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Archive for May, 2012

Both editing and playing Foundry missions became an impossibility for about eight hours Wednesday afternoon and evening. People began noticing the Foundry had gone offline about 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (6:30 p.m. GMT). A short time later PWE_BranFlakes made this post in the Federation News Network section of the official forums.

Hi Captains,

The Foundry for Star Trek Online is currently unavailable. The team is aware of this and will provide updates to this thread as they become available.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

UPDATE #1 (1:37pm PDT): This applies to both editing and playing Foundry projects.

BranFlakes later said the team was working to bring the Foundry back up with a target time of 7 p.m. Pacific Time, which was later revised to 8 p.m., though he warned that it could be either earlier or later.

Reports started coming in about 8:30 p.m. that the Foundry was back online. BranFlakes updated his thread on the official forums sometime later.

UPDATE #4 (9:08pm PDT): The Foundry for Star Trek Online is now available for use, including both the editing and playing of projects. If you see any irregularities with any of your missions (which you shouldn’t), please send me a PM with your mission name, project code, and what’s wrong. I will not be able to respond to PMs, but I will pass along the information to the team.

Also on Wednesday, at least two people reported entire maps missing from their Foundry projects. A hitherto unknown dev called “isomorphism” made this post:

I really appreciate your prompt report. An operational problem caused sudden Foundry data loss that affected a fairly random selection of projects. With the information you provided, we were able to very quickly isolate the issue.

We’ve been working on repairing this issue all day. When we bring the Foundry back online, your project will be totally intact.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and the scare of seeing all of your hard work mysteriously missing.

I encourage all authors to check their missions. As BranFlakes stated in his thread, anyone who experiences any problems should PM him with the mission name, project code and what’s wrong. It may also be prudent not to publish anything important for a day or so to make sure all the problems have been ironed out.

You are tasked with a search and rescue of a Tellarite freighter gone missing, but
the truth you uncover is a secret that great powers would rather you didn’t find.

Project ID: ST-HTZBMWIRJ
Level: Any
Note: Best played solo, and more fun with an EVA suit, but not a requirement.

With two new group events on tribble, is time to look what’s new on holo foundry side.

Fed Side:

Skrreean Defense by Corran_Thorran

Liberating Laborers by sherbet_lemon

8472 Manifest Destiny by Lancer_Solurus

The Ambri Directorate: Part III by XerosArmera

Endeavour by slickrick1701

I.T.P.A by AdmiralMurphy

KDF side:

KDF: Borg Blitz by PuppetX

Obtain Borg Tech for the Empire by Zeuxidemus

Now if you have a mission coming out this week please let us know by leaving a comment below or go to the forums and leave a post in the thread called promote your foundry mission. And remember a victor is still a victor against holo-grams

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Hello StarbaseUGC users and fellow Foundry Authors,

Recently you might have heard STOked is having its finale this Saturday, June 2nd. It will then be turning into an audio show. For those of you who have seen Foundry Files for about the last year, you will have known that we had a major break where there was no segment. The avoid this in the future we are spinning it off into its own video show that will be occurring on a weekly basis. It will still be basically the same format as before. We might be changing it up just a bit as we discuss the transition to its own show.

More news on Foundry Files will be available once we do our last segment on STOked, where we will be reviewing “The Mayns of Balnar Moon.” So, if you haven’t yet submitted your mission for review to Foundry Files, go ahead and send us yours at foundryfiles@jupiterforce.net. If you have any questions to, feel free to contact us at that email as well. We will try to hit as many missions as we can from you guys as the show goes on. Thanks to everyone over here for your support in the segment over the last year, and for those who are lending a hand in the transition. From all of us at Foundry Files, we wish you luck in your continued authoring of Foundry Missions! See you out there!

Bitesize reviews the final entry into the Gates of Stovokor mission contest

Endeavour

 

Space the final frontier, these are the voyages of the Star Ship Endeavour. Her continuous mission to explore strange new worlds to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

 

It has been over 8 years since we have had a new Star Trek series. 8 years since we have had any new stories from the prime universe. Yes we have had the newest Star Trek movie that came out in 2009, and yes we have STO set in the prime universe, but since the end of Enterprise we really have had no new characters to get to know. We have had no new adventures to see a Star Ship Captain embark on. That has all changed, with the new series I call Star Trek Endeavour.

 

It is set 8 years prior to the events in Star Trek Online. The series picks up with the continuing story of Bajor, and as such has some of the themes from DS9. The series is centered around Captain Ro Aerrow, son of Ro Laren. He was left on Bajor when he was born shortly before Ro Laren left to join Starfleet.

