for no apparent reason.
. . . and you also want more story, along with elaborate dialog trees that no MMO has ever really used?
There's kind of a contradiction at work in your post that keeps it from being meaningful criticism. You can't have a three-faction game where you murder the leaders of the Federation and then perform some kind of . . . bizarre, racially-motivated lynching of the leaders of the Republic when they show up on Q'ronos at the Chancellor's invitation.
(I don't even know where you got that from; they never liked each other on the show, but that's taking it way too far, considering that J'mpok's own house allied with the Romulans during the Civil War.)
Even if you could do something like that, it would kind of makes it hard to have "meaningful dialog".
Also: complaining that a Star Trek game plays like a TV show. Isn't that the entire point?
EDIT: Just to be clear here, the new episode isn't perfect. I'm tired of single-player missions as well.
I'm just not sure that "Surface Tension doesn't turn Star Trek Online into a Fallout-style open world RPG with rich dialog trees and the ability to kill vital NPCs because you feel like it, instead opting to be an adaptation of an episode of the TV series" is really a valid criticism.
And on a side note, villian confidence/arrogance that they are superior, and that no one can stop them (even after repeated evidence to the contrary)... very, very common, so no one was entirely surprised. I can see how the OP groaned at this, but at this level of hatred? Funny imho XD
Yeah, I can see how arrogance might be a fatal flaw for a race that literally made the Dewens worship them as gods, but that's not quite what was going on. The Iconians saw that the factions were coming together again (like the ones that defeated them before), and literally gated in someone to say "We're operating on an intergalactic scale, pitiful insects; stop opposing us."
Of course, it's all a show to try to intimidate us. If they could stand up to the united forces of the Alpha Quadrant in an open fight, they'd have sent an army.
Of course, it's all a show to try to intimidate us. If they could stand up to the united forces of the Alpha Quadrant in an open fight, they'd have sent an army.
True, but indirectly, that is a further example of that typical mindset: they think that shows of forces, killing off some powerful figures, etc etc is enough to intimidate us...
Well, sometimes it does, sure, but usually just a number of people. When it comes to the entire race(s) though, that's an entirely different can of worms.
It's a fairly common thing, evil being unable to comprehend good, or what drives them
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
It seems like it might be a risk/reward thing to me. No reason to not try to scare us into submission. If they really do have their base somewhere in Andromeda, then it's not like we can really do anything to them . . . yet.
It's not really a "silly 'for the plot/trope' events destroys immersion completely" thing, is what I'm saying.
Personally, if I wanted to go the complete virgin-Trekkie-nerd path and nitpick every niggling detail to death, then I'd ask why haven't we put up a self-replicating cloaking minefield over all the gateways, and that hole the Undine blew in the Sphere. That seems like a very obvious plan to me.
I love the new mission, but I do have some criticism.
Like Sphere of Influence, it's very linear. You get a choice or two, like assigning the security officers at the beginning, but it affects nothing. Take Temporal Ambassador for instance, in it you could assign the NPCs to do the job they were best at... or the job they were worst at, and it not only made a noticeable difference to how long freeing the ship took, it gave you a silly accolade. There was a maze you could explore or not, etc.
Also, like the last two FEs, it can only be played solo. I get that it's difficult to design a multiplayer mission, especially with cutscenes and scripted events, but this was a co-op MMO last I checked. It's a fun mission, but it would be even more fun with friends.
I honestly think this mission is not perfect. The Cooper "NOOOOO" made me laugh a while, I kinda expecting him twisting his mustache (if it was an easter egg to WOK, it was badly done).
And once again, I was unable to use my away team. An away team I spent several millions ec, some dil/marks and a lot of time to design. On each of my characters.
The first part is boring (even if I enjoyed to act as the sneaky Romulan, as we should).
And Koren whine to much.
Otherwise it was fine. The plot was interesting, the "egg" revelation was cool (no pun intended), and the fights were nice. The ending was also awesome.
But then, considering how little we have, a bone is a bone. And I did my best to enjoy it.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
I can't really say anything about the points raised that wasn't already said. (the Jenolan Sphere jumped to Delta space back in Sphere of Influence, etc).
I can point out that several people responding to those points (particularly the ones about how the OP shot the Undine instead of helping the Fed captains) seemed to assume the OP was Fed, the way he phrased things makes me think Klingon. The highly militant type.
I will also say that I prefer my missions with a plot and with elements that make me feel like the mission could BE an episode of one (or more) of the series. We haven't had a Trek series on the air since 2005, and we haven't had a GOOD Trek series since 1999. Any port in a storm and all that. (In general I've felt that the Sphere missions have been some of the better missions in the game, with some decent writing and some legitimately tense moments)
The ONLY thing I really didn't like was the Ferengi representative hijacking a security confrence to make a sales pitch. I'd have told him to shut it or contribute something useful. (Well, that and the now recurring "no away team" thing. What's the point of letting us gear up BOFFs if we CAN'T USE THEM?!)
2) On the talking: Here's the thing, IT WAS NOT DIALOGUE. It was MONOLOGUE. And BAD monologue at that. The player has no choice. The player can't say "Shut up Tuvok". The player makes no decisions. The player contributes nothing.
By this logic, virtually nothing that we see on a television or movie screen is dialogue. We have no choice about what is said, and the actors very rarely have any choice about what is said, yet it's still called dialogue.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
1) It tells you to go to the portal to the wrong dyson sphere, and then says the sphere Scotty was on is in the Delta quadrant.... or is the writing so bad I can't keep the dyson spheres straight?
2) Talk to Ambassadors (yawn!) talk to more ambassadors (zzzzzz)
3) AMBASSADORS ARE TOO STUPID TO LOOK AT THE ROOM THAT JUST COMPLETELY CHANGED SO GO TALK TO EACH OF THEM IN TURN.
