The OP was about player immersion and how getting called Admiral constantly when he roleplays a Captain takes him out of that.
I thought your mission was very good, and said as much. I certainly recommend others check it out. That said, the character I was running it on was the captain of an all Andorian crew. To have quite a few non-Andorians I have never seen or heard of before refered to as long standing and highly placed members of my crew was definitely immersion breaking for me. That is why I suggested the boarding action take place on board the Pathfinder - you can still have the rich backgrounds for the NPCs (which again I really liked) - you just aren't throwing the player's backstory under the bus to do so.
But back to the OP...being limited to what a character can addressed as in game to Level Rank only is also kind of throwing player's backstories under the bus. Cryptic is famous for customization - why haven't they extended that to the dialog options? Let the player choose how his or her character is addressed.
Oh, I hear ya, Hunter. And I do appreciate it. And I agree that Cryptic needs to allow us to choose whether or not we're called Captains or Admirals (I personally like the idea of a compromise of a level cap increase to 61 after we beat a certain mission we get knocked down to Captain ala Kirk to end the debate).
But the point I was trying to make is, I can't account for every person's roleplay, either. For instance, you made the point about your crew being Andorian. That's great!
Problem is, that I wouldn't be able to tell a lower decks story because lots of people have species specific crews like that. Its an unnecessary burden on the content creator. And I'm sure Cryptic feels the same way. Look at Tovan Khev: he was an attempt to even the playing field so that Cryptic could tell a personal story about one of your crew. And then people got mad about it.
And the sad part is, K'Gan and Elisa Flores were much better received, but now can't get character development over it. I feel like its gotten rid of many great stories that the dev team could have told.
There's a fine line in giving players freedom to do what they want and telling a good story. And often times, those two elements are diametrically opposed.
(And PS, I wasn't going hard on you out of anger or anything. I felt your review was a good example of showing how RP can cause problems with certain stories told in an interactive medium)
Oh, I hear ya, Hunter. And I do appreciate it. And I agree that Cryptic needs to allow us to choose whether or not we're called Captains or Admirals (I personally like the idea of a compromise of a level cap increase to 61 after we beat a certain mission we get knocked down to Captain ala Kirk to end the debate).
But the point I was trying to make is, I can't account for every person's roleplay, either. For instance, you made the point about your crew being Andorian. That's great!
Problem is, that I wouldn't be able to tell a lower decks story because lots of people have species specific crews like that. Its an unnecessary burden on the content creator. And I'm sure Cryptic feels the same way. Look at Tovan Khev: he was an attempt to even the playing field so that Cryptic could tell a personal story about one of your crew. And then people got mad about it.
And the sad part is, K'Gan and Elisa Flores were much better received, but now can't get character development over it. I feel like its gotten rid of many great stories that the dev team could have told.
There's a fine line in giving players freedom to do what they want and telling a good story. And often times, those two elements are diametrically opposed.
(And PS, I wasn't going hard on you out of anger or anything. I felt your review was a good example of showing how RP can cause problems with certain stories told in an interactive medium)
That's just the thing. We as Foundry authors should try to be as neutral as possible when it comes to player's personal space (Bridge Officers, Ships, Dialog addressing, Careers, etc.) because we can't anticipate everything a character might be who is playing the mission. (Starbase UGC has some really good material on this subject).
Writing detailed NPCs is wonderful; it sets good content apart from mediocre content. The mistake is trying to 'force' them into a player's life (the Toven Khev example you cited perfectly illustrates this).
In your mission, a simple fix for the above would be to simply have the Pathfinder boarded instead of the player's ship and the player beam over to assist their crew (all of which could be accomplished with just a couple of text changes). That way the player can still meet the cool NPCs - who are now Pathfinder crewmembers - thus removing the Toven Khev factor along with avoiding having you as an author trying to second guess every conceivable variation that might pop up. i.e. weirdos playing all Andorian crews. :P
That's just the thing. We as Foundry authors should try to be as neutral as possible when it comes to player's personal space (Bridge Officers, Ships, Dialog addressing, Careers, etc.) because we can't anticipate everything a character might be who is playing the mission. (Starbase UGC has some really good material on this subject).
