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I'd have approved your Episode, but...
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
"Did Edith really have to die at the end? That was inappropriately sad so I protected others from having to see it."
"I skipped through the first few scenes, and everyone had funny uniforms and you gave one of the main characters a goatee. This clearly isn't the spirit of Trek!"
"All I did was visit a vineyard and cry? BORING!"
"I skipped through all that stuff about Drums. Needed more action!"
"So I technically made out with an hermaphrodite? DISGUSTING!"
"Killing a Romulan Ambassador? That's not how the Federation do things!"
"Vulcans don't do that!"
"Warp 10 turns you into Lizards? Really?"
"I skipped through the first few scenes, and everyone had funny uniforms and you gave one of the main characters a goatee. This clearly isn't the spirit of Trek!"
"All I did was visit a vineyard and cry? BORING!"
"I skipped through all that stuff about Drums. Needed more action!"
"So I technically made out with an hermaphrodite? DISGUSTING!"
"Killing a Romulan Ambassador? That's not how the Federation do things!"
"Vulcans don't do that!"
"Warp 10 turns you into Lizards? Really?"
Post edited by Unknown User on
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" Your mission needed more CoWBell ! "
All kidding aside though, I sincerly hope that mission approval does not come down to personal opinions instead of facts regarding inappropriate conduct and copyright issues.
As mentioned in another thread, I want a chance to play everyone's missions, even if they are boring to some extent, I still want the chance to play them.
I'll probably err on the side of leniency - in part because I don't know everything and in part because I hope the rest of reviewers would follow suit.
TOS had midgets riding Kirk and Spock flamenco dancing - that should be the benchmark for insanity.
As reviewers, we should be asked why we felt this episode deserved the rating we gave. It takes a little time to write out yes, but the feedback is important to the author and to the community as a whole. You might not feel it's fair to be graded on your story, but if we want the best possible version of content out there, you'll have to accept that there will be some people who want to keep the story as close to their version of canon.
Approvals shouldn't be based on your opinion of the plot. That's what RATINGS are for. Approvals are basically confirming that the mission is in compliance with a list of rules. If you're found to be shooting missions down for other reasons, I suspect you may get your ability to review UGC for approval yanked from you.
The approval process will most likely be a list of questions, such as:
Did the mission contain profanity or otherwise vulgar language?
Did the mission defame real life individuals or groups of people?
Did the mission contain direct likenesses or recognizable trademarks (excluding light parody) which fall outside of the Star Trek setting?
Did the mission appear to contain elements designed to exploit the game system for unfair gains?
Did the mission portray graphic violence which would not be appropriate for users under 18?
These will be the yes or no kind of questions that get a mission approved. If you're answering them dishonestly, you'll probably be blocked off from reviewing temporarily or permanently.
Once approved, that's when quality comes into play with ratings.
YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I WOULDN'T!
/rage
They don't make them like they used to. . .that was an awesome episode.
~D
Where do you read that you can flag "boring" or "that's not what Spock would do"?
You can give an episode a bad rating for being boring or not doing things how Starfleet should do things. I think that's entirely appropriate, the point of a rating is to give a subjective impression.
But the flagging is not subjective. There is a TOU document and if that is violated, you can flag it and the mission can be pulled. But if your flagged it for something not in the TOU document, the flag is meaningless.
Not only would the flag be meaningless if it didn't fit predefined criteria - it would also cause the flagger to get into trouble.
If not a benchmark at least an option for quick aproval thereof and regardless one should be required to make a sanity check after viewing.
People will abuse this system because they can and it's in people's nature to do so. Punishment for an act only serves as a deterrent to those with common sense and some amount of decency in their hearts, which puts them in the 1% minority, leaving the 99% majority ready, willing and (barely) able to ruin things for all of us.
And let's face it, do you really think Cryptic have the man-power to police this at anything other than a snail's pace? Your mission gets flagged 'cause someone is just a douche and how long do you honestly think it's going to take for it to be reviewed by a Cryptic staff member and the punishment metered out and your mission put back on the list... for review again where it can fall victim to the same treatment.
It boggles my mind how anyone can think this review process is a good thing. If Cryptic are concerned about violations and vulgar content, then all they have to do is enforce the EULA signing for ALL UGC. Let the ratings system and a reporting function cast down the bad missions and give rise to the good ones. This whole review system is just an unnecessary and cumbersome extra layer of complexity that is going to die under the weight of its own bureaucracy.
UGC should have a warning
WARNING - This content was made by a player.
It might contain story elements that are hazardous to your sense of
Star Trekness, good taste, and mental hygene.
A good sense of humor about it all is advised.
Cryptic's entire team of mission developers seems to require a week or more for a single episode. It takes 1 player no more than an hour to play through it.
And how is this relevant to what I posted?
I suspect it will take several weeks to months for people to craft quality missions. Time that will be wasted if their missions can be thrown on the dung-heap by a few selfish ****s. And then it will most likely take several more weeks for Cryptic's team to get around to checking it and putting it back on to the public list. At this point it is still not 'approved' and so can fall victim to the very same treatment.
Hell, I can see entire fleets flagging content of someone they don't like simply to give them grief and then they get a slap on the wrist from Cryptic and say, "No sir, I promise not to do it again!" Until a few months later when they do.