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I saw this on Cryptic’s website.  I’d really like to encourage experienced Foundry authors to keep applying for this position, if you’re interested.  Let’s give the devs a good showing from our community here.

LINK.

Game Designer – Content
Careers

Cryptic Studios is currently seeking a full-time Content Designer. This design position is responsible for creating fun and balanced missions and environments for massively multiplayer online games. Content design involves creation of diverse zones for public spaces and missions in MMOGs. The content designer duties will include whiteboxing level layouts, populating areas with critters and scripting behaviors and events.

Every day you could be:

  • Contributing to the design of the story and events to realize the vision of the creative director and lead designer on the project.
  • Creating specific world events for each zone.
  • Implementing text and assets to create fun and interesting missions.
  • Balancing and tuning game play in each mission or area.
  • Providing an example of professionalism and excellence to the rest of the team.

 

Things we’d like to see:

  • Experience designing and implementing large numbers of game assets.
  • Experience with video game story implementation.
  • Experience in platform and fighting games as a player or designer.
  • Two or more years of industry experience.
  • Experience with 3D Studio MAX.
  • Shipped at least one previous game title.
  • MMP experience as a player or designer.
  • Comic book knowledge.
  • Veteran game player.
  • Published writing.
  • Bachelor’s degree.

If you have made a UGC Foundry mission in Star Trek Online, let us know so we can check it out. Include the name of the mission and your author name in your cover letter and or resume and we will take a look. 
For those not familiar with the Foundry, it’s a User Generated Content  tool in Star Trek online that allows players to create robust missions for the community to play. The Foundry tool is based on Cryptic mission tools so it will give you an idea of how missions are created. Your submission will help us evaluate your mission authoring skills required for this position. Please note this is not a requirement to apply.

Reposted and expanded from the announcement:

 

 

 

This week’s spotlight is “Time the Enemy” by Havraha.

Faction: Klingon
Level Requirement: Any
Mission Summary: On a routine mission to expand the Klingon Empire’s influence, how will your crew perform when it stumbles upon a new threat?

To play this Foundry mission, log onto a Klingon character, open your Mission Journal (J), choose the ‘Available’ tab from the top, and then click on the ‘Community Authored’ tab from the left. Once in this menu, click the arrow at the top to bring down the search function and search for ”Havraha”. Once the mission ”Time the Enemy” by Havraha appears, click on it and press the ‘Hail’ button on the bottom-right of the Mission Journal to accept the mission.

 

For more information about the Foundry, including how to play community-authored Foundry missions and resources on how to create your own mission, check out this Guest Blog.

Foundry Spotlight Missions Index

Link to the forum post

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  • Mission Titles:  (1) Katra  -  (2) Katra: Continued
  • Author:  Woody_Valley
  • Project ID:  (1) ST-HQDDE055W  -  (2) ST-HMMAQYQR
  • Allegiance: Federation
  • Level: Any level

 

Set around a diplomatic mission between the Vulcans and the Remans, which you have been requested to be involved in. While on the journey to meet the Remans you have been ambushed by the Klingon Empire, causing an interesting turn of events.

Overview:

These two missions have suspense and action, all leading to an interesting journey into Vulcan mysticism. The storyline is interesting and keeps you wondering where it will lead as it progresses to the conclusion. The author does a good job portraying one of Vulcan’s oldest and most mysterious ceremonies.

Format:

This 2-Part mission is set up nicely to follow the intended storyline. Woody broke it into two parts to give the player the option of completing it at a later time which makes it nice for those of us who are pressed for time. A very nicely formatted mission.

Locations:

The maps in this mission are extremely well constructed. The temple on Mt. Seleya is quite impressive, and obviously took a good deal of time and effort to get the great visuals it offers. The NPC characters in the maps are very well done and their positioning is vital in the scenario. The visuals with the NPC’s bring back memories of TOS (The Old Series) and the related movies.

Summary:

The references to the old series and the movies really made this mission enjoyable for me. Delving into the Vulcan ceremony on Mt. Seleya really sealed the deal as far as the story goes. Woody cleverly utilized the Foundry to recreate something from Star Trek lore. Even with the limitations of the Foundry tools, he managed to do a great and convincing job building the ancient temple on Vulcan. If you like old series references and stories regarding Vulcan mysticism, with an additional story and combat thrown in, I recommend you try it.