Writing detailed NPCs is wonderful; it sets good content apart from mediocre content. The mistake is trying to 'force' them into a player's life (the Toven Khev example you cited perfectly illustrates this).
In your mission, a simple fix for the above would be to simply have the Pathfinder boarded instead of the player's ship and the player beam over to assist their crew (all of which could be accomplished with just a couple of text changes). That way the player can still meet the cool NPCs - who are now Pathfinder crewmembers - thus removing the Toven Khev factor along with avoiding having you as an author trying to second guess every conceivable variation that might pop up. i.e. weirdos playing all Andorian crews. :P
That misses the entire point of the story. They boarded YOUR ship because YOU are the threat. Not the Pathfinder.
And honestly, you cite Tovan as a mistake. Let me counter that by pointing to Star Trek episodes. Best of Both Worlds wasn't just a story about the Borg. It was primarily a story about Commander Riker overcoming his doubts and proving that he was ready for the big chair.
Likewise, Amok Time wouldn't have worked if it was some random Vulcan going through it. We cared, because it was Spock. And Spock is our friend. Mirror, Mirror worked because it was looking at mirror evil images of people we knew and loved. DS9 is basically an entire series based around character connections.
So this argument of "Don't touch our crews" strips out roughly half of the most important elements in a successful Star Trek series. A personal connection to the characters.
And its not the first time that the foundry has done successful player crewmen. Ensign Helna probably is the greatest example. Originally by Havraha, she's found her way into literally dozens of Foundry missions as well as becoming a duty officer and even showing up on the Federation Science Captain character select screen. Heck, she was the mascot for the Foundry when it went offline thanks to the whole Season 4 debacle.
If you don't like it, thats fine. And I want to make that clear. But you're also asking to strip out some of the Star Trek from the Foundry when you make this request. And honestly, its part of what's hurting STO as a whole. Because we've been given so much freedom as characters in this game, now they can't do personal, touching missions about your crew. Which is essential in ANY Star Trek series. The Original Series did it, TNG did it. DS9 did it. Voyager did it. Enterprise did it. Heck, even JJ Trek has had elements of it.
You don't have to like it, but I'm not gonna stop writing it, because its Star Trek. And I want to tell Star Trek stories that are not big battle sequences or exploring the alien of the week.
Also, just as a pragmatic aside, it also means that you could never call reinforcments from your ship thanks to the randomness of the NPCs if I followed your request.
That misses the entire point of the story. They boarded YOUR ship because YOU are the threat. Not the Pathfinder.
And honestly, you cite Tovan as a mistake. Let me counter that by pointing to Star Trek episodes. Best of Both Worlds wasn't just a story about the Borg. It was primarily a story about Commander Riker overcoming his doubts and proving that he was ready for the big chair.
Likewise, Amok Time wouldn't have worked if it was some random Vulcan going through it. We cared, because it was Spock. And Spock is our friend. Mirror, Mirror worked because it was looking at mirror evil images of people we knew and loved. DS9 is basically an entire series based around character connections.
So this argument of "Don't touch our crews" strips out roughly half of the most important elements in a successful Star Trek series. A personal connection to the characters.
And its not the first time that the foundry has done successful player crewmen. Ensign Helna probably is the greatest example. Originally by Havraha, she's found her way into literally dozens of Foundry missions as well as becoming a duty officer and even showing up on the Federation Science Captain character select screen. Heck, she was the mascot for the Foundry when it went offline thanks to the whole Season 4 debacle.
If you don't like it, thats fine. And I want to make that clear. But you're also asking to strip out some of the Star Trek from the Foundry when you make this request. And honestly, its part of what's hurting STO as a whole. Because we've been given so much freedom as characters in this game, now they can't do personal, touching missions about your crew. Which is essential in ANY Star Trek series. The Original Series did it, TNG did it. DS9 did it. Voyager did it. Enterprise did it. Heck, even JJ Trek has had elements of it.
You don't have to like it, but I'm not gonna stop writing it, because its Star Trek. And I want to tell Star Trek stories that are not big battle sequences or exploring the alien of the week.
