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Why no regular story content?
edwardianed
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I don't wish to criticise Cryptic unfairly, for all I know there are various serious factors beyond my knowledge that affect the output of their studio, but something I fail to understand is this: it just seems rather odd to me that a foundry author can make a half-decent mission in a week or two (give them longer and they can make a damn fine, even engrossing mission) with no resource other than time; yet Cryptic, who have the resources of a game development studio, take anywhere from 4 - 6 months to produce anything.
Surely it wouldn't be that hard, or out of the ordinary to assign at least one member of staff to design and make regular mission content? Put a small team on it and we could have a short story arc every week.
What is Cryptic doing with it's time that takes up so many of their resources?
P.S. The exception to this is of course Legacy of Romulus, that was the kind of thing worth waiting a long time for and was done very well. However, given the choice I'd probably still rather have lots of small regular content than a rare massive amount.
Surely it wouldn't be that hard, or out of the ordinary to assign at least one member of staff to design and make regular mission content? Put a small team on it and we could have a short story arc every week.
What is Cryptic doing with it's time that takes up so many of their resources?
P.S. The exception to this is of course Legacy of Romulus, that was the kind of thing worth waiting a long time for and was done very well. However, given the choice I'd probably still rather have lots of small regular content than a rare massive amount.
Post edited by edwardianed on
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***Disenchanted***
Real Join Date: Monday, 17 May 2010
They just did ... but instead of one Foundry mission after one week, they released ~35 after 4-6 months
Well, I wouldn't complain about a lack of maps, opponents and ships, because those take far more people and resources to create. The reason I specifically singled out story content, is because that doesn't take much in the way of resources. The system is already built into the game, the only thing required is time and imagination.
Also de's have time limits and constraint , and someone working on the foundry can pretty much take his time, and not have to worry about anything and can do what he wants whenever he wants
plus not everything on the foundry is gold....very few things are even worth ones time on the foundry....due to some foundry authors thinking they are writing a book.
Also the devs add things not in the game, like different kinds of mission that a foundry author can't, and add never before seen ships in the game, and Aliens.
Pretty sure if the devs just want to reuse the same stuff that are now outdated like the Federation missions...then yeah they can throw them out every week...but who the hell wants that stuff when we now know they can do a great job....I rather have quality over quantity...the Foundry is full of quantity, and lacks a lot of quality.
And there's the obvious answer I didn't think of. Thank you, thread successfully over
Very much this.
Also, when you are a single foundry author, you are on your own, you can make all of your decisions by yourself, and you don't have to report to anyone.
Our tasks are split between several teams. So while a designer might have a great idea for the story/flow of of the mission, and can set up all of the contacts/mobs/etc. They aren't going to know how to light a map to make it look good. It's not their job, it's mine.
While working in a team of 40 people affords you many options you wouldn't have solo, it also slows down much of that process, as every step has to be cleared by a bunch of people, playtested, iterated on, etc. A full team will never be as nimble as a single individual.
Edit:
Also this. Even if we stuck a designer with the task to make missions using nothing but existing maps, and existing assets (trust me, that never works), it would still have to be run by Art to make sure that it didn't look like butt. And generally, when we're playing through something like that, we see opportunities to reinforce the story/improve the mission by the addition of a new asset or two. It would still take longer than a single person making a single foundry mission, and in the end, we'd get chided for reuse of assets (we already hear that sometimes).
Also they are working on the foundry and gateway systems alot right now from what I've read which means people like me who demand that they have a simple GUI setup for foundry much like what they have in their sister game Neverwinter, will begin making simple fun to play episodes that are more like the episodes we're used to seeing on the shows and in the new Romulan mission lines, like saving a conference from sabotage (tactical), or repairing facilities (engineering), or saving a planet with technology, or medical support in a battle (Science medical), or any of the various other things we're used to seeing in the episodes but almost never see in this game title.
One they get the foundry to where it should be, you'll see lots more episodes coming because many of us just plain don't want to deal with (and shouldn't have to) complex coding just to do something simple in this game.
Oh and I've read they are coming out with new STFs.
I don't understand this statement .
Are you saying that Foundry in fact does not work as a delivery tool for new story content ?
I can't tell if this is your ego speaking here or if it's actually true .
'Cause I've seen Foundry missions that actually looked nice .
So what you're saying here is that :
a) your artistic vision / compulsion causes an irresistible urge to meddle for the sake of improvement .
b) what the OP suggested would need either 1.5 ppl or 2 ppl to do .
(a Foundry guy + an art guy)
Better that then the stagnation this game is seeing in terms of story & progression .
Please no. The NW Foundry GUI hurts my eyes. There's plenty of good stuff from NW that should be ported over but IMO the interface itself is already what we need for STO.
Yup, but it needs to fit in the whole story, it needs to be approved, it needs to give a certain feeling, and so on and so on.
You now that Trekkers love to be nit-pickers, in this case one or two extra assets can change the "experience" when you play it (for the first time). You only got one chance for a first impression.
Stagnation? Where?
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
I'm saying that telling someone to only use existing assets for a mission rarely if ever works, because people have imaginations, and always want to add something new/cool. While it's a nice idea to say that someone can work within some strict limitation like that, the realities are that feature creep will and does happen.
Game development has a system of checks and balances in it, just like the gov'ment. In order for a mission to go out the door, it needs to get signed off by both the Design and the Art lead. Even if we were using only existing assets, it would still have to be signed off by Art.
