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STO, you're fired!
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I just played the best mission ever. Slave or Savior. I felt as if I was in a Trek episode. Lots of hardware knowledge and details. Problem solving, creative use of npc's and alien appearance. Minute details that say, "I watch Trek." Case in point, during a conversation with a Tellerite, he insults a boff and then the boff insults back. This was discussed in Enterprise, this is how you interact with Tellarites. That's how you give the mission depth. The story was interesting too with a deep plot. Plenty of mini puzzles, scanning for data, collecting pieces of equp to make repairs. I love how at the end when you get the EPS maniforld, it alerts the Nausicans. That's what happens in episodes. I also dug the priestess at the end that called the warp reactor a dance of two gods. Really weird and creative as well as unexpected. Lots of references to technical details to solve problems.
I also loved the guy who spoke in binary and the ut had to be tweaked to talk with him. Those are the kinds of things you can do in the context of the game. The kinds of things STO NEVER DID!!! Why, because despite saying "we are trekkies," the proof wasn't in the pudding. It just wasn't there and you could tell.
The only adjustment I would make is taper down the pew pew. Instead of meeting six ships at a time only fight three AT THE MOST. I just got done watching the fourth season of Enterprise. Typically, a battle will involve one ship or one group of enemies or one boss at a time. On a rare occasion, two or three ships. But the pew pew was the only part that dragged. Otherwise, a masterpiece.
The Foundry, SAVED THIS GAME. I don't play anything but authored content anymore. I don't want to do the STF's or any of the regular missions. They are boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring...Granted the weeklies have been getting better, when they are available.
Lately I've been recommending missions to people, before I couldn't recommend this game to anyone, let alone Star Trek fans. I think it's laughable that the unpaid fans are the best mission writers, not the employees of Cryptic.
Doh! :eek:
I also loved the guy who spoke in binary and the ut had to be tweaked to talk with him. Those are the kinds of things you can do in the context of the game. The kinds of things STO NEVER DID!!! Why, because despite saying "we are trekkies," the proof wasn't in the pudding. It just wasn't there and you could tell.
The only adjustment I would make is taper down the pew pew. Instead of meeting six ships at a time only fight three AT THE MOST. I just got done watching the fourth season of Enterprise. Typically, a battle will involve one ship or one group of enemies or one boss at a time. On a rare occasion, two or three ships. But the pew pew was the only part that dragged. Otherwise, a masterpiece.
The Foundry, SAVED THIS GAME. I don't play anything but authored content anymore. I don't want to do the STF's or any of the regular missions. They are boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring...Granted the weeklies have been getting better, when they are available.
Lately I've been recommending missions to people, before I couldn't recommend this game to anyone, let alone Star Trek fans. I think it's laughable that the unpaid fans are the best mission writers, not the employees of Cryptic.
Doh! :eek:
Post edited by Unknown User on
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But imagine that you work for a company like cryptic, and you're making an IP game. And you dont know anything about this franchise. Its not like you can say no. Its your job. A guy/girl's gotta eat.
Best thing you can do is cram as much of the IP's fluff into your head as fast as possible and tell yourself you like it. Like how i must imagine many cryptic employees did by marathoning most of the trek series.
And they did get almost everything right. Give the devs some credit. MMOs dont grow on trees, and game developing is harsh. Spending time in the foundry with tools already given the once over for public use will tell you that much.
Go write 100 missions and tell me how you feel at the end of the day.
The weeklies are perfect examples of that.
Also, the increase in non-combat missions were a big shift in the right direction.
The weeklies also introduced shooting to stun and not kill. Hopefully they move that towards the rest of the game.
The problem is that Star Trek was never a heavy combat show or film franchise, but this is an MMO and therefore there is an instant shift towards combat.
Is there room for improvement? Sure, but that's a good thing. If there wasn't room for improvement, then the game would be perfect and therefore wouldn't change or improve.
I do agree that the Foudnry is a huge plus for STO and for general 'Trek' in game, but I'm happy with everyone who's at the helm at Cryptic. They're moving in the right direction and that's what matters.
some of the missions ive played have been great but in honesty i have yet to see a foundry mission that i would say is better than the best cryptic missions. better than the worst yes, but i still intended to play cryptic missions. not to mention their misison creation tech will always be ahead of the foundry so new feature will always be showcased in their missions.
and why would it be laughable? writing is a skill and a talent but its not exactly rocket science. if you open it up to hundreds and thousands of people, of course someone somewhere will write a better mission that what cryptic's couple of writers do.
if the op wants to play foundry missions only then that great and good luck to him/her but i think they are being very harsh on the sto team here.
Sounds interesting. I might have to give it a try. Have you seen the thread stickied to the top of this forum about telling Cryptic your favourite Foundry mission?
Dude, two words, Scan Missions. You know where you fly around, scan something, fly some more, scan something and do that four or five times, one hundred times over???? Even the WORST foundry missions are BETTER than the best SCAN missions ANY DAY, ANY TIME!!! LOL
I'm not trashing people for not knowing Star Trek, I'm trashing people for saying they were "trekkies' a particularly hard core type of Star Trek fan and then cranking out boring missions that don't even represent the show in the most fundamental ways.
