"Burning Bridges" - Reviewers Needed

Hello all. I've just published my first Foundry mission and would like you, my wonderful fleetmates, to officially review it (to help it become public) and offer any feedback you might have on how to improve the mission. I would absolutely appreciate any time you could spare for this.

Title: "Burning Bridges"
Author: Sturnack
Faction: Federation
Level Requirement: 16
Author's Notes: This mission should take around 30-35 minutes to complete.

As this is my first foray into the Foundry, please be kind. :) Thank you again!

Hey Sturnack,

I'll take a look this afternoon :o)

Would you like me to post feedback in this thread, or send it to you privately via an in-game mail?

Ali

Hey Ali! Thanks, I really appreciate you doing that. :) Whichever medium is easier for you works fine for me. :)

Just finished playing, and I really did enjoy the mission – nicely done!

In order to be constructive, I've noted some (really quite small) things that you might want to tinker with (see below).

But before that, hats off for your dialogue. I must say I enjoyed it, and I wasn't once tempted to skip. In particular the various contacts on the "Risa (Day)" beach map were very well characterised in their dialogue. Each character sounded different, and sounded true to their species (e.g. Ferengi, or Risian), and some of it made me smirk :o) Perhaps dialogue writing comes naturally to you, and/or perhaps you put a heck of a lot of work into getting it right, but however you got there – it works! Well done.

Now, the tiny niggles...


*** SPOILERS FOLLOW – look away if you're reading this and haven't already played the mission! ***


After entering the Risa system, the reach marker over Risa does not need to display the reach text "Now establishing orbit". The pop-up dialogue from my BOFF explains this anyway, and due to my HUD layout (which is pretty much the default layout) the reach text was overlaid on top of the BOFF dialogue, obscuring it temporarily.

I first noticed on the "Risa (Day)" map that you used Sentence Case in some (but not all) of the objectives (e.g. "Scan the Lodgings", "Scan the Hut"). The capital letters on "Lodgings", "Hut" etc aren't necessary, unless you meant them to be proper nouns. There were quite a few other instances of Sentence Case used in objectives and interact button on this and other maps.

After scanning the crystals in the Catian man's hut, there's a typo in the BOFF pop-up dialogue. In the first line of the second paragraph, change "...picking of traces..." to "...picking up traces...".

After using the quantum bridge for the first time and defeating the welcoming party on the Legosian planet, the BOFF pop-up dialogue mentioned that tricorders could not recognise the star patterns, and then said "which they can still see even though it's daytime on this planet". I didn't like this bit – it reads oddly, and could be removed without harming the dialogue at all. Just stop after star patterns, and don't state that tricorders can see them even though it's daytime.

Upon reaching the rear of the base, the interact button "Hack the door" disappears if you move too close to the door itself. If you achieved this with a volcanic flower or something hidden under the ground, it perhaps needs to be a bit closer to the door (or use one of the larger invisible objects). Later, I noticed this same problem with the "Activate Harmonic Pulse" button whilst inside the force field with the swarms of locals trying to get in; and again with the "Detonate Charges" button on the "Risa (Night)" beach at the end.

******

That's it – just small things really, and all meant to be very constructive.

Congratulations again on a well-written and very imaginative story, driven by some rather good character dialogue :o)

Ali :o)

Great job! Loved the ep. Offered a suggestion in my Foundry review. :)

@Ali: Thank you so much for such incredibly detailed feedback! Please know that your time in giving it has borne fruit. See the updates section below to find out all the changes I made thanks, in part, to your very thorough testing of my mission. :) I also appreciate all the compliments on the mission, especially in regards to the dialogue. I am a writer by trade (though I rarely get to do fiction) and really wanted to hit it out of the park in the story/characterization area.

@JTiegan: I read your comment in the review and wow, I totally forgot about the Kelvans and all the radiation building up in the Andromeda galaxy. Please see the updates section below (and even replay the mission, if you like) to find out how your valuable feedback resulted in an important change to the mission!

=/\= Updates and Bug Fixes =/\=

* Disabled Kerrik's ability to wander at seemingly super-Ferengi speed.

* Replaced invisible interact objects contained inside consoles already on the base map with glowing consoles in more obvious locations.

* Fixed an issue where an invisible barrier meant to prevent enemies from firing through the corridor wall resulted in pathing issues for BOFFs.

* Adjusted text on some of the objectives to be more clear.

* Removed "Reach" dialogue for establishing orbit around Risa. The BOFF dialogue establishes this anyway, making the reach text unnecessary.

* Fixed typo in BOFF dialogue when scanning the crystals in the Caitian's hut.

* Removed extraneous mention of tricorders being able to see star patterns even in daylight. This part of the dialogue was unnecessary and interrupted the flow of the dialogue.

* Corrected issues with mission text and interact text containing improper capitalization and inconsistent formatting.

* Moved "hack door" object closer to the door, resolving issues with users having to back away from the door in order to refind the prompt if they passed it.

* Altered the Caitian's dialogue tree to include references to the Kelvans, a race of people who left the Andromeda galaxy many years ago due to the toxic radiation levels building up there. The dialogue now answers the question "How are the Legosians alive with all that radiation?"

* Tied "Activate harmonic pulse" command to a larger invisible object underneath the ground, providing a much larger radius from which the pulse can be activated.

* Removed other extraneous reach text entries that unnecessarily repeated upcoming BOFF dialogue.

* Tied "Detonate charges" command to a larger invisible object underneath the ground, providing a much larger radius from which the detonation can be activated.

* Added additional dialogue after the bridge has been destroyed that confirms the destruction and resolves the "What if there are still Legosians on Risa?" question.

You're very welcome :o)

I work in publishing, so proofreading is a big part of my job. I've just realised, however, that I was ranting on about Sentence Case in my feedback, when in fact I meant Title Case. That'll be all the Pimms I've consumed this evening :-D

Let us know when you next publish a mission. I'd be happy to play more of your work.

Ali
x

I really liked it!

Just played this one tonight -- it was nice that the mission was a departure from the norm. I agree that the vacationers on the beach were well characterized. Interesting story -- I enjoyed it!

Thanks so much for all of the feedback guys! It is absolutely appreciated. :) I've made a lot of changes since the missions original launch to fix bugs and smooth out the playing experience. Thanks for contributing to making the mission much better along the way. :)