WTF.
At this point, I was ready to just shoot them all. Seriously. Who designed this TRIBBLE?
4) Operate the control console to start the presentation, because apparently Lt. Generals are required to do A/V tech duties.
5) Why hasn't Tuvok been strung up for opening the sphere up to the undine in the first place?
6) What moron invited the ferrengi?
7) "The undine, what do they want???" WTF. What do you think they want? THEY WANT TO KILL ALL OF YOU. That's what they ALWAYS want. Do you think they're here to sell life insurance? Perhaps encyclopedias?
8) Why is Tuvok whining about spacedock every three seconds? Yes, we can see spacedock getting all shot up. You don't need people shout blatantly obvious things.
9) Tuvok tells me there are more undine to kill twice... even after I'd killed them all. Because apparently the scripters didn't consider the idea that people would attack the Undine before assiting the whiny federation wimps.
10) Undine have infiltrated spacedock. The solution should be to destroy spacedock. There is no telling how many of the survivors have been replaced by the massive undine boarding parties.
11) So just two Admirals are beaming onto space dock to clear out all the Undine... no troops, just Tuvok & Me. Not even an away team. I've got a ship full of the meanest pirates in the quadrant. But they'll stay on the ship while I go it alone with Tuvok....
12) Ensign R'raak "Me... Ow...". And we're under battle conditions... and Tuvok wants to do a mind meld... and did no one consider that it could be an undine decoy?
13) Tuvok again with the shouting the blantantly obvious in my ear. PLEASE STOP THAT. When you begin with "The station is overrun with Undine", you don't need to repeatedly point out that there are undine nearby.
14) STOP PUTTING IN CUTSCENES WHEN I AM TRYING TO SHOOT. I don't give a TRIBBLE that the stupid enterprise showing up, I AM TRYING TO KILL UNDINE.
15) You don't need to add "Bio" to every Undine ship. Bio ship, bio cruiser, bio dreadnought, wtf.
16) Again, STOP STATING THE OBVIOUS. We don't need people saying "What is that thing?"
17) If weapons are ineffective against the undine planet killer: THEN LET US SEE IT IN GAME. This isn't a TV show. Having the romulan just say it is STUPID.
18) Why can't I turn? This is supposed to be a spece combat game, not a rail shooter. I get it, you're trying to create some cinematic effect: STOP THAT. This isn't a TV show, it's a game. Don't take control away from the player.
19) If they had a planet killer, why didn't they kill the planet?
20) And now, more talk... and talk... and WTF. A % meter for talking to YET MORE PEOPLE. Maybe if they weren't all morons it wouldn't be such a bad thing.
21) Undine queen-thing can apparently teleport anywhere at will, including right into the middle of the festivities.. AND NO ONE IS SHOOTING IT DEAD. WTF. And it teleports out after gloating. Why? Because apparently the writers of STO haven't progressed beyond a saturday morning cartoon.
My suggestion? Apply to Cryptic to delight us with your own ideas concerning future Feature Episodes. Or, more reasonably, quit STO and go play another game...
To be fair, the OP has some good points. His choice of words may note be the best, but I actually agree with a lot of it. Like I said elsewhere, when I played the FE the first time I thought it was really good. But the more I think about it, the more it falls apart.
Especially the conference part was straight forward padding to get a few seconds more playing time out of it. For instance, as a KDF character I have to "intimidate" delegates in order to get them to do something which they were about to do anyways. Plus everyone spouts a completely stereotypical monologue on the whole thing. And intimidating the Ferengi didn't do a thing since afterwards he still does his Ferengi thing. And "get the delegates seated" - come on. There is no reason to defend that. I really like diplomatic and dialogue heavy missions, but that was not a good way to do it.
There is also some merit to the rest of his points, most of them can be handwaved away with "gameplay reasons" since, well it's a game and our characters are supposed to be demi-gods who handle everything themselves. But still, not everything came across as reasonable.
Oh and no, I didn't get that the thing in the end was supposed to be an Iconian, because aside from making fum of it I completely forgot about them already and we have no idea how they look like anyway
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
1) On the spheres, I admit I didn't catch the USS Gold saying that Scotty's Sphere moved. I remember them being confused that my ship was there and them mostly not wanting to be killed by me.
However, shouldn't the mission have started inside the Solanese Sphere where the gateway to Scotty's sphere is? Starting at the gateway to the Solanese Sphere makes it seem like that's what they were talking about. And the Solanese Sphere is definitely in the Delta Quadrant, so Tuvok waxing poetic about being in the delta quadrant again when he went to Scotty's sphere seemed very odd.
This is actually a logical starting point. Starting points for missions are generally systems, with the occasional exception. The Jouret Gateway is a system in Tau Dewa. The Gateway to the Jenolan sphere is a simple prop, that appeared in one mission map, not a social map. To use that gateway to start would be impossible. And to beam down to Joint Command to trigger a cutscene of you flying away would be incredibly weird.
And in case you mistook one sphere for another, there are these huge spacedoors blasted open in the first cutscene. That should guide you into knowing you are in the Jenolan sphere, not the Solanae sphere.
2) On the talking: Here's the thing, IT WAS NOT DIALOGUE. It was MONOLOGUE. And BAD monologue at that. The player has no choice. The player can't say "Shut up Tuvok". The player makes no decisions. The player contributes nothing. You're simply ordered to receive blocks of badly written text, run to the next one and receive more badly written text. And there's no way to skip it. Really, I don't care what the Cardassian ambassador has to say any more than the Breen ambassador, if the breen had sent one.
Dialogue, on the other hand, I like. I remember Neverwinter Nights 2 had a great scene involving a trial of the main character that was all talk, and it was wonderful. The player chose what to say, it referenced past decisions, and the outcome differed depending on what was said.