My Rating:  Both missions average 4.5 Stars

 
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A simple diplomatic mission to a Gamma Quadrant World Minotaur that was only supposed to be a short mission now seems like it will take ages as you are pulled into a new mission in the past by time travelers from the futrue. The Intergalatic Time Protection Agency from the 31st Century has recruited you to investigate changing events in the past that lead to the Federation’s destruction. It’s up to you to discover the hidden masterminds behind this dark plot, before everything you know is wiped from time. Travel through time, both to the future, the past, and your present, as you take on the role of a temporal agent, a take a role in stopping enemy forces in the Temporal Cold War. Will you be able to however protect your crew from the advanced forces of the future?

This five part series is packed with loads of ground combat, some space combat, investigation, puzzles throughout the series, new custom maps, new villains and allies, and a great story that anyone who loves time travel will enjoy. Prepare to be gifted the power of a temporal agent, and protect the timeline.


 The truth doesn’t just hurt – it stings. Nico was going to learn this very soon. Standing in front of him, on the 10th floor outside the conference room in an office building in the city of Tyoko, was the man he had been trying to catch for the past week, but instead of capturing him, Nico was the one that was captured. Nico’s brilliant plan had failed, and now he was in the hands of the man he was sent to stop. This man, had traveled back in time, and like everyone else who Nico had to capture and arrest, this man was altering the timeline for his own needs, or at least he thought it was this man…
    “Well, Nico, it looks like your plan to capture me has gone horribly wrong. What a shame…” Standing behind Nico now, holding plasma rifles brought from the 28th Century were two tall Japanese men, and they did not have a friendly look on their face, especially the one with the big scar on the left side of his face, going across his eye. Nico replied, “Yoshio, you can’t think for a minute you could outwit the I.T.P.A.” Yoshio laughed, “Oh but I have, one of the founders and leaders of the I.T.P.A., one of its best agents has been defeated and captured by me, and I doubt is was because of a flaw in your program.” Yoshio took a look at Nico’s mobile emitter, and made a dark, evil smile. “I’ve always wanted my own holographic minion, and with a few modifications to your programming…” Nico interrupted, “I honestly do hope that you are being sarcastic right now, because I doubt you would be able to hack into my programming.” Yoshio laughing some more replied, “We shall see. I wonder what the I.T.P.A. will be able to do if you were now against them…”
    Yoshio signalled the two men standing behind Nico to move forward and capture Nico, but just as they were about to step forward the portable communications device of the 21st century on Yoshio began to play music, signalling that he was getting a call. He picked up the device and signaled his men to hold position while he answered the call. Nico couldn’t understand what was being said, since whoever was talking to him could barely be heard over to sound of weapons fire in the background. Yoshio closed the device and looked up at Nico in anger.
    “You think your fellow I.T.P.A. agents will be able to save you and capture me? Well, you’re mistaken. Yoshio took out a small device, green with a small screen to interact on, and said, “Just by the push of this button, the entire Yoshio Industries will go up flames, along with you and your agents, especially since once the self destruct countdown begins, the emitters set up in the entire building will prevent any temporal rifts from forming so you can escape…”
    Before Yoshio could finish yet another monologue however, Nico did an almost impossible back-flip, knocking the two Japanese men that were approaching him yet again. The rifles in their hands were knocked out of their hands and on to the floor, and just as that was happening Yoshio ordered his men to stop Nico from escaping from the building, and pressed a button on the pad. He suddenly disappeared into a temporal rift, and was gone, and shortly after that the dampening field was up around the entire building.

Nico was on the run and hit his wrist device to contact headquarters. Just as Nico was about to say anything whoever he contacted at headquarters interrupted, “I know what your about to say chief, but I because of the dampening field we won’t be able to create a rift in the space time continuum to beam you back to base. You’ll have to get out of the building so we can open up a rift. The problem is the building is going to explode on the 2nd floor, and the entire place will collapse as it says here in the historical database. You have exactly 30 seconds, sir!”

Nico rounded the corner and assured the agent that he was talking to that he would be back at headquarters soon, and to prepare a temporal rift to catch him. The agent responded, saying, “Wait, to catch you?”

Nico was now rounding another corner at the edge of the building and shouted, “Now!” He suddenly smashed through one of the windows and began to plummet toward the bustling streets of Tyoko from 10th floor of the Yoshio Industries building. Screaming into his I.T.P.A. wrist watch, “Right Now!” he began to hope the agent got the idea before he hit the ground, and his mobile emitter was crushed by some primitive vehicle, destroying his program along with it. He was relieved when suddenly a dark teal swirling vortex formed below him, slightly above the street. He fell into the temporal vortex, now safe from the fall…

This is a long episode, folks! I removed the variable bit rate from the encoding because I was getting reports that people weren’t actually being able to jump forward and backward on the mp3 to the correct points in the show, and this only popped up when VBR did, so logic dictates that no VBR should fix this. It’ll also make the show larger in file size but hey, you delete em when you’re done, right?