Again, I'm not talking about Foundry missions at all. Yes, a single Foundry author could make something that plays well and looks great. A designer on STO may be able to as well, but it will still have to be checked by Art to make sure it's kosher. Just as if an artist went and built a mission, Design would have to check it to make sure it wasn't doing something stupid/broken.
I'm not sure why there is a perception that artists are all ego. It's not like Design is any different. All of us go through life looking for recognition from others. From our parents, from our teachers, from our friends, from our bosses, and in the case of game design, from players. This industry is fueled by ego, and it doesn't all belong to artists.
Yes, we are game developers. When we play games (missions in STO in this case) we can't help but see ways to improve it. Artists, Designers, Audio, Producers, the CEO of the company? Doesn't matter. Everyone here is all about trying to make the best stuff we can, and if we see a way that something could be improved, we try to do so.
"When you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
For me, as an artist, that means I often see ways that I could improve a mission through art. A designer will see designy things. That doesn't mean I don't see designy things as well, or that the designer doesn't see artsy things, but we have our fortes, and that's what we're more likely to see/want to fix.
Strictly speaking, any given mission is totally viable by wandering around a large empty plane, clicking on whiteboxes, and shooting at red triangles. That doesn't mean it would be any fun. Believe it or not, art can be used to sell the story of a mission, and improve the whole feeling of the game.
And again, I'm not talking about the foundry. But yes, on any given mission, there is an artist, and there is a designer, and they work together to create the mission.
same here. I like being at the mx lvl..... dont feel the need to grind out xp or gear anymore...and I can enjoy the storylines of missions.
so yeah..... missions are way more important to me too.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
you think the gear in the game is all that is ever going to be ? you think grinding is done now that you have every thing for now?
system Lord Baal is dead
Of which they are putting into creating new content, such as maps, ships and stories already. How long it takes a foundry author to do something with recycled material they need no outside approval for is pretty much irrelevant.
I challenge you to make a Foundry mission.
I think if you really tried, then you would realize all the little things you could do here and there to help us, even if you don't see us as fellow artistes. I think you would realize that there is an art to trying to wrestle a transporter pad out of klingon barrels and trying to do something artistic with props that weren't designed to be used in certain ways. We don't have the ability to make ceilings and floors, yet we have to make them, because we need them. In some ways, I think it's more challenging and even artistic to repurpose 200 cardassian crates simply because we need a stupid floor.
I think you would learn to appreciate that artistry, if you had to do it.
Show off, in the Foundry. I dare you.
I hope my above posts didn't come off as belittling Foundry authors. I think what you guys make is fantastic, and I'm thoroughly impressed with the creativity and repurposing of assets. What I was saying above was simply that in house development is inherently slower than single user foundry development. There are definitely some foundry authors that take a lot of time/care to make things, but they don't have to run it by other people, they don't have to wait for others to get things done before they can continue, they don't have to have it playtested etc. There is much more to development than the generation of missions.
I have worked in the Foundry editor before, and TBH, I just get frustrated with things. It is a very different approach than the editors we use, and it's hard to get my brain to adapt quickly.
Yet, this is what is expected of the folks who, in the words of dstahl, saved your game when you guys added no new content for like a year. So, er, yeah, um...
We soon get to make Romulan missions without Romulan sets or many Romulan props. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of the team.
I for one would hope you are incredibly egotistical, egotism (with checks and balances) leads to great results. An egotist would only want their name on a damn fine piece of work; the last thing we need is for the devs to say "ah, well, that's probably good enough"... even if your profit-driven harsh taskmasters might demand it :rolleyes:
Actually, we do have to extensively run our missions by others. We can't reliably test combat. We can't reliably test player experiences. Getting friends and fellow authors to playtest and QA our missions is essential to publishing something when we can't test things ourselves. If we want to produce unbalanced TRIBBLE, then yeah, we don't have to have it playtested. But any author worth his or her salt goes through a long process of playtesting.
I don't think he's saying that you don't do any of the things that the studio does when making missions, just that you don't 'have' to. As in, if you don't do it, you're mission would be crappy and you'd lose a load of credibility; but if the studio doesn't do it, the mission would be crappy, they'd lose a load of credibility, and they'd lose money and get fired.
See we have a similar problem becuase of all we want to do and have to adapt to because of the limitations. Thats why we would welcome someone using the 'real' toolset to look at things and go, gee they could really use this...
Lights are a great example. THere are no light objects we can place on a map, I would LOVE for someone with an eye for set making to go through and go, they need this and this and work with someone to get those pieces added. It just feels often that we are afterthoughts when it comes to actually doing things, and by your own statement we can be the greatest force for content the game has
Agreed. I posit that Tumerboy would be incredibly talented and fast with this task. But it's not on his schedule, and it probably won't be. It would take independent initiative, like staying late to add invisible objects that cast light. We are asking for charity art.
Not necessarily. A true Egotist would believe his stuff is the greatest, no matter what the facts say.
In which case, you are not done with that mission in only a couple days, or a week, correct?
Let's not forget that the devs said we'd be getting one new Featured Episode before Season 8 (not LoR, but the actual season they are working on now) that is supposed to add to the story we have now.
As far as content goes, we're not likely going to get anything more until maybe season 9. Season 8 is dedicated to building up the endgame, similar to seasons 6 & 7, since Romulan players are now at endgame. As the developers have stated, it takes time to flesh out an episode and build it. You want a good story? give them time to build it.