I'd love to have that in STO. But that's not what we get. Instead, we're spoon fed blocks of text, run to the next guy, more spoon fed blocks of text. And, again, it's really bad blocks of text.
And the later cut scenes in the middle of combat had a similar problem. It's not just that it breaks up the gameplay quite starkly, it does so with such gusto, as if the designers think we're all in awe of the enterprise coming out of warp. And it wasn't just the enterprise, they had to do it repeatedly, a separate cutscene for each new ship to show up. Really, I want to enjoy playing the game in my ship. I'm not awed by Kurland. I care an awful lot more about my ship and my crew. The design seemed there to overemphasize that anything you do or want to do is irrelevant. You don't matter. This isn't your story, it's Kurland and Tuvok's story. I don't mind not being the central hero, but I do mind having my part stomped on repeatedly. It's OK to have a bit part, but it still should be from your perspective, not constantly interrupted for yet another beauty pass of the ship that isn't yours.
I guess I can safely assume you don't like the writing of the game? That is your every right. I for one like the writing of this mission. To complain about personal opinions concerning writing is not really gonna help anyone. They won't change it, since that writing does have fans. Something as subjective as writing can only please a small amount of the playerbase. Those that don't like the writing, well, as hard as this might sound..... you don't have to play the mission.
As for the Enterprise cutscene (which has Shon at the helm, not Kurland), it still is the flagship of the Federation, and the ship to be named Enterprise, coming in guns blazing, like the good ol' American cavalry in every western ever. For the point that is trying to be made, they deserve the attention. And when did you stop being the central hero? Who exactly fights his way to a burning ESD? Who covers Tuvok? Who keeps fighting the Undine boarding parties back? Who faces the onslaught of the massive Undine attack on Qo'Nos? Your character has more than one moment to shine in this mission.
3) Just because Tuvok was an annoying prick in Voyager does not mean it's OK to continue to force the annoying prick on us.
How would you want to see hi in that case? As a friendly man, who does not point out the obvious? I'm sorry, but that simply isn't Tuvok. If you don't like his character, well, Tim Russ was willing to do VO work for STO. We can't ask him to do, say, The Doctor, or Tom Paris. His voice is for Tuvok, and they should keep the character intact.
Once again, if you don't like Tuvok, nobody forces you to play the content in which he shows up. I like having him there.
4) For those of you that couldn't wrap your brain around it: I'm not Federation. Why would I be bound by their rules. Why would anyone agree to be Tuvok's lackey if they weren't forced to by federation rank?
You agreed by being Tuvoks lackey when you pressed accept for that mission. It clearly states in the description that your goal is to help Tuvok with the conference, whether you are Fed, KDF, Romulan, Tholian or a frickin' Founder. The mission starts when you agreed to help Tuvok, so you will help Tuvok.
5) Spacedock was overrun with Undine. All the Undine ships had been destroyed. So wouldn't all the Undine immediately pretend to be injured starfleet so they get rescued and infiltrate starfleet that much further? Or is expecting an enemy to be something other than mindless berserkers too much? It wasn't just a few Undine, but large numbers of boarding parties.
Someone above said a simple scan can detect Undine, but obviously that can't be true or Egon would have been detected long before and the Undine would have given the KDF so much grief.
Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
As much as I appreciate the Aliens reference, killing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to make sure there are no Undine around isn't gonna help anyone.
And I'm not saying a simple scan is enough. It would be a period taking a large amount of time, but you can make sure somebody isn't an Undine. A blood sample should already work to scan for DNA. A mind-meld would suffice.
There simply is no need to sacrifice everyone just to kill the few boarding parties. Remember that house, family, pets and spider story I gave you in my previous post?
6) Most people here seem to take it as read that it was immediately obviously an iconian. To me, it looked like a female undine with some fancy armor. But I was so annoyed at that point I had really stopped paying attention. Regardless of what it was, it should have been immediately shot by every KDF and Romulan in the room.
Additionally, the idea of Iconians being able to personally teleport completely breaks everything we know about them. The ancients thought they could, but it was just their use of the gateways. You know, the big doorways that we can look through and anyone can pass through. Not teleportation. I thought that was something that'd been gone over pretty thoroughly.
It was an Iconian. A new player might not have seen it from the looks, but the lines it spoke should have been enough. For players longer ingame, there has been Iconian concept art for quite some time, that many players have seen.
About not shooting it, everybody was in shock, and I would not shoot the mailman if he would come at 3 pm instead of 4 pm, even if he was not somebody else. Relax, for all we knew it might have been Q. Or an Organian. Or whatever.
The Iconians cannot teleport. This was gateway use. When Picard stepped through the gateway, he ended up on a Romulan bridge. There was no gateway there. This isn't Stargate with 2 ends needed. This is accurate with everything we know about the Iconians. And even just in case.... the Iconians have been living for hundreds of thousands of years after abandoning their homeworlds. Who is to say what they are capable of?
7) A large group of Klingons and Romulans, and they're really all unarmed? Uh, no. Sure, the feds would be stupid enough to go unarmed. But the Klingons, especially just after dealing with Undine should absolutely be well armed and any Romulan without at least a hidden backup pistol isn't worth the name Romulan.
Of course, I know why it didn't happen: The writers are stuck in saturday morning cartoon mode and they had to have snidely whiplash stroke his mustache in front of the audience.
Feds and Klingons are unarmed, since there are guards outside the room, knowing the Klingons. ANd half of the fleet is over the planet. As for Romulans, these aren't Tal Shiar. These are Republic Romulans, who try to break with the past of secrecy and deception. They are worthy of the name Republic Romulan.
1) On the spheres, I admit I didn't catch the USS Gold saying that Scotty's Sphere moved. I remember them being confused that my ship was there and them mostly not wanting to be killed by me.
Reading instead of chain-mashing F to get to pew pew pew is OP, plz nerf.