The big highlight of the episode this week is the EULA clarifications, which we quickly discover spiral out of control when inconsistencies between the game and the Foundry are explored! A whole new can of worms open up here! Additionally, we explore Chris and Mav’s frustration on STOked and how much it means for Cryptic, the latest art reveal for fleet starbases, Terry goes on a massive rant over the direction of the game on the whole, and I revisit Ferasans to discuss not so much how they look … but why no one is buying them. O_o

And finally, the winners of the Galor Class Contest is announced!

Click here to listen to the Podcast!
Right click and select “save as” to download the mp3

Show Notes
-EULA Clarifications — Cool, but … well … just listen.
-STOked is mad!
-Fleet Starbase Art
-Terry’s Massive Game Direction Rant
-Ferasans: Why do you avoid what you like and buy what you hate? Plus, butterfly earrings.
-The Winners of the Galor Contest!

Reviews
KDF – “The Last Centurion” by chooch99

Mailbag – Email us and send us mission recommendations to podcastugc@starbaseugc.com !

END OF SHOW

Podcast UGC is distributed for free in mp3 format on www.starbaseugc.com and iTunes. Podcast UGC is syndicated on Trek Radio and Subspace Radio. It’s aired live on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern on www.trekradio.net and www.justin.tv/podcastugc. Any other distribution or airings of Podcast UGC is strictly prohibited without permission. Star Trek and Star Trek Online are the rights of their respected owners.

For this week’s “Founder Spotlight,” we sat down with Woghd.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q:  You are the author of Grazorak City, which was one of the winners of the second Foundry challenge. Can you tell us more about this mission, what inspired it, and what you hope players will get from it?

The last thing I ever expected to happen was for Grazorak City to win that competition. I only entered it as a lark. The competition entry period just happened to line up with when I was about to publish. And just happened to be on the same subject as my mission. (time loops), and on top of all that everyone was begging me to enter it. So I held off for a few days and entered it into the contest. I never expected it to win.  After all, this was my first effort at creating a foundry mission!

Grazorak City has it’s roots in tabletop roleplay. Back in the early 80′s, I was a gamemaster for a Star-Trek based table-top RPG. Grazorak City was sort of a central point around where a lot of the adventures were based, much in the same way that DS9 is the central hub of the adventures of that series. I still have all of the maps I drew out, and all of the NPC sheets I used. As a result Grazorak City had an advantage in the competition because all of the characters were fleshed out with complete backstories, etc. Many of the comments on that mission state that the characters seem alive, or “come to life”. I believe this is why. I GM’d those characters and that environment for 20 years, and I’m sure it shows.

The reason that I created Grazorak City in the first place was just so I could have a place for my character to hang out. I had a lot of preconceptions in my mind about the foundry at that time, being a beginner. For example, I assumed that I could move back and forth between maps. I really thought I’d be able to recreate Grazorak City from my maps and be able to walk around in it. It soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to happen. I don’t like to waste work, so I took what I had and fashioned it into an adventure starring Duft Grazorak and a host of other characters from the old days. I hope that players get a sense of true-life from it. I love the comments where players say that for a few moments they forgot they were playing a game. That kind of immersion is what I am shooting for. It’s good to know that people can play out the scenario and forget their troubles for a while.

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Borg Blitz Banner

 

The Borg presence in the T’Kanis nebula is a well known thorn in the side of the Klingon Empire, but things are about to get a whole lot worse. Borg numbers have suddenly greatly increased, and a full blown invasion of the Omega Leonis sector is imminent. Even the Federation is feeling the threat. Things are looking dire, but is this really a no win situation?

A mix of story and combat and a lot of (optional) dialogue… with a twist.

 

The mission setting doesn’t take itself too seriously, but thought went to the background story and the maps do attempt to provide an honest challenge on various fronts.

As the author I invite you to enjoy and please provide honest feedback, so I can improve on my authoring skills for the future.

Cheers!

@PuppetX

STO wiki page

With the KDF getting their own furries, its time to look at at what else is new.

Fed side:

Life Absorbed by chaddy18

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Dom_Paris

Sacrifice by KyetoX

The Ambri Directorate: Part II by XerosArmera

Lost by lafiat

The Coming of the Swarm by The-Borg

Oparation Lightning by mars012

Crossing Paths by Deetax

Night Fury by Darthtrepid

KDF side:

The Grail of Kahless by Kirkfat

Raktajino in a Jar by drogyn1701

A Symphony of Wind and Darkness by jojobevco

Argus Array Sabotage Daily by Duke-of-Rock

Now if you have a mission out this week please let us know by leaving a comment below or go the forums and leave a post in the thread called promote your foundry mission. And remember a cat may change its coat but it still a cat.