Also, just as a pragmatic aside, it also means that you could never call reinforcments from your ship thanks to the randomness of the NPCs if I followed your request.
I totally agree with you on character connection. It is a huge part of what makes Star Trek great.
Sadly, we just don't have the tools in the Foundry to really do this - the only recurring characters are our own Captain and Bridge Officers. (and that's why Toven Khev is so controversial)
However, I think Helna is a shinning example of how close we can get - especially since Cryptic was foresighted enough to actually make her into a DOff. But remember, she was slowly introduced (to your crew) through number of missions - she didn't start out as a part and parcel veteran member of your crew the very first time you met her.
If you do choose to tread the 'Tovan Khev' minefield and make up crew members for players, perhaps introduce them as temporary duty officers - that could possibly become long standing crewmates. It gives players the option as to whether or not include them.
Another really good example of making character connections with our limited Foundry tools is XR377's Amanda Barclay. She is so well written, but not 'forced' into a player's backstory. To be honest, I'm really surprised the dev team hasn't made her a DOff too.
Unfortunately, to truly do personal, touching stories about a player's crew needs an in-depth knowledge of each specific character. That just isn't possible given the nature of the game and the tools we have available. But Helna and Brocoli prove that we can get really close when NPCs are introduced gradually to character's 'personal space'.
Cryptic is famous for customization - why haven't they extended that to the dialog options? Let the player choose how his or her character is addressed.
Cause the foundry is the Red-headed Step child...
The only new stuff we get is Added by a few specific Devs, on their unpaid Personal Time.
I totally agree with you on character connection. It is a huge part of what makes Star Trek great.
Sadly, we just don't have the tools in the Foundry to really do this - the only recurring characters are our own Captain and Bridge Officers. (and that's why Toven Khev is so controversial)
However, I think Helna is a shinning example of how close we can get - especially since Cryptic was foresighted enough to actually make her into a DOff. But remember, she was slowly introduced (to your crew) through number of missions - she didn't start out as a part and parcel veteran member of your crew the very first time you met her.
If you do choose to tread the 'Tovan Khev' minefield and make up crew members for players, perhaps introduce them as temporary duty officers - that could possibly become long standing crewmates. It gives players the option as to whether or not include them.
Another really good example of making character connections with our limited Foundry tools is XR377's Amanda Barclay. She is so well written, but not 'forced' into a player's backstory. To be honest, I'm really surprised the dev team hasn't made her a DOff too.
Unfortunately, to truly do personal, touching stories about a player's crew needs an in-depth knowledge of each specific character. That just isn't possible given the nature of the game and the tools we have available. But Helna and Brocoli prove that we can get really close when NPCs are introduced gradually to character's 'personal space'.
Yeah that was kind of an issue when I did Catastrophe at Cait. Because several of the crewmembers were either already introduced (like the previously mentioned Helna or GreenDragoon's squadron from In the Shadow of MIDAS), but it was so far into the main story that it was too late to really do a proper introduction for them (though Miran, Bautista, and Glem Trav did). I was actually planning on getting a huge team of foundry authors to help co-write a crew transfer mission where the rest were introduced (and I'm adding one through plotline in my newest mission, but he's really really new).
Yeah that was kind of an issue when I did Catastrophe at Cait. Because several of the crewmembers were either already introduced (like the previously mentioned Helna or GreenDragoon's squadron from In the Shadow of MIDAS), but it was so far into the main story that it was too late to really do a proper introduction for them (though Miran, Bautista, and Glem Trav did). I was actually planning on getting a huge team of foundry authors to help co-write a crew transfer mission where the rest were introduced (and I'm adding one through plotline in my newest mission, but he's really really new).
And introduced several Caitian recurrers as a set up to several future missions including a Caitian/Ferasan three parter follow up to Honor of and a minor Romance subplot leading to something I'm not ready to reveal.
And introduced several Caitian recurrers as a set up to several future missions including a Caitian/Ferasan three parter follow up to Honor of and a minor Romance subplot leading to something I'm not ready to reveal.
So, if I might boil this down to some simple, actionable feedback that we could give to the devs, there are several ways the issue might be alleviated or at least helped.