However, shouldn't the mission have started inside the Solanese Sphere where the gateway to Scotty's sphere is? Starting at the gateway to the Solanese Sphere makes it seem like that's what they were talking about. And the Solanese Sphere is definitely in the Delta Quadrant, so Tuvok waxing poetic about being in the delta quadrant again when he went to Scotty's sphere seemed very odd.
Since Scottys Sphere IS in the Delta quadrant now I don't see the problem?
And it was pretty obvious from the mission text where we went.
2) On the talking: Here's the thing, IT WAS NOT DIALOGUE. It was MONOLOGUE. And BAD monologue at that. The player has no choice. The player can't say "Shut up Tuvok". The player makes no decisions. The player contributes nothing. You're simply ordered to receive blocks of badly written text, run to the next one and receive more badly written text. And there's no way to skip it. Really, I don't care what the Cardassian ambassador has to say any more than the Breen ambassador, if the breen had sent one.
Dialogue, on the other hand, I like. I remember Neverwinter Nights 2 had a great scene involving a trial of the main character that was all talk, and it was wonderful. The player chose what to say, it referenced past decisions, and the outcome differed depending on what was said.
I'd love to have that in STO. But that's not what we get. Instead, we're spoon fed blocks of text, run to the next guy, more spoon fed blocks of text. And, again, it's really bad blocks of text.
Good or bad seems to be a mater of opinion. I don't think it was great, but certainly not bad.
And what outcome would you want to influence? You are PREPARING for the talks.
4) For those of you that couldn't wrap your brain around it: I'm not Federation. Why would I be bound by their rules. Why would anyone agree to be Tuvok's lackey if they weren't forced to by federation rank?
Already got that.
But during the talks you are inclined to cooperate. In Sol system you are on Federation territory to support them, not to turn the whole fight into a battle of two fronts just because you don't like their rules.
5) Spacedock was overrun with Undine. All the Undine ships had been destroyed. So wouldn't all the Undine immediately pretend to be injured starfleet so they get rescued and infiltrate starfleet that much further? Or is expecting an enemy to be something other than mindless berserkers too much? It wasn't just a few Undine, but large numbers of boarding parties.
Someone above said a simple scan can detect Undine, but obviously that can't be true or Egon would have been detected long before and the Undine would have given the KDF so much grief.
Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
*sarcasm on*
Sure.
Only way to be sure.
Only way to be sure that no undine are on eath is to nuke that place too. We know there are more infiltrators.
Only way to be sure that no undine are among ship crews is to destroy ALL ships.
Why do we even stop the planet killers they do our work for us!!!
Oh and only way to be sure not to die of cancer is to kill myself right now.
*sarcasm off*
Damaged or not that ESD is still a primary military installation that would not only cost trillions to rebuild but also take time that in the very beginning of a war isn't there.
There are still 10.000th of people on that ESD that are not undine even IF they replace 100th. Not even the Klingons would kill them all as precaution. Harkeev would do something like that. But certainly not the federation.
And you as a klingon there do not even have the firepower to do that.
6) Most people here seem to take it as read that it was immediately obviously an iconian. To me, it looked like a female undine with some fancy armor. But I was so annoyed at that point I had really stopped paying attention. Regardless of what it was, it should have been immediately shot by every KDF and Romulan in the room.
Mainly because it is obvious.
Additionally, the idea of Iconians being able to personally teleport completely breaks everything we know about them. The ancients thought they could, but it was just their use of the gateways. You know, the big doorways that we can look through and anyone can pass through. Not teleportation. I thought that was something that'd been gone over pretty thoroughly.
It doesnt break everything we know at all.
We know that they can use the gate to get everywhere, without an "exit gate". That was shown in the tng episode involving that.
So how the Inconian got in is easy.
How he got out?
Since they did BUILD that f*** things they probably know how to use them way better then we.
Also: Another inconian could have simply tracked the inconian with a transporter THROUGH the gate from the other side and have beamed him out.
7) A large group of Klingons and Romulans, and they're really all unarmed? Uh, no. Sure, the feds would be stupid enough to go unarmed. But the Klingons, especially just after dealing with Undine should absolutely be well armed and any Romulan without at least a hidden backup pistol isn't worth the name Romulan.
You do know what peace talks are?
If you have 100 people divided in 3 groups that do not really like each other in one room its a great Idea to arm them. If you are a funeral director.
Because if people are armed in that situation only ONE would have to snap and shoot around to ensure that the war goes on. Great tactics.
Of course, I know why it didn't happen: The writers are stuck in saturday morning cartoon mode and they had to have snidely whiplash stroke his mustache in front of the audience.
While this is often the case you still fail to deliver any example for such an occasion in the FE. So far I still just see your inability to actually look at the story, to understand Star Trek and the real world too...
Now see here, you don't want to mess with nitpicky sci-fi nerds. They will totally put up a TvTropes page about you and call you a Smug Snake Designated Villain Deadpan Snarker! Then you'll be sorry!
As far as episodes go, I felt it was one of the better written ones. You don't have to write a masterpiece to fit in with the quality of this game.. and at least they're trying.
This game is a complete mess. You should try to just enjoy what you can and stop complaining. It will be better for your health because you are going to find issues everywhere and growing, so, its better , if you dong like something, dont do it again and thats it, do something else. Easy.
My suggestion? Apply to Cryptic to delight us with your own ideas concerning future Feature Episodes
While you were trying to troll, I'll bite. Here's how to correct the FE as much as possible without completely starting from scratch:
1) The first time Tuvok starts waxing poetic about his time in the delta quadrant, the player should be given an option "That's fascinating, Tuvok, do go on" or "Shut up, Tuvok". If the player chooses the latter option, Tuvok will be all offended and never volunteer any extemporaneous nonsense.