This is an old debate, yes Star Trek is a non combat type show, but Star Trek fans were looking for that and got an eye full of kill this mob, kill that mob with a sprinkle of trivia and lore for measure. I'm just saying, I can tell when a trekkie writes a mission and when one doesn't.
>Implying the writers made 100 per day. Especially considering there isn't even 100 in the game now.
Good try though.
Actually, there are over 100 missions in-game now - all of them passed through Kestrel too.
Actually "end of the day" means when you're done in this context.
And there are over 100 missions in the game. This includes all the exploration cluster missions (yes those require someone to write them), the patrol missions (someone wrote those too), and the large story arcs.
I also just played the mission in question and it was not as good as you implied.
As for it being "trek"... it wasn't. It sounded like someone who had a lot of trek buzz words and threw them in there. I'll write a formal review in the correct thread.
Also those scan 5 things missions in explore clusters - there are 1000s of maps of those apparently. Even though the mission is the same thing, they had to make each one using the genesis tool and then ones that looked ok they just approved for use.
I agree with ALL of this.
Oh, but if you can tell when a trekkie writes a mission and when one doesn't, then I'd like to see what you think of my "Star Trek: Legacy Gaiden" missions \:-|
However, you should see the second one, that I'm about to release as soon as enough people have seen the first one, before you judge them.
They're loosely based on the book that I'm writing right now.
Two things. One is, someone has to vet each and every one of those exploration cluster missions. There are over 1000 of them, and more get added every update. Go into the foundry, look at the tools, and say you can do that while making each and every one of them 'deep' and 'trekkish'. I dont know about you, but im already having trouble producing just one proper mission for my new series just because i think its not trekkish and deep enough.
Another thing, ive only ever seen devs say they were fans. And if they've come to like it after marathoning star trek, or already did like it somewhat by watching it on and off over the years, thats not a lie. I dont recall any calling themselves trekkies. Even if they DID...the forum is another place for them to put on a public face.
Do you think it would make sense for the devs to say things like 'hope you like the new missions, but forgive us if you dont like them, we're not trekkies like you guys'. PR suicide. Its not their choice what they can or cant, or should and shouldn't say on the forums either.
I think the OP just wants a "simulator" style game and adding in the boring parts (like manually reading a report) is something he wants.
But that's just an observation based on the mission he thinks is so great.
Thats not a fair statement either in my view.
At the end of the day, while this is a game, this is also a paid service. Imagine how your boss would react if you have 100% attention one day on your assignment (to create a good mission) and then the more you create you never quite managed that 100% attention due to it being hard and tedious etc and the quality of your missions dropped...
Well in plenty of lines of work that may cause your dismissal for someone who CAN deliver the goods, given it is a paid service of expected quality being stated.
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anyway, - I think the OP is being a little harsh overall. His blanket statement that STO had never incorporated any such.. depth.. into its missions is false in my view. I have played countless missions created by the STO team that have enthralled me as regards to StarTrek. So I can not agree that his statement is correct.
Yes, I very much agree.
But I sure am heading to play that mission now! ^^
Charles Dickenson had some bad works.
Shakespear had some bad works.
Picaso had some bad works.
ect...
It's worth playing and for a first mission it shows the author has a great deal of potential. He just needs to fine tune his story details.
Charles Dickens
Shakespeare
Picaso
They are all examples of free-lance type artists.
STO Team have a consistent wage, job and working hours. Just like literary journalists. If you don't get the scoop you don't get printed. If your writing a load of waffle then your dropped. It is fair in my view to expect a consistent level of quality from a paid service that is in itself providing stable working conditions to those artists creating the content. I'm not saying they should be shot down for when a mission does not scream Trek - but its hardly fair to compare a predictable paid subscription service with once off free-lance type novels, plays and artworks.
Heck even Dickens had to pay the bills by reporting on parliamentary debates and travelling across Britain to cover election campaigns for a paper before becoming an editor etc - .. lol getting so much off topic.
- I played the Mission in question and found it to have great potential (in my view). I will just reiterate my position that the OP's view of the existing work of STO being un-trek (in essence) is something I can't agree with.
*what he said*
Even greeting card writers have days were they produce good material and days were they produce junk. Just because you are a paid, regularly employed creative artist doesn't mean EVERYONE is going to find the quality of your work to be consistently high quality. Since the quality of creative output is subjective, your entire argument is unquantifiable anyway.
I sure am glad I don't work in your literary sweatshop! Poor honduran kids employed by Cryptic to make content can't crank out creative trek-lore filled, immersive missions at 100% consistency daily and they get sold to the canning factory I guess.
haha
The TNG season 2 final episode "Shade of Grey" was a clip show, that's bad. Close second the TOS Halloween episode....
I found the prisoner in the cell in the middle prison cell. But near the end after I'd finished the other objective with the shuttle. I couldn't find it while being blasted by Orions, so I had to take care of them first.
Spock's Brain is the "Borg searching for the artifacts of their 3rd Dynasty" mission of Startrek TV.
Hmm, figures. The only guy I need to talk to is the one DEAD guy in all of the 5 cells containing prisoners.