1) Change to in-game ranks: Make it so that the player chooses what rank they are referred to any time the dialogue [Rank] tag is used. So a player who wants to be addressed as "captain" can select that, perhaps in the same menu where other titles are selected, and "captain" will appear any time the rank tag is used in both Cryptic or Foundry dialogue. This could be done as a purely roleplaying option, entirely independent of the functional rank and level system, or not, that's up to the devs.
2) Add a tag to the Foundry for [Title] which links to the player's chosen title. This allows an extra tool on top of the existing [Rank] and other tags for Foundry authors to use, accepting that, like with the other tags, it may not exactly fit everyone's roleplaying notions.
3) Both.
I personally think the rest of the discussion (like fitting into RP crews, writing neutral dialogue, etc) are really things that each Foundry author needs to think about and choose on their own.
Adding of the Title Tag would be Nice.... but who knows if it would ever happen.
Also... I play and Admiral... not a Captain.
Well, whether it "ever happens" or not is not in our power. But is not the point of these forums to provide feedback to Cryptic on things they could do? To my mind the best way to accomplish that is to discuss, and then boil it down to the bullet points and try and get that to the attention of Trendy/the devs.
I have my own issues with my character being automatically 'Admiral' as well - Always RP'ed her as a Captain, and that's the way I like it, and not going to change that. So being called 'Admiral' this and that, in every mission is bothersome for me, as well & I totally ignore it, just like I don't consider the story-missions from Cryptic, for most part, as my character's background.
The thing being here, that above it is my preference & imho nothing wrong with that. The core issue here being - Until the Devs allow for some feature, to let the Foundry Authors get around that, and let people to choose their actual character rank, that they'd be referred as, as an alternative - it's unfair to bash the Foundry missions and their authors for using the [Rank] variable, no matter how much we dislike it.
It's unfortunate, but the Foundry authors can't think of the million possibilities every player thinks of and can think of, in terms of their preferences, when it comes to Crew complement, rank, etc, etc.
My advice would be, just look for missions which are, by default, compelling to you, by reading its' description and summary, perhaps relevant to you and your character's story, but don't judge too harshly, when it doesn't match your idea 100%, instead, look for things you enjoyed - as in the end, the Foundry Authors are making this in their free time; creating content for other players - and that deserves respect, not needless critism, borderline bashing or demands, especially in areas they really have no real power over, given the limitation of the Foundry/game.
*howgh*
[10:20] Your Lunge deals 4798 (2580) Physical Damage(Critical) to Tosk of Borg.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator "bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh." "Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness."~Day[9] "Your fun isn't wrong."~LaughingTrendy
To clarify - I was proposing a new (separate) "pulldown" specifically for [rank], which would have only the actual military ranks selectable. The same that are already granted automatically with levelling up, only that you would be able (if you prefer) to choose a lower rank than the one you would 'naturally' be entitiled to by level.
Yeah that's what I was thinking too, and I thought the natural place for that though would be right next to the title drop down menu. Sorry if that was confusing.
There is essentially only one mention of it in canon. Dax takes over on the Defiant for Sisko during the war, O'Brien says there's a tradition (he does not say it is a rule) for the commander of a ship to be called "captain" regardless of rank. They proceed to call her captain until she steps down in Favor the Bold.
At the end of the day there is no way to know what the player's preference is and no way to automatically follow it, thus it defaults to the author's preference.
The Motion Picture provides evidence as well. Kirk even begins wearing captain insignia once he takes command, despite being an admiral.
There is essentially only one mention of it in canon. Dax takes over on the Defiant for Sisko during the war, O'Brien says there's a tradition (he does not say it is a rule) for the commander of a ship to be called "captain" regardless of rank. They proceed to call her captain until she steps down in Favor the Bold.
At the end of the day there is no way to know what the player's preference is and no way to automatically follow it, thus it defaults to the author's preference.
The Motion Picture provides evidence as well. Kirk even begins wearing captain insignia once he takes command, despite being an admiral.
I always use 'Captain" in my Foundry missions. It is canon for the series upon which this game is based. That is my rationale, at any rate. As a long time author, I have accepted that pleasing everyone is not an option. You cannot tell a very interesting tale without occasionally stepping on toes. Everyone has their own experience with the characters they create, as is their right.
