So Burgess is Namedropper McFactoid, huh?

leviathan99 · October 2014

First of all, the content in DR is fantastic. Fun. Well-acted. Immersive.

But, MAN, does Burgess suck at making analogies. "Maybe we'll find a way to fight them the way Picard fought the Borg." (Uhm? Become one of them?) "Perhaps the Undine exactly like the Xindi, who were manipulated by the Sphere Builders."

Yeah, Burgess. I get it. You know history.

kojirohellfire · October 2014

On the Borg, maybe he meant putting them to sleep?

edwardianed · October 2014

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

Yeah, Burgess. I get it. You know history.

But not so much current affairs; why would I care about some mediocre strategy from thirty years ago when I'm the guy who went from Cadet to Admiral over the previous single year because of how good I am at destroying my way out of even the most ludicrously contrived situations. Jeez Burgess, perhaps you should have a quick glance at my service record... :P

ussintercept · October 2014

edwardianed wrote: »

But not so much current affairs; why would I care about some mediocre strategy from thirty years ago when I'm the guy who went from Cadet to Admiral over the previous single year because of how good I am at destroying my way out of even the most ludicrously contrived situations. Jeez Burgess, perhaps you should have a quick glance at my service record... :P

Yeah. For an Intelligence Officer. He doesnt seem to have much in the way of information regarding current events.

Sometimes it feels like Cryptic just slaps titles and labels on things without doing any sort of research about said topic. Burgess comes off as more of a Historian then an actual Intel Officer. Where are the debriefs and data mining youd expect from someone looking to analyze and expose enemy weaknesses?

leviathan99 · October 2014

ussintercept wrote: »

Yeah. For an Intelligence Officer. He doesnt seem to have much in the way of information regarding current events.

Sometimes it feels like Cryptic just slaps titles and labels on things without doing any sort of research about said topic. Burgess comes off as more of a Historian then an actual Intel Officer. Where are the debriefs and data mining youd expect from someone looking to analyze and expose enemy weaknesses?

The Romulan Intelligence officer we meet seems to provide that. I don't know who voiced the Romulan but he sounds like Rob Paulsen (Yakko Warner from Animaniacs, original Raphael, current Donatello) doing a British accent.

Also, I will give props to Cryptic on this being the expansion where constantly namedropping one ship makes sense and it's handled fairly organically. And references to other shows are handled fairly discreetly too by everyone other than Burgess. You get a lot of "there was a thing that happened 40 years ago" more than "there was a thing the Enterprise-D crew did under Jean-Luc Picard." Sure, Picard was there for the TNG stuff referenced but most characters don't mention that.

It's mainly just Burgess who not only makes the detailed references but actually manages to make them in a way that doesn't really apply to the situation. It really feels like he's dying to let you know that he knows history.

When Kim or somebody starts lecturing you on history, he's citing personal experience. And they did a nice job making it feel like it's character work and not an information dump. The Voyager crew have comedic timing in their references. Neelix gets incredibly overenthusiastic and starts telling you history, in a character-driven way.

Really nice work in general this time out.

Which is why Burgess seems so weird.

It may be a plot point.

I have marathoned most of the missions. Without getting into specifics, they are full of twists, setups, and payoffs. There's a Ferengi I'm eager to track down. There are mysteries I'm curious about. There have been BIG twists already and my fleetmates, without spoiling me, told me there are big twists still coming that I haven't seen yet.

Most of the time, when someone is acting odd or something doesn't seem to jive with canon, it's a setup. You may get presented with a Kobali talking about his religion or his son... But they actually give you answers behind those things. It feels light on story goofs. (There are a few typos, mostly things like missing commas. And there are definitely tech bugs, sure. But the story logic works in the missions I've played so far.)

Maybe Burgess isn't what he seems. Or maybe they're setting him up for a transfer to his dream job in Temporal Investigations or historical work.

But so far, he just stands out. :-)

mightybobcnc · October 2014

Thus far this is in my top two main annoyances with the story in DR. The characters are going full-on-Shonen in their long-winded exposition speeches about what happened in the past, be it in the various trek series (okay mostly Voyager) or in prior STO missions.

I mean I get that Cryptic has to provide some context for players that may not have watched the show to get the backstory on the Talaxians or Vaadwaur, etcetera (or paid attention during prior STO missions), but geeze louise their speeches just drag on and on and on. 7 of 9 does this too when you're in that courtyard/base reconnecting the 4 uplink tower-majiggies.

diotw · October 2014

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

Maybe Burgess isn't what he seems.

