Of course quality varies. Of course it is all subjective. Of course no one is going to win a Pulitzer for a Foundry mission. Of course some authors are going to have an ego. We're human! Ego is hardly exclusive to Foundry authors.
Do we test and check our missions, YES! Does that mean we'll find every typo? Of course not. Spellcheck software doesn't eliminate all errors either. Trust me, I write for a living as well as being a Foundry author. No amount of editing, by software or by person, will catch every mistake. And nothing insulates us against reviewers who THINK they see a mistake that actually isn't one. Most reviewers are not professional editors.
Is any of this an excuse for people to act like jerks in reviews? No, but they do anyway. And some authors are going to take it personally, just like in every other creative medium.
I had one for B&S1 recently that said something like, "Terrible story. I ended up skipping most of the dialog."
I'm like, "I'm sorry you feel that way, but considering I have about a hundred other people telling me my story and dialogue are awesome, bite me."
Sometimes, though, I get ones like this one guy who got confused after the mission briefing scene and thought that you'd automatically beam to the next map (whereas I had it so you had to walk back to the transporter pad, as a stylistic thing). I emailed him back explaining this and patched in instructions in the last dialog of that tree.
"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"
On the story front... every one of us wants to expose their view of a trek story to the people... I have my idea of what I want in a Foundry mission, I think I can lift off from an episode to continue it, or start it fresh with an idea based upon what I can do with the tools I have... example if I want to do an holographic character I know that (right now) I can do it only a Cardie or a Klingon, so I mould my story accordingly...
In every case, I try to forward some issue about fictional science... I always find fictional cool science ideas to be the salt in a mission.
But not every player search the same in a Foundry mission.. there are those who simply want to play to shoot, to improve the stats of their ship and Boffs and so on... jumping the dialogs and rapidly falling into bizarre situations in which they fall from immersion...
On typos/grammar/spelling front, I fight hard to reduce them to the minimum, either asking to some friend author to do a proofread, or simply asking to the player who made the remark by ingame email what's the point to change... there is always something I cannot see, or some story issue that is preciously resolved by some critique...
After a large row of people complaining about this specific issue, now I put a grammar disclaimer after end mission, pledging their indulgence about typos/grammar/spelling cause I am not angloamerican.
Agree with Ashkrik23, there is difference between costructive criticism and plain trolliing/bashing reviews... but not everyone know how much time we spend to polish our missions in every aspect... makes me want to grant review rights only to other Foundry authors (not bad idea...think of it...) and the stars to everyone else...
When I get an harsh review I always search if the player shares some story within the Foundry...hardly... all those who gave me 1 star are NOT Foundry authors...
Let's face it... every Foundry author would like to see a flourishing of 5 stars in their review queues, but... hey if we wanted to be liked by everyone we'd born peanut butter...
That... Sounded a little jerk-offish, given the part where "Masterpiece as they go" was just a general statement.
Other than that, I agree about the spelling thing, you shouldn't be writing blocks of text directly into an app just in case it crashes or you lose the text or something, and unless you're a pro spelling bee champion, you don't want to be typing without a spellchecker. I use Google Drive, it's basically a cloud with Microsoft Office like software on it. It gives you a spellchecker without having to wait 5 minuets for the real MS Word to load, and it saves automatically. I have a file on their entitled "UNTITLED!" that I've bookmarked and just dump walls of text onto before I post it into an RP or something.
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While I have yet to make a Foundry Mission yet (And don't worry, I have plans for one), I'll just go by the same guidelines I do for Little Big Planet
1. If someone gives you the lowest possible rating IGNORE THEM! Don't even read their comments because they invariably have nothing constructive to say and will just put you down, or they're angry that your non combat mission doesn't have any combat even though you pointed that out in the description. Anybody with genuine criticism will give you at least 2 stars or higher unless you've failed epically. If you HAVE failed epically, you'll get a LOT of 1 star ratings, which is the only time you should really pay those any heed. On that note, if you're giving real constructive criticism, DON'T give one star. One star means completely irredeemable with absolutely no way to improve; don't give mixed messages.
2. Don't scan each and every line of text for errors every-time somebody says they are there; if you haven't found them already, you're just wasting your time. If someone says there is spelling/grammar mistakes, ask them where they are; if they can't tell you b/c they forgot, then just leave it until someone CAN pinpoint the issue. If they say that there are mistakes everywhere, THAT is when you scan the text with a fine tooth comb.