That being said, I have received one star reviews from players over the most minute detail, and worse, things that authors have absolutely no control over. As an author, I have developed a thick skin. People will take exception to things in your missions. There's no getting around it, whether it is mind numbingly bland, or finely detailed and specific. So, my objective is always to create the mission I want to play. If other people enjoy playing it, I get a great deal of satisfation. If they don't like it, there's nothing I can do. I did the best I could.
The Foundry(on Holodeck) will be 5 years old in March, I remember having STO open in 2 windows on my computer copying my first missions over to Holodeck from Tribble. I continue to make missions because I have a great time doing it. I would imagine that every author feels the same way. Nobody dedicates so much of their time to an activity they detest(unless it's for a paycheck, possibly). Foundry missions are not easy to create. It is work. So, sometimes when someone trashes your hard work because their operations officer used a contraction when he's an android, it has a tendency to irritate. Is it a valid point? To the player, it certainly is. Could the author have put in alternate dialog for every species possible? Maybe. Should he/she have to? I don't think so.
As Foundry authors, we have learned to continue doing what we do, and at times, taking various degrees of abuse over it. We learn to tolerate it. Players should also forgive a detail here and there without railing against the author because they could not read the player's mind. If the spelling is horrible, point it out. If there are horrible plot holes, that's a valid complaint. If that player's android officer used contractions, that's absolutely fine to point out as well. Just as long as the whole of that work isn't judged by a detail that the author could not possibly know. A 1star review is hard to make up. It takes many 5 Star ratings to bring the average back. Some authors are very concerned with it. I guess I'm saying to let the punishment fit the crime.
Currently, the only solution for the OP's issue is to play missions by authors who use Captain instead of [RANK]. If it is really a deal breaker, that's all you can do. The simple truth is that players will play what they like and authors will create what they like. As it should be.
Side note: Play Photonomy, the new 6 episode series by StarbaseUGC. I can promise the player will be called Captain in Part II.
Comments
Excuse me... but I worked very hard for my Gingerbro title.
Oh, I hear ya, Hunter. And I do appreciate it. And I agree that Cryptic needs to allow us to choose whether or not we're called Captains or Admirals (I personally like the idea of a compromise of a level cap increase to 61 after we beat a certain mission we get knocked down to Captain ala Kirk to end the debate).
But the point I was trying to make is, I can't account for every person's roleplay, either. For instance, you made the point about your crew being Andorian. That's great!
Problem is, that I wouldn't be able to tell a lower decks story because lots of people have species specific crews like that. Its an unnecessary burden on the content creator. And I'm sure Cryptic feels the same way. Look at Tovan Khev: he was an attempt to even the playing field so that Cryptic could tell a personal story about one of your crew. And then people got mad about it.
And the sad part is, K'Gan and Elisa Flores were much better received, but now can't get character development over it. I feel like its gotten rid of many great stories that the dev team could have told.
There's a fine line in giving players freedom to do what they want and telling a good story. And often times, those two elements are diametrically opposed.
(And PS, I wasn't going hard on you out of anger or anything. I felt your review was a good example of showing how RP can cause problems with certain stories told in an interactive medium)
TRIBBLE Hydra! Hail Janeway!
That's just the thing. We as Foundry authors should try to be as neutral as possible when it comes to player's personal space (Bridge Officers, Ships, Dialog addressing, Careers, etc.) because we can't anticipate everything a character might be who is playing the mission. (Starbase UGC has some really good material on this subject).
Writing detailed NPCs is wonderful; it sets good content apart from mediocre content. The mistake is trying to 'force' them into a player's life (the Toven Khev example you cited perfectly illustrates this).
In your mission, a simple fix for the above would be to simply have the Pathfinder boarded instead of the player's ship and the player beam over to assist their crew (all of which could be accomplished with just a couple of text changes). That way the player can still meet the cool NPCs - who are now Pathfinder crewmembers - thus removing the Toven Khev factor along with avoiding having you as an author trying to second guess every conceivable variation that might pop up. i.e. weirdos playing all Andorian crews. :P
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
That misses the entire point of the story. They boarded YOUR ship because YOU are the threat. Not the Pathfinder.
