Is the foundry worth doing in its current state and are the Devs even concerned?

geoff484 · August 2017

I've been working on a series for almost a year now, and now that I have the majority of it written I think it's time to start putting them together in the Foundry.

The problem is I've seen in another thread that there's multiple bugs at this time that makes it difficult to edit. I've used the foundry before, but I wouldn't consider myself a veteran whatsoever. Are the bugs easy to work around or should I wait until a fix comes? Have we gotten any response from a Dev on whether or not the Foundry would be given some love in the nearby future?

dougglendower · August 2017

I think for the Foundry to really get momentum, there needs to be a return to really featuring it. New featured episodes, Foundry challenges, and maybe some unique Foundry only limited drops (I love the idea of no-DIL small upgrades to promote lower levelers to explore it to get gear up). The Foundry is what keeps me going in the game as I'm afraid much of the official content is, well... I just ran Ragnarok and Spheres again and rememberd why I don't.

The Foundry editor will get love when the Foundry does.

rickysmith1 · August 2017

Bugs come and go. The unfortunate truth is that the Foundry has taken a back bench to everything else in the game since they transferred all their staff to other games. Any updates to Foundry at this point are essentially 'in their spare time'.

Just publish it mate, or you will be waiting for years.

Free Tip: Have your first/earlier missions begin in star systems that are locations for popular Episodes.

duncanidaho11 · August 2017

geoff484 wrote: »

I've been working on a series for almost a year now, and now that I have the majority of it written I think it's time to start putting them together in the Foundry.

The problem is I've seen in another thread that there's multiple bugs at this time that makes it difficult to edit. I've used the foundry before, but I wouldn't consider myself a veteran whatsoever. Are the bugs easy to work around or should I wait until a fix comes? Have we gotten any response from a Dev on whether or not the Foundry would be given some love in the nearby future?

The bugs can be worked around. There's only three that you'll probably have to worry about.

Map transitions do not work in the Foundry.
Work around: test maps individually.
Under (as yet unidentified circumstances) objectives can break in the Foundry preview mode (such that any triggers associated with one simply do not happen and progression stops.)
Work around: add a pop-up dialog to the story tab just before or after the bugged objective (try before and if that doesn't work try after.) You can take this out later. This does not affect published missions.
Sometimes, publishing progress gets stuck.
Work around: try again.

You may also encounter various oddities that come from the normal course of making a Foundry mission (ex. NPC's having trouble navigating a map.) But these things you work through. If you're concerned about approaching the Foundry what I recommend is to jump straight into it. Anything that's wrong right now can be solved by troubleshooting. If you're not comfortable with troubleshooting, then take the opportunity here to get practice (it's a vital skill.) We're here to help in case you get stuck with something.

The Foundry is a great system and the devs do support it (we just got the top 3 system fixed). It's not a top priority but we've received a lot of love for a community subgroup (recently too, Spotlight is back and the Foundry is featuring on Ten Forward Weekly). There are hints at a few new things coming but naturally (as a fact of game development) unannounced things won't be talked about by the devs in case plans need to change. We also don't know the state of any current bug fix (except team-splitting, I think they need more info from us) but that's par for the course for most bugs in the game too.

What we need to worry most about is making the best content we can. Take a look at tutorial videos (such as Foundational Foundry) and other Foundry missions to get a handle on what the editor can do in full. Dig into what people have made, think about how they made it, and why people responded to it the way they did. While bugs might be a concern it's going to be the quality of your story, builds, and gameplay that decide whether or not people take to your mission. If you need help at any stage drop us a line.

I include with "us" the Foundry Roundtable as well because if you want to see a technique demonstrated we're happy to put together a demo on the show. I can forward questions along but you can also get in contact with Roundtable through twitter and email as well. We can also give feedback on your mission once published or just a shout out if you're more comfortable with that. You can also ask the streaming/review group "Legion of Myth" (on twitter and youtube) for a video playthrough and review of your Foundry mission. They'll have fun with it (so be prepared for a critical assessment and MST3k-style riffing

) but it can also be incredibly informative to see people responding to your content (and other people's too, they've done a lot of missions.) Lastly, here's another platform for finding high quality missions and for putting your stuff out there: http://www.foundrymissions.com/.

Basically, there are a lot of resources to help you through technical problems. So just jump into building and try to make the best mission you can.

geoff484 · August 2017

Thanks for the responses and tips, guys.

I was a little discouraged by the bugs I've been reading about on the forums, but it sounds like they're easy enough to work around.

I'll continue with my series. I'm still in the writing process but I'm hoping to have them published by winter.

Is the foundry worth doing in its current state and are the Devs even concerned?

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