3. If someone is being a jerk, ignore them. You're NEVER going to get the approval of a jerk, and why the hell would you want to anyway?
4. There is no such thing as too much or too little combat or story, if people complain about these, just point that out in the description. The only part you SHOULD be paying serious attention to here is if someone says there is too little story AND too little combat; it's a sign that your game needs more substance.
a few tips if you worry about typos misspellings...and i don't get why you don't do this already.
run all text you're going to use through a spellchecker of some sort, notepad++ is free and has a plugin also free that provides checking.
i mean, don't you people even bother to plan out what you're going to do BEFORE you commit it to the foundry? layout the script, any dialogue, triggers and locations all before getting into creating it in the foundry?
I wish the foundry had an import dialogue tool, because as of now, doing this is clunky and tedious. You have to copy and paste the specific dialogue, twice in my case, since I write the dialogue firsty in the foundry, and make the whole story that way, to see if it works well, and if the triggers and whatnot are fine. Then I do the spellcheck, meaning I have to copy and paste twice the dialogue, and I have difficulties to select the text with the foundry, most of the time it just ends up scrolling or something.
It is a very tedious task. Honestly, if they added an import dialogue feature that work, I'll be incredibly happy.
1. If someone gives you the lowest possible rating IGNORE THEM! Don't even read their comments because they invariably have nothing constructive to say and will just put you down, or they're angry that your non combat mission doesn't have any combat even though you pointed that out in the description. Anybody with genuine criticism will give you at least 2 stars or higher unless you've failed epically. If you HAVE failed epically, you'll get a LOT of 1 star ratings, which is the only time you should really pay those any heed. On that note, if you're giving real constructive criticism, DON'T give one star. One star means completely irredeemable with absolutely no way to improve; don't give mixed messages.
You are doing a huge mistake right here. Very low rating have nothing constructive most of the time, that's true. But not all the time. Sometimes, it may point out a bug in your mission or something difficult to understand.
In fact, they are much more invaluable to me than any praises. I love praises, and the more I have, the more I'm happy. But low rating (with comments obviously) are sometimes invaluable. I just had a 3star rating (not bad, but it could have been much worse) and the comment was invaluable. An old bug in my mission that I successfully solved ages ago have crept his way back in. While it's not a game breaking bug, it is an extremely annoying one, and I could have been bombed by low ratings because of it. I was unaware of that, and thanks to this comment, I was able to remove the mission, and I'm trying to solve the problem.
4. There is no such thing as too much or too little combat or story, if people complain about these, just point that out in the description. The only part you SHOULD be paying serious attention to here is if someone says there is too little story AND too little combat; it's a sign that your game needs more substance.
If I may add this, you can also point out if you have few ground/space combat. Some people hate ground combat or space combat, but like the other one. I had a comment (it was a 4-5 star rating, so no complain) with someone telling me there was not much space combat, and how he was disappointed because he loves them. It was no big deal, in the end he enjoyed the mission.
Personally when I'm bored I give 3 stars, when it's poorly designed 2 stars and 1 star is reserved for those who don't give the start location.
1 star for not putting starting location is nonsense... happens even to brilliant authors... furthermore there can be WIP missions so the starting point is not given on purpose. I'd not let any star instead. You can edit your review later and modify your judgement (yes...it can be done) - In every case I suggest to give revvies costructively, especially by fellow authors
1 star for not putting starting location is nonsense... happens even to brilliant authors... furthermore there can be WIP missions so the starting point is not given on purpose. I'd not let any star instead. You can edit your review later and modify your judgement (yes...it can be done) - In every case I suggest to give revvies costructively, especially by fellow authors
I disagree there are dozen of missions in the queue, the missions that we see for reviews are already several monthes old. Those missions are blocking the way for newer missions. It's impossible to create a new mission and see it appear on the review list. So, when I review them it's to allow the newer missions to appear, and if they don't have a start location they get 1 star rating.
I disagree there are dozen of missions in the queue, the missions that we see for reviews are already several monthes old. Those missions are blocking the way for newer missions. It's impossible to create a new mission and see it appear on the review list. So, when I review them it's to allow the newer missions to appear, and if they don't have a start location they get 1 star rating.
I disagree there are dozen of missions in the queue, the missions that we see for reviews are already several monthes old. Those missions are blocking the way for newer missions. It's impossible to create a new mission and see it appear on the review list. So, when I review them it's to allow the newer missions to appear, and if they don't have a start location they get 1 star rating.