The only difference between this and how it will actually work, is there will be a smaller group of people looking at the missions first.
If everyone is forced to sign a ELUA, then it's the same thing really. You can still get a group of people who will flag good missions for what ever reason, and the mission will get yanked.
Making everyone sign the ELUA does nothing to address the issue you're worried about.
And we saw the kind of inconsistent TRIBBLE they let slip through.
Then UGC truly will be in the spirit of Trek.
Or the benchmark for awesomeness
"Too many swears."
"The Planet of Uhuru's wasn't properly backstoried."
"Starfleet regulation 104.2 does not support what those Pakleds were doing."
"Hobbits don't belong in the alpha quadrant."
"Giedi Prime? Really?"
"I'm still in shock from the fifth Harry Potter reference."
/spoof
Back in good ole 1999 I was a hard core player of Star Wars the roleplaying game. Loved it and Star Wars, I was excited about these "new movies from Uncle George." 2 hours later, my love of Star Wars died. I saw a film, that--had I wrote it as an RPG adventure--I would have been booed off of the table. I cared and so it seemed George didn't. An arrogant statement from me, perhaps? But three words in my defense "Jar Jar Binks."
The problem we run into is that ultimately, UGC is a fanfic generator, and one of the core problems we run into is in addition to spelling and grammar checks, people will make Trek "They way they think it should be" and Trek has an almost IDIC set of worldviews from the fans. "In the Pale Moonlight" is loved and hated equality. "Spock's Brain" is seen as god-awful or amazingly fun cheese. About the only thing we can agree upon is that "Code of Honor" is a festering [CENSORED]pile that should be quickly forgotten.
Given the rating system fanfic authors are given tools to push their viewpoints in addition to the writing they will produce. The relevant trope here being Running The Asylum--when fans take over a franchise. Their passion can take things in different directions then perhaps mainstream fans like or want--witness Spiderman selling his marriage to the devil b/c the editor in chief felt "Spiderman should be single." Or in the case of Trek, Kirk/Spock.
We will have people grinding away in their own little corners of the universe, cracking out their own little trekworlds never moving beyond their own conceived universe. Stephen Ratliff's "Marrissa Picard and her Kids' Crew" come to mind. We have to remember star trek fan can be passionate, but also insane. How many hours were wasted and ink spilled in the Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer debate that raged in the early days of the internet?
So for UGC to succeed we need to be mindful of how we can ultimately reach consensus, to thread out the good from bad while also being mindful that one person's trash is another treasure.
There's too many extras paired up doing the "pushups" emote and the "sleeping" emote.
Lucas hasn't cared about Star Wars in a long time, and he's really not that great of an author. The original Star Wars overcame tacky dialogue by simply being in the right place at the right time and having zero expectations. Did you know the only way they could distribute it to theatres was if they attached it to another movie they thought would be successful?
The success of Star Wars was a fluke, and the heights the franchise reached had more to do with the people surrounding Lucas than Lucas, himself. Someone else should really have been put in charge of the prequels.
People, yes. Me? No. I wouldn't use a single famous name nor take any story that far away from what we know to be the Star Trek universe. And I sure as hell don't do fanservice. And I'm not so arrogant that I would introduce some character that has some long heroic history and saved Earth 20 times.
No...
Any content I would make would be subtle. It would fit the IP and what is known and add just that little bit more ambiance to the game and universe. In my mind that's what's needed, that's what's important, and that's all we can really do without beginning to tick people off.
And actually.... I've never heard anything bad said of "In the Pale Moonlight". I've always seen it referred to as one of Star Trek's most emotional, dramatic episodes. Dark, sure... but war is dark.
see, you wouldn't, and that's great. I totally believe you and actually look forward to playing your missions (sometimes sarcasm comes across when not intended on the internet, but I am really excited to play yours and some other missions made by certain forum members). But others will, and UGC is going to inevitably be cluttered with it. It will take some effort to sift through...but I for one am prepared to do it.
and "In the Pale Moonlight" for me is the pinnacle of Star Trek, and my favorite episode of all time.
Gods yes. The acting really made that episode.
You notice at the end? How he crosses his legs? So many subtle messages...
I loved how he was looking directly into the camera, like he was looking to you to agree with his justifications that the ends justified the means.
I wouldn't call it my favorite.. but it's definitely high on the list. Brooks' performance was top notch, and convincing despite the mannerisms he tends to have when he gets emotional. I also really like how they started to us Garek in the final seasons; they really added depth to the character without making him feel like a gimmick.
If I had to pick my favorite episode... probably Scorpion1/2, as viewed at its time of release. If you watch it now, knowing all we know of the Borg and 8572, it's not the same as if you were to experience it then.
Eh, it's a good quality piece of television, but I never thought it was good for Star Trek. Sisko basically gets duped by Garak until he's in over his head, and then is too much of a coward to put the brakes on the thing before somebody gets killed. When somebody finally DOES get killed, he's still too much of a coward to tell anyone about it.
Not to mention the fact it goes contrary to the series itself constantly decrying "ends justify the means" by bringing up Section 31 and the Maquis all the time and making them the villains.
Would've been a good B5 episode instead.