Even when offline, you can always plan. I have planned my one quest for almost half an year before publishing it (as it was out last beta, I can say that much without breaking any vows).
How to plan offline?
Use a flowchart program. For example, I used to use MS Visio but then shifted to a free tool which was easy to use - yED from yWorks. I switched because of its automated arranging of boxes and flowlines. Here are a few pics of my plan:-
Writing Dialogs(What you see is smallest part of 1 conversation):-
Making a Map(self-made):-
Making a story(as the game also uses the flowchart to do it):-
Etc.
Create a story:-
Most of the old forum users know of it(Maeve)
To create a campaign is easy, to create a campaign which you are proud of is very hard.
However, you can see that the plan part does not requires you access to foundry. You can as well do it now on computer with tools like Flowchart program, Notepad, GIMP(or photoshop) and Inkscape(or illustrator).
And viola! You can share it without the fear of breaking some NDA too!
The Foundry will become a mess - there will be hordes of also-ran quests that aren't worth your time. I'm waiting for the Neverwinter equivalent of "Starbase UGC" - which has turned out to be the defacto go-to fan site to find the quality Foundry missions for STO (and Foundry tutorials and academy and all that).
All *I* ask of Foundry authors: please do your best at the story-side of your creations.
The Starbase UGC guys are trying to do the same for NW. Its tavernugc.com
Nice primer, though I doubt most Foundry authors will follow-through. Partly because OP is pro-overkill. I've been creating Foundry "episodes" in STO since the Foundry existed (year-and-a-half now, maybe longer?) - I use StoryMill for my story management.
Though I do concur: no matter how "pew-pew" your quest is designed to be, plausible story (no matter how simple) is paramount. I for one will be looking for the best story-tellers in the Foundry. Though pew-pew is fun, it's just plain over-used (even in Cryptic quests and events, etc.) Of course it's easy to create a pew-pew dungeon-dive, it's hard work to create a really good story.
The Foundry will become a mess - there will be hordes of also-ran quests that aren't worth your time. I'm waiting for the Neverwinter equivalent of "Starbase UGC" - which has turned out to be the defacto go-to fan site to find the quality Foundry missions for STO (and Foundry tutorials and academy and all that).
All *I* ask of Foundry authors: please do your best at the story-side of your creations.
Too bad Storymill is a Mac only program, however, there are a few windows equivalents
Storybook
MyNovel
However to get full functionality you need to pay for both. But yes while I know most of what my post reads will be ignored in the long run, the hope is that someone gets the small bit of inspiration or help they need to be "aha" and take it from there.
In regards to the Starbase UGC, I have been planning to do something similar for a while now, just never found the time to actually put together what I want to do, rather than just settle for a quick site. I wanted to have a full review and tips/tutorials/help site with full database support like that which Neverwinter SHOULD have. And then a small web app that you can have open over the top of the game that allows you to review the quest as you play it and then uploading it to the database to be searched using several different criteria. More of a full community then just a site with my own reviews. But like I said, time. However I am sure there will be many that pop up.
Gillrimn, nice to see someone else uses flowcharts like I do. I love the ones you can download into Google docs just for the ease of being cloud based. And flowcharting is a great technique as it closely mimics what you will see in the Foundry, and makes transferring from outside the game to the Foundry easier, as you don't need to take the raw story and then essentially flowchart it in the Foundry from scratch. You will need to do some modifications and changes, but the skeleton is there.
Planning is excellent and I concur with the advice. My only caveat is you don't need to go as deep as using a flowchart system. Just sketch out your plan on paper or in a notepad. Even just that exercise helps tremendously. It also focuses you, because one of the key pitfalls of a UGC tool like the Foundry is it presents so many options, it can get very distracting!
Of course, if you WANT to go further and flowchart dialog and objectives so much the better!
SHADOW - A secret cabal for those who thirst for wealth and power. Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
IMO planning is the number one habit that any story writer needs to have and with the help of great tools it make it that much easier. I find that with out these tools, I would forget so many things and as we know details can make or break a story-line.
I have an article online that I posted, which details the tools that I use for this process.
Comments
PLAN!!!
Even when offline, you can always plan. I have planned my one quest for almost half an year before publishing it (as it was out last beta, I can say that much without breaking any vows).
How to plan offline?
Use a flowchart program. For example, I used to use MS Visio but then shifted to a free tool which was easy to use - yED from yWorks. I switched because of its automated arranging of boxes and flowlines. Here are a few pics of my plan:-
Writing Dialogs(What you see is smallest part of 1 conversation):-
Making a Map(self-made):-
Making a story(as the game also uses the flowchart to do it):-
Etc.
Create a story:-
Most of the old forum users know of it(Maeve)
To create a campaign is easy, to create a campaign which you are proud of is very hard.
However, you can see that the plan part does not requires you access to foundry. You can as well do it now on computer with tools like Flowchart program, Notepad, GIMP(or photoshop) and Inkscape(or illustrator).
And viola! You can share it without the fear of breaking some NDA too!
The Starbase UGC guys are trying to do the same for NW. Its tavernugc.com
Neverwinter Official Wiki - http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/
Too bad Storymill is a Mac only program, however, there are a few windows equivalents
Storybook
MyNovel
However to get full functionality you need to pay for both. But yes while I know most of what my post reads will be ignored in the long run, the hope is that someone gets the small bit of inspiration or help they need to be "aha" and take it from there.
In regards to the Starbase UGC, I have been planning to do something similar for a while now, just never found the time to actually put together what I want to do, rather than just settle for a quick site. I wanted to have a full review and tips/tutorials/help site with full database support like that which Neverwinter SHOULD have. And then a small web app that you can have open over the top of the game that allows you to review the quest as you play it and then uploading it to the database to be searched using several different criteria. More of a full community then just a site with my own reviews. But like I said, time. However I am sure there will be many that pop up.
Gillrimn, nice to see someone else uses flowcharts like I do. I love the ones you can download into Google docs just for the ease of being cloud based. And flowcharting is a great technique as it closely mimics what you will see in the Foundry, and makes transferring from outside the game to the Foundry easier, as you don't need to take the raw story and then essentially flowchart it in the Foundry from scratch. You will need to do some modifications and changes, but the skeleton is there.
Of course, if you WANT to go further and flowchart dialog and objectives so much the better!
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
I have an article online that I posted, which details the tools that I use for this process.
Located here: LINK
Have a look and comment if you have the time to do so.
Website Dedicated to Foundry Tutorials: www.NWUGC.com Twitter: @NWUGC
Gold or Bones!!