And honestly, you cite Tovan as a mistake. Let me counter that by pointing to Star Trek episodes. Best of Both Worlds wasn't just a story about the Borg. It was primarily a story about Commander Riker overcoming his doubts and proving that he was ready for the big chair.
Likewise, Amok Time wouldn't have worked if it was some random Vulcan going through it. We cared, because it was Spock. And Spock is our friend. Mirror, Mirror worked because it was looking at mirror evil images of people we knew and loved. DS9 is basically an entire series based around character connections.
So this argument of "Don't touch our crews" strips out roughly half of the most important elements in a successful Star Trek series. A personal connection to the characters.
And its not the first time that the foundry has done successful player crewmen. Ensign Helna probably is the greatest example. Originally by Havraha, she's found her way into literally dozens of Foundry missions as well as becoming a duty officer and even showing up on the Federation Science Captain character select screen. Heck, she was the mascot for the Foundry when it went offline thanks to the whole Season 4 debacle.
If you don't like it, thats fine. And I want to make that clear. But you're also asking to strip out some of the Star Trek from the Foundry when you make this request. And honestly, its part of what's hurting STO as a whole. Because we've been given so much freedom as characters in this game, now they can't do personal, touching missions about your crew. Which is essential in ANY Star Trek series. The Original Series did it, TNG did it. DS9 did it. Voyager did it. Enterprise did it. Heck, even JJ Trek has had elements of it.
You don't have to like it, but I'm not gonna stop writing it, because its Star Trek. And I want to tell Star Trek stories that are not big battle sequences or exploring the alien of the week.
Also, just as a pragmatic aside, it also means that you could never call reinforcments from your ship thanks to the randomness of the NPCs if I followed your request.
TRIBBLE Hydra! Hail Janeway!
I totally agree with you on character connection. It is a huge part of what makes Star Trek great.
Sadly, we just don't have the tools in the Foundry to really do this - the only recurring characters are our own Captain and Bridge Officers. (and that's why Toven Khev is so controversial)
However, I think Helna is a shinning example of how close we can get - especially since Cryptic was foresighted enough to actually make her into a DOff.
If you do choose to tread the 'Tovan Khev' minefield and make up crew members for players, perhaps introduce them as temporary duty officers - that could possibly become long standing crewmates. It gives players the option as to whether or not include them.
Another really good example of making character connections with our limited Foundry tools is XR377's Amanda Barclay. She is so well written, but not 'forced' into a player's backstory. To be honest, I'm really surprised the dev team hasn't made her a DOff too.
Unfortunately, to truly do personal, touching stories about a player's crew needs an in-depth knowledge of each specific character. That just isn't possible given the nature of the game and the tools we have available. But Helna and Brocoli prove that we can get really close when NPCs are introduced gradually to character's 'personal space'.
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
Cause the foundry is the Red-headed Step child...
The only new stuff we get is Added by a few specific Devs, on their unpaid Personal Time.
Yeah that was kind of an issue when I did Catastrophe at Cait. Because several of the crewmembers were either already introduced (like the previously mentioned Helna or GreenDragoon's squadron from In the Shadow of MIDAS), but it was so far into the main story that it was too late to really do a proper introduction for them (though Miran, Bautista, and Glem Trav did). I was actually planning on getting a huge team of foundry authors to help co-write a crew transfer mission where the rest were introduced (and I'm adding one through plotline in my newest mission, but he's really really new).
TRIBBLE Hydra! Hail Janeway!
You did a Caitian mission?
And introduced several Caitian recurrers as a set up to several future missions including a Caitian/Ferasan three parter follow up to Honor of and a minor Romance subplot leading to something I'm not ready to reveal.
TRIBBLE Hydra! Hail Janeway!
Interesting.
1) Change to in-game ranks: Make it so that the player chooses what rank they are referred to any time the dialogue [Rank] tag is used. So a player who wants to be addressed as "captain" can select that, perhaps in the same menu where other titles are selected, and "captain" will appear any time the rank tag is used in both Cryptic or Foundry dialogue. This could be done as a purely roleplaying option, entirely independent of the functional rank and level system, or not, that's up to the devs.