2) At the start of the conference, the player is told "Feel free to mingle with the diplomats, then talk to the tech to start the presentation when you're ready". This gives the player the freedom to hear the nonsense from as many or as few ambassadors as they like, and not have to zig zag to every single one twice for no good reason.
3) When the Undine fleet shows up, cut the line that asks "What do they want?". They're Undine. A valid question would be "Where are they going?"
4) During the combat near ESD, let the player enjoy the combat if they told Tuvok to shut up, he won't constantly nag you.
5) When beaming to ESD, bring your away team. Two flag officers alone re-taking ESD is stupid. Technically, you should be bringing an army, but I'll settle for my away team.
6) Cut the mind-meld. Yes, Tuvok is a vulcan, we get it.
7) Back to space combat: Don't introduce cutscenes in the gameplay for the ships coming to help you. The sidebar thing messaging you that they showed up is more than enough.
8) If the undine planet killer is immune to damage, then have us shoot it a few times, don't just say it in a cut scene. (For the pedants above, no it doesn't have to be five minutes of shooting at it to no effect)
9) If we're escorting the fake suicide run, then have us actually do that, don't take away our controls and put the game into rail-shooter mode.
10) During the celebration, again, there's no reason for forcing the player to run around the room and picking up the block of text from every npc. Why do I care what these people have to say? They're annoying morons. Take the same approach as from the beginning: Feel free to mingle, talk to person X to start the ceremony.
11) Drop the snidely whiplash routine, or if you absolutely have to have it, make it a hologram or something. It's not reasonable that all of the warriors present would just stand there while the monster rattles on.
Comments
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http://badspot.deviantart.com/art/Mass-Effect-Comic-Boss-Rush-168998762
Joined January 2009
These are the two that I didn't like. The cutscenes interrupting the battle felt excessive, unneeded and broke the flow. The rail shooter part came without warning and I kept checking my keyboard options thinking my keys got unbound somehow. I almost aborted the mission due to the latter, thinking the game had glitched out.
To distantworlds-FEs are supposed to be like a TV show episode. I care-a lot-about seeing the Bortasqu' or the Enterprise show up. It just solidifies the Star Trek feeling.
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
1) On the spheres, I admit I didn't catch the USS Gold saying that Scotty's Sphere moved. I remember them being confused that my ship was there and them mostly not wanting to be killed by me.
However, shouldn't the mission have started inside the Solanese Sphere where the gateway to Scotty's sphere is? Starting at the gateway to the Solanese Sphere makes it seem like that's what they were talking about. And the Solanese Sphere is definitely in the Delta Quadrant, so Tuvok waxing poetic about being in the delta quadrant again when he went to Scotty's sphere seemed very odd.
2) On the talking: Here's the thing, IT WAS NOT DIALOGUE. It was MONOLOGUE. And BAD monologue at that. The player has no choice. The player can't say "Shut up Tuvok". The player makes no decisions. The player contributes nothing. You're simply ordered to receive blocks of badly written text, run to the next one and receive more badly written text. And there's no way to skip it. Really, I don't care what the Cardassian ambassador has to say any more than the Breen ambassador, if the breen had sent one.
Dialogue, on the other hand, I like. I remember Neverwinter Nights 2 had a great scene involving a trial of the main character that was all talk, and it was wonderful. The player chose what to say, it referenced past decisions, and the outcome differed depending on what was said.
I'd love to have that in STO. But that's not what we get. Instead, we're spoon fed blocks of text, run to the next guy, more spoon fed blocks of text. And, again, it's really bad blocks of text.
And the later cut scenes in the middle of combat had a similar problem. It's not just that it breaks up the gameplay quite starkly, it does so with such gusto, as if the designers think we're all in awe of the enterprise coming out of warp. And it wasn't just the enterprise, they had to do it repeatedly, a separate cutscene for each new ship to show up. Really, I want to enjoy playing the game in my ship. I'm not awed by Kurland. I care an awful lot more about my ship and my crew. The design seemed there to overemphasize that anything you do or want to do is irrelevant. You don't matter. This isn't your story, it's Kurland and Tuvok's story. I don't mind not being the central hero, but I do mind having my part stomped on repeatedly. It's OK to have a bit part, but it still should be from your perspective, not constantly interrupted for yet another beauty pass of the ship that isn't yours.
3) Just because Tuvok was an annoying prick in Voyager does not mean it's OK to continue to force the annoying prick on us.
4) For those of you that couldn't wrap your brain around it: I'm not Federation. Why would I be bound by their rules. Why would anyone agree to be Tuvok's lackey if they weren't forced to by federation rank?
5) Spacedock was overrun with Undine. All the Undine ships had been destroyed. So wouldn't all the Undine immediately pretend to be injured starfleet so they get rescued and infiltrate starfleet that much further? Or is expecting an enemy to be something other than mindless berserkers too much? It wasn't just a few Undine, but large numbers of boarding parties.
Someone above said a simple scan can detect Undine, but obviously that can't be true or Egon would have been detected long before and the Undine would have given the KDF so much grief.
Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
6) Most people here seem to take it as read that it was immediately obviously an iconian. To me, it looked like a female undine with some fancy armor. But I was so annoyed at that point I had really stopped paying attention. Regardless of what it was, it should have been immediately shot by every KDF and Romulan in the room.
Additionally, the idea of Iconians being able to personally teleport completely breaks everything we know about them. The ancients thought they could, but it was just their use of the gateways. You know, the big doorways that we can look through and anyone can pass through. Not teleportation. I thought that was something that'd been gone over pretty thoroughly.
7) A large group of Klingons and Romulans, and they're really all unarmed? Uh, no. Sure, the feds would be stupid enough to go unarmed. But the Klingons, especially just after dealing with Undine should absolutely be well armed and any Romulan without at least a hidden backup pistol isn't worth the name Romulan.