There is no such thing as a mission queue for newer missions....or better there are so many that outweight the browser capacity to show us all. Do the math, insert your nick or title of your newer mission in the search field (reviewer state or not, depending on where is your mission now) and... voil
There is no such thing as a mission queue for newer missions....or better there are so many that outweight the browser capacity to show us all. Do the math, insert your nick or title of your newer mission in the search field (reviewer state or not, depending on where is your mission now) and... voil
There is no such thing as a mission queue for newer missions....or better there are so many that outweight the browser capacity to show us all.
This is nonsense, of course there is one, to see it you need to sign it as reviewer. Once it gets 5 reviews your mission is taken out of the review queue to become visible for everyone.
The problem is that the new missions are not visible to reviewers because there are old missions that block the way. Therefore what you say is impossible, to have a new mission rated 1 star because there is no start location, it has to be an old mission.
The missions that appear to reviewers are very old, one had a date and it said something like April 2014. So, when I review missions, I know that those are very old missions, and they are blocking the way to new missions so I rate them, and if they don't have a start location after several monthes hanging in the review list they get 1 star rating, which is all they deserve, Cryptic should unpublish unattended missions in my opinion.
Do the math, insert your nick or title of your newer mission in the search field (reviewer state or not, depending on where is your mission now) and... voil
I think you forgot that he said that sometimes people forget to give the description..
It will happen to everyone.. There are so many details you have to deal with in the foundry. You will end up missing something on the first go.
I've repeated multiple times that the missions that appear in the review list are old missions that have been created months ago, so this is not an excuse.
I'm not using the search mission by text tool to find fresh missions to rate 1 star because they are not finished, what appears in the review mission queue is old and is blocking the way to newer missions.
I've repeated multiple times that the missions that appear in the review list are old missions that have been created months ago, so this is not an excuse.
I'm not using the search mission by text tool to find fresh missions to rate 1 star because they are not finished, what appears in the review mission queue is old and is blocking the way to newer missions.
Sure...and I guess a mission I put out in the review on day one which appears in the list is old...
Sure...and I guess a mission I put out in the review on day one which appears in the list is old...
That must be a Fed mission, on KDF side the missions are old.
Here is one that I rated a few weeks ago: Do'It theater / ST-HPA669JJI / Version 0.7 04 / 11 / 2014
So this mission has been last updated the 11th of April, so 4 months ago and it's at the bottom of the KDF review list which means that the above missions are older.
I think what he's talking about when he says "queue" is the fact that only 50 missions show up when you're searching. How those missions are chosen down in the review tab, I honestly don't know, but I know it isn't by most recently published.
We've tried to make the point to Cryptic many times that we need a "next button" at the very least if not a total revamp. We personally made the case to Thomas the Cat at Star Trek Las Vegas. But for the moment, if you want your mission to get out of review status you have to make an effort to get people to find it and play it. Sucks, but that's the situation we're in.
"Game bugged, couldn't finish, one star." They could drop it..not give a review.. and send it into the mail.. 9 times out of 10..even if you solve the problem and communicate with the person, they never go back and change their rating, which hurts an author.
Yeah, whenever I have a major problem that prevents progress, I send them a game mail rather than dropping the mission.
@Drogyn, it seems to be based at least in part, on rating. the ones at the top seem to be higher rated than those at the bottom.
I've always thought a separate "Did not finish" rating would be more fair for players who dropped the mission part way.
This protects both players and authors.
Players can see this separate number and if the "DNF" number is high compared to reviews they know something could be wrong. As well the review text would stiill be in the listing.
For authors their average score rating would not suffer if someone found a game breaking issue (as long as they fixed it quickly!)
If a review has constructive criticism, I will consider what is said and decide if it would truly improve my work. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. They way I see it, someone took the time to play a mission that I created. I'm thankful for that. I appreciate it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
However, I recently received a review that bothered me. The person gave my mission 4 stars and said that he/she had to subtract a star because there wasn't enough cultural diversity in it.
I sat there, staring at the review for ten minutes, speechless. I didn't even know how to respond to that. I tried to shrug it off, but over the next few days, I found it bothering me.
The reviewer stated that he/she took issue because most of the characters' names and ship names' were English-speaking caucasians.
