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Where No Man Has Gone Before

Captain's Blog Stardate 92673.13

I heard the Foundry was getting an update, and got really excited... then read about the update and was less excited. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool and a great idea, just not what I was hoping for. With this new feature, called the Top Three System, you can fly up to any system in sector space and a list of three of the top rated foundry missions will appear. Choose one, read the description, accept or decline it. It's almost like being able to actually explore the galaxy!

The good thing is that the list will refresh every few hours so there will always be different Foundry missions to play. I do, however, have two concerns. The first is that not every highly rated Foundry mission is a story. There are a lot of "kill this race" missions so people can get the accolades. While I understand their purpose (and have used them), they clutter the Foundry making it harder to find some of the missions with great stories.

With that being said, most of those "kill missions" (if not all) use a random console on ESD or Qo'noS, therefore we won't be seeing them at systems. Which leads me to my next point. Why would they do this only for sector space? If you're going to release something, make it complete. With this new system, any Foundry missions that doesn't start in sector space won't get the "free advertisement".

While it's not perfect, it is a step in the right direction. In my opinion, the next phase of this is to open a large Exploration Sector Block that we can transwarp to, which has a bunch of systems. It wouldn't exist in any specific location in the galaxy, nor would it be involved in any of STO's stories. Basically, it would be a clean slate. This would allow Foundry authors to role play in this zone. If we wanted to pretend it is the Gamma Quadrant or another galaxy, than we can.

What do you think about this "Top Three System" and my idea of an unattached exploration zone? While we're on the topic, what do you think about the Foundry in general?

Written by Attilio on January 26, 2015 at 07:13 am

Comments

TacPaddy (Member) said...
January 26, 2015 at 07:40 am

Well, I was not that thrilled either. However, it is like you said a free advertisement for the Foundry missions. Personally, it is my sincere hope that people will remind themselves of that nice thing called "Investigate Officer Reports (repeatable)" and start playing UGC instead of "whining" about the lack of new content. So in a way, it is really exploration.
Your idea of an Exploration Sector Block is intriguing and possibly exactly what Foundry Authors wanted for ages, because the Exits in the Foundry Editor are gravely unbalanced. Federation Authors having about twice as much possible Map Exits in Sector Space, than there are for KDF authors. That way your story-telling options are limited, especially if you want to create stories that are intended to be compatible for both Affiliations. On a side note, I really miss the opportunity to create Romulan only missions, after all we have three factions, each with a faction-specific story line, so why is it a limitation in the Foundry?

Anyway, I am going to use the opportunity to discover strange new UGC worlds, and boldly go where I haven't gone before.

Reply to TacPaddy

crm14916 (Member) said...
February 24, 2015 at 11:44 am

I think it's great! With three options at so many star systems, which rotate every so often, you can choose not to play the "kill" missions as you call them and only play story content. The UGC stuff has been well thought out and very creative, and gives players an opportunity to actually have an "episode du jour" rather than play the same stuff over and over like Cryptic would have us do. It gives more of a sense of the "exploration" than anything else has in the game, and I'm all for it. Like you said, it's a step in the right direction. And for this game, any time that happens, it's gotta be a positive thing!

:)

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