 

Puzzles are sort of the red-headed step child of the Foundry. Sometimes people don’t know what you can do with them othertimes people just don’t know how they can create them. This is where this tutorial comes in to play.

Created by Bazag for StarbaseUGC.com

 

 

CaptPFDennis and Kirkfat review The Last Centurion by Chooch99
It’s the second entry into the Gates of Stovokor mission contest.

Mission: The Grail of Kahless

LVL: 31+

Faction: KDF

Genre: Combat, with light reading

Description:  A Cardassian Gul claims to have discovered the sacred Grail of Kahless.  You are sent to retrieve this holy relic.  Will it finally unite the empire under the emperor, as foretold by prophecy?  Find out more.

Author’s note:  This is a fairly short mission, with very moderate reading involved.  It is designed for team play, with very few popups interrupting story or space battles.  Enjoy!

In this episode, Bazag and Galactrix playthrough “Grazorak City” by woghd, one of the joint winners of the Foundry Challenge #2.

If you missed the live version of the show, you can watch it (now in HD!) on YouTube above.

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There seems to be a bit of ferment in the world of STO these days.  I mostly have in mind the uncertain future of Featured   Episodes and the likelihood of post-season-6 Cryptic-made story missions.  It looks like there’s a good possibility that some of the major plotlines of the game might be left hanging.

On top of that, I’ve seen some recent discussion in the STO forums (which I don’t visit often, but have been browsing lately because I’m curious) about the role of the Foundry in expanding on the game’s content.   I’m pretty sure that’s a role that most Foundry authors can wholeheartedly embrace, whatever their feelings about the Cryptic’s responsibilities to provide more than systems and frameworks for the game.

It was in thinking about these two issues that I had an idea.

What about a challenge to the Foundry community to continue the Iconian story arc?

Now, I’m not proposing a contest.  In that case, my concern would be that after the winner, well, wins, what about the rest of the entrants?  I’m becoming increasingly convinced these days that one of the biggest strengths of the Foundry is that it offers so much variety and so many different kinds of creations.  There are pressures enough to pick out particular missions, either to give the Foundry a face for those who don’t know about it or to provide guidance in lieu of a decent search engine.  I’d like to encourage diversity.

Instead, I’m imagining a block of missions that can be promoted together, maybe identifiable by a word or phrase in the title or summary.

The interesting thing about the Iconians to me is that they provide a pretty blank slate at the moment.  Maybe they’re the next big villain.  Maybe they’re misunderstood.  Maybe the “Iconians” aren’t really Iconians at all, but rather someone who happened to figure out how their gates work, doesn’t really have the ability to begin a major invasion of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and is using their name to inspire awe and fear.  I’m sure players will prefer some visions of the Iconians to others, but I think it would be a shame to close down all that possibility by establishing some ground rules as a community or by singling any one mission out as the best.

That also brings up one of the potential sacrifices of working in this vein.  I imagine it’s unlikely that any Iconian-focused mission would ever be officially recognized by Cryptic (for instance, chosen as a spotlight winner) no matter how good.  If they have any hope of continuing the arc, I expect they’ll want to do it in their own way.  At some point, Foundry attempts to move the story forward are going to be replaced.

But, in the meantime, taking up this biggest of all loose threads would be an excellent way of showing what the Foundry can do for the game as a whole.  Granted, getting most players to notice this will be a challenge in itself, but that is a larger discussion.

At the moment, I was just hoping to gauge interest in this possibility.  So what do you all think?

 

 As I was goin’ over
The Cowrk and Ke’Ri Mountains
I saw Captain Ferel, and his money he was countin’

I first produced my pistol, and then produced my Bat’Leth
I said, “Stand and deliver! Or Fek’Lhr he may take you!”

My second new mission in as many weeks is now live!.

Mission Name: Raktajino in a Jar
Author: drogyn1701
Level: 16+
Start: Ganalda System, Eta Eridani Sector Block

Summary: Taking a Ferengi captain’s stash of gold-pressed latinum sounds like great idea, right? Think again! Accused of murder most foul, you must navigate treacherous females, the Ferengi legal system and the psychotic filled prison to get free of the mess you created.

A fairly quick story mission with a mix of talking and combat.

Made for the Gates of Sto’vo’kor Ferengi contest!

Some pictures after the break:
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Dreams of Salvation

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