A Good ending

smokinssoulmate · December 2013

I want to make a good ending to my mission Cube 571.

There is of cause lots of ways to go about it, I never deleted the default private notes saying make a good ending.

I have read books and i've seen how they can leave things untidy and unfinished to give you possible leads for another mission/story.

Should the end for a mission be all flash and glory action, go out with a bang so to speak
or like it was on the shows with the people reflecting on events and us learning a life effecting lesson.

I have played a couple of foundry missions to get an idea however there does not seem to be a set standard.

So what makes a good ending of a mission for the Foundry?

drogyn1701 · December 2013

There's really no rules here, it's all about what feels right for the mission. If you've got a big action-adventure story with a villain, you could end with a big confrontation and the defeat of the villain, or you could let him get away as a sequel hook. If its a smaller more personal mission it might end on a smaller and more personal note.

I can tell you about some of the endings I've done.

I've done two big series, one on my own and the Purity featured series in which I made the final part. In my own series I made a point to end with a discussion of some of the consequences of the events in the series (lots of deaths, high level admiral forced to resign, etc). With Purity I did less of that. I ended on sort of a Picard-style moral discussion after the big confrontation with the villain.

In my Klingon spotlight the whole thing revolves around a bunch of Latinum. At the end after escaping from prison you ask your BOFF whether you get to keep the latinum or not, he says it got confiscated, and the mission ends on the dialogue button that reads "Son of a..." We could call that the Sopranos-style cut to black ending

ashkrik23 · December 2013

I think Drogyn has hit a lot of main point. I think some of the best endings are those that create an emotional response.

ragigo · December 2013

Morning,

I also had a problem with the ending of my mission, Defense of Starbase 57, but I finally came up with a good ending after a really long time. I'm going to have to go back and do some edits, and I might have to add a new map or two, but that's fine.

Unless it is part of a continuous series, the ending should give the player a sense of accomplishment. especially if there is an hour of fighting and such...

My two latinum,

starswordc · December 2013

ashkrik23 wrote: »

I think Drogyn has hit a lot of main point. I think some of the best endings are those that create an emotional response.

For example, "The Bajoran". Trying to spoil as little as possible, the ending made me quite frankly furious (which was the intended audience reaction, incidentally), and made me want to see a sequel whereby some of it could be put right. Incidentally my Fed toon is Bajoran. Eleya's got more reason than most to be angry with how the mission turned out.*

You also have to consider what sort of mission you're writing. Is it a military sci-fi yarn? Exploration and science, boldly going and all that jazz? A humanitarian rescue mission?

In my own case, "Bait and Switch" ends with a big space-then-ground battle sequence, since the mission focuses on Starfleet's military/civil defense function. The mission then segues into a "to be continued" because it ran long. I wrote several sequel hooks into the epilogue, framed as a mission debriefing, and picked one hook to use in part two, which is set after a time skip.

* You always have to consider RP when writing a story mission, at least for the more common character archetypes. (Trying to write for really crazy stuff like markhawkman's Mirror Universe Vorta is an exercise in futility.)

markhawkman · December 2013

starswordc wrote: »

For example, "The Bajoran". Trying to spoil as little as possible, the ending made me quite frankly furious (which was the intended audience reaction, incidentally), and made me want to see a sequel whereby some of it could be put right. Incidentally my Fed toon is Bajoran. Eleya's got more reason than most to be angry with how the mission turned out.*

You also have to consider what sort of mission you're writing. Is it a military sci-fi yarn? Exploration and science, boldly going and all that jazz? A humanitarian rescue mission?

In my own case, "Bait and Switch" ends with a big space-then-ground battle sequence, since the mission focuses on Starfleet's military/civil defense function. The mission then segues into a "to be continued" because it ran long. I wrote several sequel hooks into the epilogue, framed as a mission debriefing, and picked one hook to use in part two, which is set after a time skip.

* You always have to consider RP when writing a story mission, at least for the more common character archetypes. (Trying to write for really crazy stuff like markhawkman's Mirror Universe Vorta is an exercise in futility.)

Lol, yeah.

I think the biggest thing to remember is not to write the dialog into a specific archetype. I've played fed missions that were obviously written under the assumption that the player was using a human. The dialog was quite good, but.... it's not what a Vorta (MU or otherwise) would say. Sure an MU Vorta is an extreme example, but a Caitian would have been equally out of place.

lincolninspace · December 2013

starswordc wrote: »

For example, "The Bajoran". Trying to spoil as little as possible, the ending made me quite frankly furious (which was the intended audience reaction, incidentally), and made me want to see a sequel whereby some of it could be put right. Incidentally my Fed toon is Bajoran. Eleya's got more reason than most to be angry with how the mission turned out.*

You also have to consider what sort of mission you're writing. Is it a military sci-fi yarn? Exploration and science, boldly going and all that jazz? A humanitarian rescue mission?

In my own case, "Bait and Switch" ends with a big space-then-ground battle sequence, since the mission focuses on Starfleet's military/civil defense function. The mission then segues into a "to be continued" because it ran long. I wrote several sequel hooks into the epilogue, framed as a mission debriefing, and picked one hook to use in part two, which is set after a time skip.

* You always have to consider RP when writing a story mission, at least for the more common character archetypes. (Trying to write for really crazy stuff like markhawkman's Mirror Universe Vorta is an exercise in futility.)

Your mission was a part one done right. It is pretty satisfying on its own but it leaves so much left unexplained, wanting you to play pt 2.

I would try to avoid tired hollywood tropes like "A huge new threat to the Galaxy". I like to go for smaller stories, for example, my only published mission has you trying to find some duty officers that went missing on assignment. It is something that happens to everybody in game.

erei1 · December 2013

I think you should avoid a Deus ex machina that makes the player think "hey, why did I bother doing all of that, when I could have just skipped to the ending anyway ?". IE avoid Mass Effect 3.
Avoid far fetched ending, or rushed ending, but it's covered by the Deus ex machina syndrome. IE, avoid Mass Effect 3 ending, again.
And I would avoid the "bad guy is dead... or not ?" ending.

The player want to have a conclusion, and answers to the questions left. Doesn't mean you can't make new questions, and never answer them, to leave the player wondering. As in Blade Runner movie for example. Questions are raised in the very end, that makes the whole story appear in a different light. But it's extremely tricky, and I would advise against that.

Otherwise, you don't need to have a last stand kind of ending. The war of the Ring in LOTR end by Frodo throwing the ring in a volcano. Not with the huge Minas Tirith fight, not with the last stand near the Mordor's gates. The books themselves end by a bunch of people taking a boat to leave.

A good ending is an ending that make sense with the rest of the story. And it's an ending, not a new beginning.

A Good ending

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