2) Add a tag to the Foundry for [Title] which links to the player's chosen title. This allows an extra tool on top of the existing [Rank] and other tags for Foundry authors to use, accepting that, like with the other tags, it may not exactly fit everyone's roleplaying notions.
3) Both.
I personally think the rest of the discussion (like fitting into RP crews, writing neutral dialogue, etc) are really things that each Foundry author needs to think about and choose on their own.
Am I close to the mark here?
Also... I play and Admiral... not a Captain.
Well, whether it "ever happens" or not is not in our power. But is not the point of these forums to provide feedback to Cryptic on things they could do? To my mind the best way to accomplish that is to discuss, and then boil it down to the bullet points and try and get that to the attention of Trendy/the devs.
The thing being here, that above it is my preference & imho nothing wrong with that. The core issue here being - Until the Devs allow for some feature, to let the Foundry Authors get around that, and let people to choose their actual character rank, that they'd be referred as, as an alternative - it's unfair to bash the Foundry missions and their authors for using the [Rank] variable, no matter how much we dislike it.
It's unfortunate, but the Foundry authors can't think of the million possibilities every player thinks of and can think of, in terms of their preferences, when it comes to Crew complement, rank, etc, etc.
My advice would be, just look for missions which are, by default, compelling to you, by reading its' description and summary, perhaps relevant to you and your character's story, but don't judge too harshly, when it doesn't match your idea 100%, instead, look for things you enjoyed - as in the end, the Foundry Authors are making this in their free time; creating content for other players - and that deserves respect, not needless critism, borderline bashing or demands, especially in areas they really have no real power over, given the limitation of the Foundry/game.
*howgh*
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator
"bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh."
"Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness." ~Day[9]
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Yeah that's what I was thinking too, and I thought the natural place for that though would be right next to the title drop down menu. Sorry if that was confusing.
The Motion Picture provides evidence as well. Kirk even begins wearing captain insignia once he takes command, despite being an admiral.
Yes, that's a longstanding Navy tradition.
That being said, I have received one star reviews from players over the most minute detail, and worse, things that authors have absolutely no control over. As an author, I have developed a thick skin. People will take exception to things in your missions. There's no getting around it, whether it is mind numbingly bland, or finely detailed and specific. So, my objective is always to create the mission I want to play. If other people enjoy playing it, I get a great deal of satisfation. If they don't like it, there's nothing I can do. I did the best I could.
The Foundry(on Holodeck) will be 5 years old in March, I remember having STO open in 2 windows on my computer copying my first missions over to Holodeck from Tribble. I continue to make missions because I have a great time doing it. I would imagine that every author feels the same way. Nobody dedicates so much of their time to an activity they detest(unless it's for a paycheck, possibly). Foundry missions are not easy to create. It is work. So, sometimes when someone trashes your hard work because their operations officer used a contraction when he's an android, it has a tendency to irritate. Is it a valid point? To the player, it certainly is. Could the author have put in alternate dialog for every species possible? Maybe. Should he/she have to? I don't think so.
As Foundry authors, we have learned to continue doing what we do, and at times, taking various degrees of abuse over it. We learn to tolerate it. Players should also forgive a detail here and there without railing against the author because they could not read the player's mind. If the spelling is horrible, point it out. If there are horrible plot holes, that's a valid complaint. If that player's android officer used contractions, that's absolutely fine to point out as well. Just as long as the whole of that work isn't judged by a detail that the author could not possibly know. A 1star review is hard to make up. It takes many 5 Star ratings to bring the average back. Some authors are very concerned with it. I guess I'm saying to let the punishment fit the crime.
Currently, the only solution for the OP's issue is to play missions by authors who use Captain instead of [RANK]. If it is really a deal breaker, that's all you can do. The simple truth is that players will play what they like and authors will create what they like. As it should be.
Side note: Play Photonomy, the new 6 episode series by StarbaseUGC. I can promise the player will be called Captain in Part II.
You can Always start a new thread and link the old one, but don't wake up the Zombies.