Regarding the ships, most of the ships in my missions are named after American and British naval ships as an homage to those ships and the sailors that served onboard them. After all, The Original Series ships were mainly named after US Navy WWII aircraft carriers (Enterprise, Yorktown, Lexington,etc). I'm sorry, but I'm not going to name a Starfleet ship the U.S.S. TRIBBLE$kicker or U.S.S. Wrath of Andoria.
As far as the characters of that particular mission went: Yes, there were some caucasians. However, what the reviewer failed to notice is that there was people of Russian descent, Irish descent, Hispanic descent, and Italian descent. There were also two Starfleet Intelligence operatives that were named Nathaniel Hunter and Lauren Carson - who in retrospect, I guess are "white Americans", I never really gave much thought to it. There were people of all colors and creeds representing the human race. If that isn't cultural diversity, I'm not sure what really is.
There were also a lot of alien characters. There were various pre-made races like Vulcans, Andorians, Trill, Klingons, etc - as well as a number of custom-made species that I created.
I didn't contact the reviewer. I honestly didn't want to provoke some kind of racial debate over something so trivial as a video game. But I saw this thread and decided that I needed to vent. While making my newest mission, I've found myself subconcsciously trying to minimize the amount of humans in it and I'm not sure I'm happy about that. The Star Trek shows and movies were full of humans serving in various capacities from the lowliest Chief to the highest Admiral.
I don't really know what I'm hoping to achieve from posting this - if anything at all. I mainly just felt the need to vent. If you think I'm a terrible person for doing so, so be it. I won't lose sleep over it. But I really just can't believe this is something we have to be cognizant about while making missions.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "The time has come to see the world as it is." - Captain James T. Kirk Twitter - @SDVargo
Reviewers are people just like us. They come from all kinds of backgrounds. They have various education levels, experience with games, political attitudes, worldviews, etc etc. Everyone approaches their reviewing differently.
There's nothing to say that a reviewer can't be completely wrong in their assessment of a mission. That includes both being objectively wrong, or being wrong from the author's point of view.
There's also a bug where sometimes if you play two missions in a row, when the review tab comes up it's actually the one for the previous mission. So who knows, that review may not even be about your mission.
Hehe, race and ethnicity are intertwined in weird ways. Some (extremely shallow) people only look at skin color and use that as the sole determining factor. In a previous discussion, I used Linka from Captain Planet as an example. She's "white", but has a very important difference from the other "white" character. Wheeler is American, but Linka is Russian. Back when the cartoon was made that difference was considered more important than the color of your skin.
Hehe, race and ethnicity are intertwined in weird ways. Some (extremely shallow) people only look at skin color and use that as the sole determining factor. In a previous discussion, I used Linka from Captain Planet as an example. She's "white", but has a very important difference from the other "white" character. Wheeler is American, but Linka is Russian. Back when the cartoon was made that difference was considered more important than the color of your skin.
Same thing with Chekov in TOS. He was a white guy, but it was culturally significant at the time that a Russian would be serving alongside guys from Iowa and San Fransisco.
Thanks, guys. That's how I see it but apparently others don't.
I haven't played your mission, so I can't specifically talk about it. Usually, I don't really see when the "cast" is lacking aliens or cultural diversity. But sometimes it's kind of "forced" on you, then I can see it, and it's a bit annoying.
I played a mission where the author assumed you were male, human (character, not me, obviously), and believed in God. I played the mission with my Betazoid, female. That was awkward.
In such extreme, where a mission is "white male from USA in space", without any lore reason behind, I might drop a star. It might seems extreme, but then, one of the big strength of Star Trek, something that you can see pretty much everywhere in any ST show, and was really important, is the cultural diversity. Discarding it would be like discarding the Federation. Also, I'm speaking an extreme, and the mission will feel weird to me.
When it comes to my missions, I make a special effort to do everything culturally diverse. Just like in the show afterall. And I use google to find names for NPC from specific part of Asia or Africa, to make it realistic. And also because I have no idea what is a common Chinese name or from central Africa. Or what they mean. Even when they are white, my characters are from over the world, also using google from proper name and meaning.
It's quite logical when you think about it. Currently, more than half of the world is made of people from Africa and Asia. Probably close to 2/3 or something. So in a futuristic utopia where everyone is equal in rights, with no racism, you might expect to see a lot more Asian and African than Caucasian. Or at least the same amount.