Of course, I know why it didn't happen: The writers are stuck in saturday morning cartoon mode and they had to have snidely whiplash stroke his mustache in front of the audience.
Sums up my feelings perfectly.
And the canon series was always about the Federation. Other races always took a back seat. Essentially the Federation is pretty much what makes up Star Trek.Therefore STO is about the Federation. Get use to it.
I would however be happy with the multi-dialogue option, but that would make developing STO extremely complicated. Even making it as simple as Fallout 3's multi dialogue would require much more investment into STO than Cryptic or PWE is giving it.
And the last point is STO is based on the canon universe. Star Trek has a huge fan population, majority of who come to STO to play because of that. Therefore the more similarities to canon exist, the happier they are going to be. They don't really care about the playerbase that isn't really into canon.
CLASSIFIED
[/SIGPIC]
wth are they makeing single player misssions for a mmo !!
Fine if you're flying an escort or a BoP, but my Avenger has a crew of 750, my Tor'Kaht a crew of 1,500, and my Ha'apax has 2,000 people.
I find it really hard to believe they couldn't spare an armed assault unit to go with their commanding officer.
Seriously, Cryptic, let us use our damn away team next time.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Agreed, I merely 'F' bombed this part. What makes a game a game is the ability to interact with the environment, to change it and have an effect upon it. Otherwise we would just read a book or watch TV really.
Monologue is not dialogue.
Just like I find it annoying always flying a ship other than mine this also annoyed me. For the simple reason it takes control away from the player with very little payoff. I find the Ent showing up in the Romulan sector missions randomly to be a very welcome sight where as here it simply was, annoying. Because of the implementation not the concept. This is a game, not a movie.
The sheer amount of silly 'for the plot/trope' events destroys immersion completely. This FE had more plot holes than JJ Trek and more silliness than an original Trek episode.
Now I understand many players still enjoyed it. I realize that the great many hardcore Trek fans are so starved for content with no new TV shows or movies aside from the two JJs that they feel the need to turn into fanboys gobbling up anything remotely story related and praise it as gold. That's fine, you are entitled to your opinion.
But when a player leaves their feedback detailing how they personally felt about the mission and everyone goes complete rabid fanboy attack mode on them for valid criticisms that could lead to the next one being a bit better I find it pathetic.
That is the title of the thread. The new mission lacks meaningful dialog, takes control away from the player multiple times (cut-scenes/rail shooter mode) disrupting the flow and pacing of the gameplay, has contrived reasons for preventing the player from using their own team on the ground, and finally portrays both the current monster of the week as morons (planet killer giant ship when 6 of their standard ships can toast a planet of which I killed a dozen I think not to mention the planet killer doesn't even fire on the planet etc etc), and the big bad as morons (could easily kill all high ranking everyone but doesn't because reasons).
Some of the above would be fine for the payoff, like the rail shooter bit at the end if we didn't have a dozen cut scenes, but in the end many parts of the design are less than ideal.
The OP no doubt agrees with everything he said... the problem is, he worded it badly enough that many people assumed. That's kinda on us, but the fact still remains: what the OP (seems to) point out as fact is not universal fact, just his.
Many of us legitly enjoyed the FE. Not just because it was new content, not just because we liked the story progression, but for real. We enjoyed the cinematics, the fights, the way things went on, even the dialogue - all in varying degrees of course. And no doubt some didn't like some of those elements either
What you call a lack of meaningful dialog, the majority opinion seems to be that it works, if nothing else. You don't like control being taken away, others do in certain situations. And the list goes on and on and on
So yes, they are valid criticisms, definitely - but that doesn't mean we're rabid fanboys simply because we legitly disagree with them
And on a side note, villian confidence/arrogance that they are superior, and that no one can stop them (even after repeated evidence to the contrary)... very, very common, so no one was entirely surprised. I can see how the OP groaned at this, but at this level of hatred? Funny imho XD
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
ESD is, by best estimates, home to millions of people, maybe as much as three quarters of whom are civilians. I think that could keep 1,500 people busy.
Sooo . . . .
You want to kill all the ambassadors.
You want to kill Tuvok (for not killing his friend because he might be an Undine).
You refuse to listen to the talky bits or follow objectives because you're too busy killing, and thus have only a vague idea of where you are and what you are doing.
You want to kill god-only-knows how many civilians and officers, including the highest ranking officer in Starfleet, because they had contact with Undine.
You think the Klingons are going to invite the people who saved their homeworld to the Hall of Heroes and then murder them for no apparent reason.
. . . and you also want more story, along with elaborate dialog trees that no MMO has ever really used?
There's kind of a contradiction at work in your post that keeps it from being meaningful criticism. You can't have a three-faction game where you murder the leaders of the Federation and then perform some kind of . . . bizarre, racially-motivated lynching of the leaders of the Republic when they show up on Q'ronos at the Chancellor's invitation.
(I don't even know where you got that from; they never liked each other on the show, but that's taking it way too far, considering that J'mpok's own house allied with the Romulans during the Civil War.)
Even if you could do something like that, it would kind of makes it hard to have "meaningful dialog".
Also: complaining that a Star Trek game plays like a TV show. Isn't that the entire point?
EDIT: Just to be clear here, the new episode isn't perfect. I'm tired of single-player missions as well.
I'm just not sure that "Surface Tension doesn't turn Star Trek Online into a Fallout-style open world RPG with rich dialog trees and the ability to kill vital NPCs because you feel like it, instead opting to be an adaptation of an episode of the TV series" is really a valid criticism.
Yeah, I can see how arrogance might be a fatal flaw for a race that literally made the Dewens worship them as gods, but that's not quite what was going on. The Iconians saw that the factions were coming together again (like the ones that defeated them before), and literally gated in someone to say "We're operating on an intergalactic scale, pitiful insects; stop opposing us."