He certainly isn't what he seems. For instance, he manages to be stationed on Earth Space Dock, and Delta Quadrant Command at the same time. Which one's the imposter? :P

thunderfoot · October 2014

I got the impression Burgess was a R.E.M.F or a pogue prior to this assignment. Heard a great many just like him when I was in the Army. All that chatter seems intended to draw attention to himself and inform the real starship crewman he is 'one of the guys' in the most obvious and annoying way possible. Further, all the info posted on the Memory Alpha site and other places, along with all of the series and most of the films available on NetFlix, really makes his little history lectures tiresome and redundant.

Imagine that. pwe/cryptic managed to come up with a character who makes me prefer Tovan Khev.
Whoa. Never saw this one coming, lol.

gofasternow · October 2014

I think someone is getting his rise to stardom a little to his head. He goes from being a one-shot character to a character of major importance and look what happens!

defalus · October 2014

He's the character Feds meet before going into the Delta Quadrant, it's just that sometimes the writing is doing "fanservice". Oh look he name dropped Picard and we get all giddy and excited.

It happens in the story with my non Fed characters as well. I dont want to spoil anything but why would my Romulan or Klingon know or care about certain things that happened in history of Starfleet. It spoils immersion for me but it's fan service as that Romulan or Klingon is most likely a Star Trek fan behind a keyboard.

artan42 · October 2014

It might have been better if we had know him for a bit longer, such as if all the Franklin Drake missions were SI missions instead.

thunderfoot · October 2014

Better still if the connection to Drake was a little stronger. Perhaps if Drake was mentioned as his sponsor or patron.

leviathan99 · October 2014

mightybobcnc wrote: »

Thus far this is in my top two main annoyances with the story in DR. The characters are going full-on-Shonen in their long-winded exposition speeches about what happened in the past, be it in the various trek series (okay mostly Voyager) or in prior STO missions.

I mean I get that Cryptic has to provide some context for players that may not have watched the show to get the backstory on the Talaxians or Vaadwaur, etcetera (or paid attention during prior STO missions), but geeze louise their speeches just drag on and on and on. 7 of 9 does this too when you're in that courtyard/base reconnecting the 4 uplink tower-majiggies.

Maybe "full-blown Shonen" doesn't stand out as much to me here because they did that on the show all the time, they're all in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, and they're brought in as historical experts into the quadrant.

I actually think in some ways, Voyager "works" better for an expansion like this. Because the characters were always exposition heavy, so this isn't a change for them.

If Riker or Troi showed up, I might expect some reflection but I figure they'd be living more in the present. The Voyager characters are naturally defined by this one thing that happened to them.

And the DS9 characters? Hm. They might work as consultants on the Dominion or the Prophets/Pah Wraiths. But I also figure they'd generally be present day focused more than the Voyager crew.

Everytime we saw a future version of the Voyager crew, they were obsessed with their time on Voyager.

I like to think Chakotay is happily married to that woman who was his girlfriend in "Timeless" and is maybe working with the Cardassians more in his Starfleet Intelligence role, bringing his Maquis experience into perspective.

I joke about it but I honestly do like to think Janeway is head of Temporal Investigations and overseeing a timeship construction project; she kind of makes sense as the head of the Federation's attempts at proactive time travel, which will lead to the Relativity and Braxton. Both because she's such a believer in the whole Temporal Prime Directive (so much so that it's hinted that she knew Voyager would be stranded and did it deliberately to preserve the timeline) and because her career is so heavily based on time travel.

I like to think that Paris, Torres, and Chakotay are living more in the present. Janeway is probably off researching paradoxes. We specifically got the Voyager characters who are a bit more focused on their time in the Delta Quadrant.

If we ever meet Janeway (and I hear maybe Cryptic wants to talk to Mulgrew?), I'd really love for us to run into her in the middle of some kind insane temporal work. Like we end up going back to 1966 San Francisco or something and then run into Janeway who is buying coffee at a diner on some unrelated assignment that involves twelve different paradoxes that are completely irrelevant to why we're there. That's how I imagine Janeway, really. The prototype chrononaut of some kind of temporal exploration program.

So Burgess is Namedropper McFactoid, huh?

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