Then I add aliens, to make it more "starfleet". Not much of them, granted. But at least one or 2.
Finally, the name of the ship are more or less random, usually picking something from the universe. Not necessarily from Earth. It makes sense to have ship named from alien important event/places/people. After all, the federation is not the terran empire. Others races have probably the same rights when it comes to naming ships than us.
It's nice not to be limited by actually having to cast actors. We can write anyone of any gender or nationality we want and not have to worry about whether we can find an actor fit the character.
I have a lot of fun playing with that, personally. In my head-canon the CO of Starfleet Command is a Liverpudlian Sikh, Avaninder Singh (no relation to Khan), and I once used the Shoko Futagami costume and gave her a Thai name. There was also a sorta-brown skinned guy who I decided was Iranian (one of I think three different Iranian characters I've written for STO).
"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"
Comments
Do we test and check our missions, YES! Does that mean we'll find every typo? Of course not. Spellcheck software doesn't eliminate all errors either. Trust me, I write for a living as well as being a Foundry author. No amount of editing, by software or by person, will catch every mistake. And nothing insulates us against reviewers who THINK they see a mistake that actually isn't one. Most reviewers are not professional editors.
Is any of this an excuse for people to act like jerks in reviews? No, but they do anyway. And some authors are going to take it personally, just like in every other creative medium.
I'm like, "I'm sorry you feel that way, but considering I have about a hundred other people telling me my story and dialogue are awesome, bite me."
Sometimes, though, I get ones like this one guy who got confused after the mission briefing scene and thought that you'd automatically beam to the next map (whereas I had it so you had to walk back to the transporter pad, as a stylistic thing). I emailed him back explaining this and patched in instructions in the last dialog of that tree.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
In every case, I try to forward some issue about fictional science... I always find fictional cool science ideas to be the salt in a mission.
But not every player search the same in a Foundry mission.. there are those who simply want to play to shoot, to improve the stats of their ship and Boffs and so on... jumping the dialogs and rapidly falling into bizarre situations in which they fall from immersion...
On typos/grammar/spelling front, I fight hard to reduce them to the minimum, either asking to some friend author to do a proofread, or simply asking to the player who made the remark by ingame email what's the point to change... there is always something I cannot see, or some story issue that is preciously resolved by some critique...
After a large row of people complaining about this specific issue, now I put a grammar disclaimer after end mission, pledging their indulgence about typos/grammar/spelling cause I am not angloamerican.
Agree with Ashkrik23, there is difference between costructive criticism and plain trolliing/bashing reviews... but not everyone know how much time we spend to polish our missions in every aspect... makes me want to grant review rights only to other Foundry authors (not bad idea...think of it...) and the stars to everyone else...
When I get an harsh review I always search if the player shares some story within the Foundry...hardly... all those who gave me 1 star are NOT Foundry authors...
Let's face it... every Foundry author would like to see a flourishing of 5 stars in their review queues, but... hey if we wanted to be liked by everyone we'd born peanut butter...
That... Sounded a little jerk-offish, given the part where "Masterpiece as they go" was just a general statement.
Other than that, I agree about the spelling thing, you shouldn't be writing blocks of text directly into an app just in case it crashes or you lose the text or something, and unless you're a pro spelling bee champion, you don't want to be typing without a spellchecker. I use Google Drive, it's basically a cloud with Microsoft Office like software on it. It gives you a spellchecker without having to wait 5 minuets for the real MS Word to load, and it saves automatically. I have a file on their entitled "UNTITLED!" that I've bookmarked and just dump walls of text onto before I post it into an RP or something.
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While I have yet to make a Foundry Mission yet (And don't worry, I have plans for one), I'll just go by the same guidelines I do for Little Big Planet
1. If someone gives you the lowest possible rating IGNORE THEM! Don't even read their comments because they invariably have nothing constructive to say and will just put you down, or they're angry that your non combat mission doesn't have any combat even though you pointed that out in the description. Anybody with genuine criticism will give you at least 2 stars or higher unless you've failed epically. If you HAVE failed epically, you'll get a LOT of 1 star ratings, which is the only time you should really pay those any heed. On that note, if you're giving real constructive criticism, DON'T give one star. One star means completely irredeemable with absolutely no way to improve; don't give mixed messages.