Of course, it's all a show to try to intimidate us. If they could stand up to the united forces of the Alpha Quadrant in an open fight, they'd have sent an army.
Well, sometimes it does, sure, but usually just a number of people. When it comes to the entire race(s) though, that's an entirely different can of worms.
It's a fairly common thing, evil being unable to comprehend good, or what drives them
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
It's not really a "silly 'for the plot/trope' events destroys immersion completely" thing, is what I'm saying.
Personally, if I wanted to go the complete virgin-Trekkie-nerd path and nitpick every niggling detail to death, then I'd ask why haven't we put up a self-replicating cloaking minefield over all the gateways, and that hole the Undine blew in the Sphere. That seems like a very obvious plan to me.
And once again, I was unable to use my away team. An away team I spent several millions ec, some dil/marks and a lot of time to design. On each of my characters.
The first part is boring (even if I enjoyed to act as the sneaky Romulan, as we should).
And Koren whine to much.
Otherwise it was fine. The plot was interesting, the "egg" revelation was cool (no pun intended), and the fights were nice. The ending was also awesome.
But then, considering how little we have, a bone is a bone. And I did my best to enjoy it.
Ok you won. Where can I give you a thumbs up ?
*le sigh* Fickle playerbase is fickle isn't it centersolace?
To OP: I liked the mission purely for it's lack of pew pew. You want more pew pew? Go take on an STF.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10052253
Why are you not rejoicing?
lol, I wish I could take credit for that.
Joined January 2009
I can point out that several people responding to those points (particularly the ones about how the OP shot the Undine instead of helping the Fed captains) seemed to assume the OP was Fed, the way he phrased things makes me think Klingon. The highly militant type.
I will also say that I prefer my missions with a plot and with elements that make me feel like the mission could BE an episode of one (or more) of the series. We haven't had a Trek series on the air since 2005, and we haven't had a GOOD Trek series since 1999. Any port in a storm and all that. (In general I've felt that the Sphere missions have been some of the better missions in the game, with some decent writing and some legitimately tense moments)
The ONLY thing I really didn't like was the Ferengi representative hijacking a security confrence to make a sales pitch. I'd have told him to shut it or contribute something useful. (Well, that and the now recurring "no away team" thing. What's the point of letting us gear up BOFFs if we CAN'T USE THEM?!)
By this logic, virtually nothing that we see on a television or movie screen is dialogue. We have no choice about what is said, and the actors very rarely have any choice about what is said, yet it's still called dialogue.
My suggestion? Apply to Cryptic to delight us with your own ideas concerning future Feature Episodes. Or, more reasonably, quit STO and go play another game...
Especially the conference part was straight forward padding to get a few seconds more playing time out of it. For instance, as a KDF character I have to "intimidate" delegates in order to get them to do something which they were about to do anyways. Plus everyone spouts a completely stereotypical monologue on the whole thing. And intimidating the Ferengi didn't do a thing since afterwards he still does his Ferengi thing. And "get the delegates seated" - come on. There is no reason to defend that. I really like diplomatic and dialogue heavy missions, but that was not a good way to do it.
There is also some merit to the rest of his points, most of them can be handwaved away with "gameplay reasons" since, well it's a game and our characters are supposed to be demi-gods who handle everything themselves. But still, not everything came across as reasonable.
Oh and no, I didn't get that the thing in the end was supposed to be an Iconian, because aside from making fum of it I completely forgot about them already and we have no idea how they look like anyway
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This is actually a logical starting point. Starting points for missions are generally systems, with the occasional exception. The Jouret Gateway is a system in Tau Dewa. The Gateway to the Jenolan sphere is a simple prop, that appeared in one mission map, not a social map. To use that gateway to start would be impossible. And to beam down to Joint Command to trigger a cutscene of you flying away would be incredibly weird.
And in case you mistook one sphere for another, there are these huge spacedoors blasted open in the first cutscene. That should guide you into knowing you are in the Jenolan sphere, not the Solanae sphere.
I guess I can safely assume you don't like the writing of the game? That is your every right. I for one like the writing of this mission. To complain about personal opinions concerning writing is not really gonna help anyone. They won't change it, since that writing does have fans. Something as subjective as writing can only please a small amount of the playerbase. Those that don't like the writing, well, as hard as this might sound..... you don't have to play the mission.
As for the Enterprise cutscene (which has Shon at the helm, not Kurland), it still is the flagship of the Federation, and the ship to be named Enterprise, coming in guns blazing, like the good ol' American cavalry in every western ever. For the point that is trying to be made, they deserve the attention. And when did you stop being the central hero? Who exactly fights his way to a burning ESD? Who covers Tuvok? Who keeps fighting the Undine boarding parties back? Who faces the onslaught of the massive Undine attack on Qo'Nos? Your character has more than one moment to shine in this mission.
How would you want to see hi in that case? As a friendly man, who does not point out the obvious? I'm sorry, but that simply isn't Tuvok. If you don't like his character, well, Tim Russ was willing to do VO work for STO. We can't ask him to do, say, The Doctor, or Tom Paris. His voice is for Tuvok, and they should keep the character intact.
Once again, if you don't like Tuvok, nobody forces you to play the content in which he shows up. I like having him there.
You agreed by being Tuvoks lackey when you pressed accept for that mission. It clearly states in the description that your goal is to help Tuvok with the conference, whether you are Fed, KDF, Romulan, Tholian or a frickin' Founder. The mission starts when you agreed to help Tuvok, so you will help Tuvok.
As much as I appreciate the Aliens reference, killing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to make sure there are no Undine around isn't gonna help anyone.
And I'm not saying a simple scan is enough. It would be a period taking a large amount of time, but you can make sure somebody isn't an Undine. A blood sample should already work to scan for DNA. A mind-meld would suffice.
