First off, no Hav, you’re not wrong. The pacing is definitely off and I agree with you there. I will say I’m sad only one of you played both missions before talking about it, because I was interested in what you all would have thought of the map design and mission direction with both sides in mind but, I don’t mind criticism or a bad review if I can agree with it. That said, (although we should always aim for 5 star) out the gate I expected this one to settle near 4.05 or so and the voting trend is aiming towards that being the case when it settles.

Two things contributed to the odd pacing, particularly of Daughter. The first is that, like you said, it could have been distributed as two missions just due to the First Contact part. It became apparent in making it that it was probably best two mission ideas that should have been separate, but, I was too attached to telling them together to split it. I should have done a “First Contact mission” and a separate “Two Perspectives mission” if I wanted a truly solid mission.

The second thing was far more peculiar, interesting, and therefore difficult. When I finished the daughter mission back in March, I did a soft release with friends and guild mates and found something startling. All of the old players coming over from pre f2p loved it, understood the flow, caught the gags in the first contact and liked the direct flow of the dialog but… all the new players thought it was paced wrong. The way I had originally made the mission was a lot more like what we older players and authors are used to expecting, a lot of that “dialog options” problems were a non-issue. But the new players didn’t know that, many never even know you can get Diplo exp out of anything other than DOFFing. They were after a different game, the new game. So I went in and hacked at it, reworked all the dialog, and tailored it for the new players and their ideas. The result shows in my ratings. New players after story don’t see the same stage lines we do.

The Klingon mission, Son, made after this revelation and re-design is much more streamlined to this idea and it really shows. I mean, he said it himself when he said he though Son was great and Daughter was Meh. I just knew what I was aiming for and wasn’t bogged down by sections or dialog or things I had made that I wanted to keep in because I had made them, or completely remove or remake from the drawing board.

That said, with the new style of dialog, where you, Hav, had trouble wondering what to pick so not to miss anything; any dialog option that are obvious skips will never deny you of crucial information. It just displays it differently. It’s designed so you can pick for what you, or your character, want to say or know and get your answer or the answer you’d get for saying that. There are three portions, like you mentioned, where the mission pops up and asks “are you sure” and these are only to show or point out interesting things where the two missions meet. Less a “yeah you need to see this” and more a “we’ve had our fun but, if you pick this it’s cool but you may miss out”. That’s not an easy idea to convey in text without breaking the 4th wall.

In truth, the only optional dialogs where you may miss out on info, is all simply fluff info, and most, if not all, can be received by the Optional NPC contacts. Any story dialog will, no matter the choice, still convey the needed info; it just may do it differently. That is, I think, my true achievement I am proud of in this story.

With the options, all the options, I wanted you to play both the Fed or the Kling mission as if you were either playing like a Fed, or playing like a Klingon. You can play the Fed mission like a diplomat and reluctant warrior (only needing to destroying 2 Klingon ships) or a Warrior and a reluctant diplomat and still get the same feel and the same mission; just in a different way. The same (but inverse) is true of the Kling mission.

Hav, I will admit some of the popups that you describe on the “Rescue” map were a result of my zeal for options. Due to the fact you can get away with running that part a whole bunch of different ways… there is a way where you can play it and it all falls apart. I think that’s what you got, and that’s my fault. If you played that map where you used fun tricks to hide from the kling ships or just straight up gunned them down no questions asked, it may have gone smoother for you. Also, the beauty of that map is the fact that when you are playing that map fed, your kling captain just left it. So when you get to the kling mission perhaps you’ll see a bit more what I did there when I made it.

In the end, I realized it would be a choice between story and mission. I chose story. As a result, I know this isn’t my strongest mission… but by god do I feel it’s my best, strongest, and proudest story I have ever popped out on STO.

Thanks again for the review! Hope the rest of you aren’t too turned off to play it now. And I promise the next missions I send your way will be more to your liking.

One last side note: I honestly don’t want to see either of these mission spotlighted. I mean, it’s cool and all, but, they’re not my best missions. Just ones I really had fun and wanted to make.

Best is still my first, Personal Reflection, and is the only mission of mine I call flat across the board good. But that’s why I’m glad we as foundry authors arn’t working for cryptic. We can still do what we want.