2. Don't scan each and every line of text for errors every-time somebody says they are there; if you haven't found them already, you're just wasting your time. If someone says there is spelling/grammar mistakes, ask them where they are; if they can't tell you b/c they forgot, then just leave it until someone CAN pinpoint the issue. If they say that there are mistakes everywhere, THAT is when you scan the text with a fine tooth comb.
3. If someone is being a jerk, ignore them. You're NEVER going to get the approval of a jerk, and why the hell would you want to anyway?
4. There is no such thing as too much or too little combat or story, if people complain about these, just point that out in the description. The only part you SHOULD be paying serious attention to here is if someone says there is too little story AND too little combat; it's a sign that your game needs more substance.
I hope any of that helps.
It is a very tedious task. Honestly, if they added an import dialogue feature that work, I'll be incredibly happy.
You are doing a huge mistake right here. Very low rating have nothing constructive most of the time, that's true. But not all the time. Sometimes, it may point out a bug in your mission or something difficult to understand.
In fact, they are much more invaluable to me than any praises. I love praises, and the more I have, the more I'm happy. But low rating (with comments obviously) are sometimes invaluable. I just had a 3star rating (not bad, but it could have been much worse) and the comment was invaluable. An old bug in my mission that I successfully solved ages ago have crept his way back in. While it's not a game breaking bug, it is an extremely annoying one, and I could have been bombed by low ratings because of it. I was unaware of that, and thanks to this comment, I was able to remove the mission, and I'm trying to solve the problem.
If I may add this, you can also point out if you have few ground/space combat. Some people hate ground combat or space combat, but like the other one. I had a comment (it was a 4-5 star rating, so no complain) with someone telling me there was not much space combat, and how he was disappointed because he loves them. It was no big deal, in the end he enjoyed the mission.
1 star for not putting starting location is nonsense... happens even to brilliant authors... furthermore there can be WIP missions so the starting point is not given on purpose. I'd not let any star instead. You can edit your review later and modify your judgement (yes...it can be done) - In every case I suggest to give revvies costructively, especially by fellow authors
I disagree there are dozen of missions in the queue, the missions that we see for reviews are already several monthes old. Those missions are blocking the way for newer missions. It's impossible to create a new mission and see it appear on the review list. So, when I review them it's to allow the newer missions to appear, and if they don't have a start location they get 1 star rating.
My character Tsin'xing
There is no such thing as a mission queue for newer missions....or better there are so many that outweight the browser capacity to show us all. Do the math, insert your nick or title of your newer mission in the search field (reviewer state or not, depending on where is your mission now) and... voil
While we are at it, let us have it where you must beat the mission to leave a review.
The current system is too prone to abuse.
This is nonsense, of course there is one, to see it you need to sign it as reviewer. Once it gets 5 reviews your mission is taken out of the review queue to become visible for everyone.
The problem is that the new missions are not visible to reviewers because there are old missions that block the way. Therefore what you say is impossible, to have a new mission rated 1 star because there is no start location, it has to be an old mission.
The missions that appear to reviewers are very old, one had a date and it said something like April 2014. So, when I review missions, I know that those are very old missions, and they are blocking the way to new missions so I rate them, and if they don't have a start location after several monthes hanging in the review list they get 1 star rating, which is all they deserve, Cryptic should unpublish unattended missions in my opinion.
It will happen to everyone.. There are so many details you have to deal with in the foundry. You will end up missing something on the first go.
I've repeated multiple times that the missions that appear in the review list are old missions that have been created months ago, so this is not an excuse.
I'm not using the search mission by text tool to find fresh missions to rate 1 star because they are not finished, what appears in the review mission queue is old and is blocking the way to newer missions.
Sure...and I guess a mission I put out in the review on day one which appears in the list is old...
That must be a Fed mission, on KDF side the missions are old.
Here is one that I rated a few weeks ago: Do'It theater / ST-HPA669JJI / Version 0.7 04 / 11 / 2014
So this mission has been last updated the 11th of April, so 4 months ago and it's at the bottom of the KDF review list which means that the above missions are older.
Well, you need to specify you were talking about KDF.
We've tried to make the point to Cryptic many times that we need a "next button" at the very least if not a total revamp. We personally made the case to Thomas the Cat at Star Trek Las Vegas. But for the moment, if you want your mission to get out of review status you have to make an effort to get people to find it and play it. Sucks, but that's the situation we're in.
@Drogyn, it seems to be based at least in part, on rating. the ones at the top seem to be higher rated than those at the bottom.