There simply is no need to sacrifice everyone just to kill the few boarding parties. Remember that house, family, pets and spider story I gave you in my previous post?
It was an Iconian. A new player might not have seen it from the looks, but the lines it spoke should have been enough. For players longer ingame, there has been Iconian concept art for quite some time, that many players have seen.
About not shooting it, everybody was in shock, and I would not shoot the mailman if he would come at 3 pm instead of 4 pm, even if he was not somebody else. Relax, for all we knew it might have been Q. Or an Organian. Or whatever.
The Iconians cannot teleport. This was gateway use. When Picard stepped through the gateway, he ended up on a Romulan bridge. There was no gateway there. This isn't Stargate with 2 ends needed. This is accurate with everything we know about the Iconians. And even just in case.... the Iconians have been living for hundreds of thousands of years after abandoning their homeworlds. Who is to say what they are capable of?
Feds and Klingons are unarmed, since there are guards outside the room, knowing the Klingons. ANd half of the fleet is over the planet. As for Romulans, these aren't Tal Shiar. These are Republic Romulans, who try to break with the past of secrecy and deception. They are worthy of the name Republic Romulan.
Join the Deltas today!
This is a pretty nice FE, but let do my job and be the most petty critic of all petty critics.
Biggest problem is that its just you and Tuvok on the base. A few security personnel coming with you would have been logical.
Also, the latest FE's have been Single Player. Why? Why cant we team up for it? That is the one thing I would fix with it.
Minor issues:
The telling ambassadors to go to their seats is a bit... unusual, especially for an admiral to do.
And yes, ESD blowing up a little bit more mid fight can be annoying after the 5th replay. Could it not have been a skippable cutscene?
Over all, its a really nice mission though.
Fixed that for ya.
Reading instead of chain-mashing F to get to pew pew pew is OP, plz nerf.
Since Scottys Sphere IS in the Delta quadrant now I don't see the problem?
And it was pretty obvious from the mission text where we went.
Good or bad seems to be a mater of opinion. I don't think it was great, but certainly not bad.
And what outcome would you want to influence? You are PREPARING for the talks.
Already got that.
But during the talks you are inclined to cooperate. In Sol system you are on Federation territory to support them, not to turn the whole fight into a battle of two fronts just because you don't like their rules.
*sarcasm on*
Sure.
Only way to be sure.
Only way to be sure that no undine are on eath is to nuke that place too. We know there are more infiltrators.
Only way to be sure that no undine are among ship crews is to destroy ALL ships.
Why do we even stop the planet killers they do our work for us!!!
Oh and only way to be sure not to die of cancer is to kill myself right now.
*sarcasm off*
Damaged or not that ESD is still a primary military installation that would not only cost trillions to rebuild but also take time that in the very beginning of a war isn't there.
There are still 10.000th of people on that ESD that are not undine even IF they replace 100th. Not even the Klingons would kill them all as precaution. Harkeev would do something like that. But certainly not the federation.
And you as a klingon there do not even have the firepower to do that.
Mainly because it is obvious.
It doesnt break everything we know at all.
We know that they can use the gate to get everywhere, without an "exit gate". That was shown in the tng episode involving that.
So how the Inconian got in is easy.
How he got out?
Since they did BUILD that f*** things they probably know how to use them way better then we.
Also: Another inconian could have simply tracked the inconian with a transporter THROUGH the gate from the other side and have beamed him out.
You do know what peace talks are?
If you have 100 people divided in 3 groups that do not really like each other in one room its a great Idea to arm them. If you are a funeral director.
Because if people are armed in that situation only ONE would have to snap and shoot around to ensure that the war goes on. Great tactics.
While this is often the case you still fail to deliver any example for such an occasion in the FE. So far I still just see your inability to actually look at the story, to understand Star Trek and the real world too...
Now see here, you don't want to mess with nitpicky sci-fi nerds. They will totally put up a TvTropes page about you and call you a Smug Snake Designated Villain Deadpan Snarker! Then you'll be sorry!
1) The first time Tuvok starts waxing poetic about his time in the delta quadrant, the player should be given an option "That's fascinating, Tuvok, do go on" or "Shut up, Tuvok". If the player chooses the latter option, Tuvok will be all offended and never volunteer any extemporaneous nonsense.
2) At the start of the conference, the player is told "Feel free to mingle with the diplomats, then talk to the tech to start the presentation when you're ready". This gives the player the freedom to hear the nonsense from as many or as few ambassadors as they like, and not have to zig zag to every single one twice for no good reason.
3) When the Undine fleet shows up, cut the line that asks "What do they want?". They're Undine. A valid question would be "Where are they going?"
4) During the combat near ESD, let the player enjoy the combat if they told Tuvok to shut up, he won't constantly nag you.
5) When beaming to ESD, bring your away team. Two flag officers alone re-taking ESD is stupid. Technically, you should be bringing an army, but I'll settle for my away team.
6) Cut the mind-meld. Yes, Tuvok is a vulcan, we get it.
7) Back to space combat: Don't introduce cutscenes in the gameplay for the ships coming to help you. The sidebar thing messaging you that they showed up is more than enough.
8) If the undine planet killer is immune to damage, then have us shoot it a few times, don't just say it in a cut scene. (For the pedants above, no it doesn't have to be five minutes of shooting at it to no effect)
9) If we're escorting the fake suicide run, then have us actually do that, don't take away our controls and put the game into rail-shooter mode.
10) During the celebration, again, there's no reason for forcing the player to run around the room and picking up the block of text from every npc. Why do I care what these people have to say? They're annoying morons. Take the same approach as from the beginning: Feel free to mingle, talk to person X to start the ceremony.
11) Drop the snidely whiplash routine, or if you absolutely have to have it, make it a hologram or something. It's not reasonable that all of the warriors present would just stand there while the monster rattles on.