My character Tsin'xing
This protects both players and authors.
Players can see this separate number and if the "DNF" number is high compared to reviews they know something could be wrong. As well the review text would stiill be in the listing.
For authors their average score rating would not suffer if someone found a game breaking issue (as long as they fixed it quickly!)
Foundry Mission Database
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
However, I recently received a review that bothered me. The person gave my mission 4 stars and said that he/she had to subtract a star because there wasn't enough cultural diversity in it.
I sat there, staring at the review for ten minutes, speechless. I didn't even know how to respond to that. I tried to shrug it off, but over the next few days, I found it bothering me.
The reviewer stated that he/she took issue because most of the characters' names and ship names' were English-speaking caucasians.
Regarding the ships, most of the ships in my missions are named after American and British naval ships as an homage to those ships and the sailors that served onboard them. After all, The Original Series ships were mainly named after US Navy WWII aircraft carriers (Enterprise, Yorktown, Lexington,etc). I'm sorry, but I'm not going to name a Starfleet ship the U.S.S. TRIBBLE$kicker or U.S.S. Wrath of Andoria.
As far as the characters of that particular mission went: Yes, there were some caucasians. However, what the reviewer failed to notice is that there was people of Russian descent, Irish descent, Hispanic descent, and Italian descent. There were also two Starfleet Intelligence operatives that were named Nathaniel Hunter and Lauren Carson - who in retrospect, I guess are "white Americans", I never really gave much thought to it. There were people of all colors and creeds representing the human race. If that isn't cultural diversity, I'm not sure what really is.
There were also a lot of alien characters. There were various pre-made races like Vulcans, Andorians, Trill, Klingons, etc - as well as a number of custom-made species that I created.
I didn't contact the reviewer. I honestly didn't want to provoke some kind of racial debate over something so trivial as a video game. But I saw this thread and decided that I needed to vent. While making my newest mission, I've found myself subconcsciously trying to minimize the amount of humans in it and I'm not sure I'm happy about that. The Star Trek shows and movies were full of humans serving in various capacities from the lowliest Chief to the highest Admiral.
I don't really know what I'm hoping to achieve from posting this - if anything at all. I mainly just felt the need to vent. If you think I'm a terrible person for doing so, so be it. I won't lose sleep over it. But I really just can't believe this is something we have to be cognizant about while making missions.
"The time has come to see the world as it is." - Captain James T. Kirk
Twitter - @SDVargo
There's nothing to say that a reviewer can't be completely wrong in their assessment of a mission. That includes both being objectively wrong, or being wrong from the author's point of view.
There's also a bug where sometimes if you play two missions in a row, when the review tab comes up it's actually the one for the previous mission. So who knows, that review may not even be about your mission.
My character Tsin'xing
Same thing with Chekov in TOS. He was a white guy, but it was culturally significant at the time that a Russian would be serving alongside guys from Iowa and San Fransisco.
"The time has come to see the world as it is." - Captain James T. Kirk
Twitter - @SDVargo
I played a mission where the author assumed you were male, human (character, not me, obviously), and believed in God. I played the mission with my Betazoid, female. That was awkward.
In such extreme, where a mission is "white male from USA in space", without any lore reason behind, I might drop a star. It might seems extreme, but then, one of the big strength of Star Trek, something that you can see pretty much everywhere in any ST show, and was really important, is the cultural diversity. Discarding it would be like discarding the Federation. Also, I'm speaking an extreme, and the mission will feel weird to me.
When it comes to my missions, I make a special effort to do everything culturally diverse. Just like in the show afterall. And I use google to find names for NPC from specific part of Asia or Africa, to make it realistic. And also because I have no idea what is a common Chinese name or from central Africa. Or what they mean. Even when they are white, my characters are from over the world, also using google from proper name and meaning.
It's quite logical when you think about it. Currently, more than half of the world is made of people from Africa and Asia. Probably close to 2/3 or something. So in a futuristic utopia where everyone is equal in rights, with no racism, you might expect to see a lot more Asian and African than Caucasian. Or at least the same amount.
Then I add aliens, to make it more "starfleet". Not much of them, granted. But at least one or 2.
Finally, the name of the ship are more or less random, usually picking something from the universe. Not necessarily from Earth. It makes sense to have ship named from alien important event/places/people. After all, the federation is not the terran empire. Others races have probably the same rights when it comes to naming ships than us.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/