One thing to add and easy way to guide players to UGC.
In the low level zones are NPCs called Well Informed Harpers. When I first met them I got the feeling that they are showing me Foundry quests from the area I am in (I guess that is what they have in a description). But it is not working at all, they are still offering the same quests whenever you are. But if it does... You like the map, you can play more quests in there. But for this we need to have option to set as a starting map of the guest any map in the game.
One thing to add and easy way to guide players to UGC.
In the low level zones are NPCs called Well Informed Harpers. When I first met them I got the feeling that they are showing me Foundry quests from the area I am in (I guess that is what they have in a description). But it is not working at all, they are still offering the same quests whenever you are. But if it does... You like the map, you can play more quests in there. But for this we need to have option to set as a starting map of the guest any map in the game.
We can use any existing map as the starting map -- the Well Informed Harpers are just yet another foundry related search that is broken,
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
I am an actor and a writer, and D&D has been a part of my life since I was a teenager, so having a platform to, in a sense, share in stories with others; to come up with an adventure that others could take part in and enjoy is a huge draw. There were a couple features I found somewhat interesting about Neverwinter, but to be honest, none of them would have captured my attention much if not for the Foundry. It's the only real reason I am here, and even with all of its faults, it is the best around. I love creating maps and characters.
Several authors have come up with some very fun and very creative quests. The best quests I have played in Neverwinter were in the Foundry. It opens us all up to such great talent. Some quests have fantastic dialogue, choice (wrought through great effort), and stunning, beautiful maps. Some are so detailed, and so well-crafted that it is legitimately a work of art. So the foundry has definitely succeeded in providing this set of tools for us.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
Nothing has made me wish the Foundry was never implemented, but that is not to say there have not been major frustrations. Among them are
the dialog boxes that were mentioned previously, for all the reasons indicated. They also seem prone to closing, or selecting features I did not want.
Teleporters. Rotation makes no sense. I've heard the bit about radians, but I've tried that and for me that still doesn't seem to work. I have literally spent hours trying to make tweaks to their rotation with nothing to show for it.
Search functionality. By this I mean both the internal asset search function, which is riddled with spelling errors, innacurate pictures, lack of pictures, incorrect names, and names that just don't adequately describe the asset, making some things almost impossible to find, as well as the catalog of completed quests, whose search function is almost worthless, unless you have a particular quest in mind.
No Incentive for players. The average player's reason for playing in foundries is little and less. There is no gear worth grinding, limited XP that can be gained, etc. Only those of us (like me) who are 90% interested in the story and the experience of running the quest are willing to put in the time. The others only look for 15 minute quests to pound out Rhix's daily quest for AD, and I think even those may be getting less, due the ever increasing number of dailies they have to do to keep up with campaign progression.
Lack of communication. The Foundry community often knows little about what is going on at the Devs' end. The Patch Notes almost never mention the foundry, and we don't know if they are ever working on anything to do with it or not. When they do change something, they often don't let us know what they have changed, and we all need to explore again, and figure out for ourselves what they fixed, ruined, added, or took away.
Lack of some pretty basic tools. Some of these things, like basic logic, switches, levers, and timers, are pretty standard game creation features, even necessities, but they are conspicuously absent from the Foundry.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
I think I agree with some others here that you are barking up the wrong tree with trying to incentivize content CREATION. I find, and this SEEMS to be true of the rest of the authors I interact with on these forums on a semi-regular basis as well, though I don't claim to speak for them, that having the tools available is the only real incentive the authors need. Would it be nice to gt paid for my work? Sure! I'd love to receive some form of reward or monetary compensation for creating foundry quests, but I don't expect it, and it isn't required. Tips are nice, and maybe if the players could tip Zen I might go and buy something from the store when I had enough (or was close and just had to buy a little extra zen to make up the shortcoming), but I'm not too concerned about Zen store products to begin with, and most of my attention goes to making and playing foundry quests. But the things I want to see in the foundry as an author are:
Branching Quests. You already have branching dialog, I'd like some branching objectives. It would be great to have two objective branches based on whether you fight someone or reason with them; whether you choose to save the princess, or go after the bad guy; things like that. As it is, it uses up a lot of resources to circumvent the system to do what we want to do.
More Variety of Costumes: This includes more civilian dress, maybe fashion sets, and having all the costume pieces of the pregen costumes available piecemeal, and able to set to "none." I want things like the chainmail shirts to be available under shirts, so I can have fully armored women who aren't exposing their midriff like <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> idiots when they go into battle. I want a variety of commoners who aren't all wearing the same thing in different colors. I'd also love to be able to mix and match monster heads, wings, tails, and so forth to create my own hybrid chimeric creatures, but I don't see that ever happening.
Switches: By this I mean setting conditions, or using objects like levers to be able to toggle a condition to "on" or "off." This could indicate whether a door is open or closed, and could change this back and forth. This could be used to create some intricate puzzles.
OR Logic: Being able to trigger an event when one OR another thing occurs, without wasting encounters and rooms (or detail budget).
Timers: At present we have to do more work-arounds involving killing off encounters with drop timers or inconsistent Guards vs. Drow fights, whose speed changes based on your level, making the author's tests more guess-work than empirical.
What really needs to be incentivized is the PLAYING of Foundry Quests, and a number of things need to be improved to make that happen. For one thing, there needs to be some kind of incentive for playing foundries longer than the Daily Eligible minimum length of 15 minutes. As it is, except for the tiny minority of me and some of the immediate foundry authoring community, not much of the Neverwinter players feel they have anything to gain by playing a half-hour quest. They want to rush through 4 15 minute quests so they can get their AD reward from Rhix and they're done, rushing off to their laundry-list of dailies. So there are a few things that I feel should be done to increase the incentive to play, not only foundry quests, but a variety of foundry quests.
Improve Rewards. I don't know what exactly is the best way to do this. There definitely needs to be something better than a green at the end, at least after level 30. I like what some others have said about beefing up the chest with some refinement points, or foundry tokens (I liked the sound of "Harper Coins" since the Harpers already have a foundry link) which could be used like the other currencies to buy things. I disagree with making authors have to buy features, ESPECIALLY if those features are better rewards. That would only divide the authors into the really popular authors and everybody else, and the everybody else would get no plays because everyone wants to play the quests by authors who can reward them better for their time playing. But allowing tokens to be used to buy some potions and some special items, whether they be fashion or progression value items, would be a good usage. I also really like the idea mentioned previously of temporary zen items, or discount vouchers.
Improve Search. Players need to be able to find the quests they want. There should be more tabs in the catalog which allow players to narrow their search, so the farmers can go to the farm tab, and the story players can go to the story tab. I think these two are probably the most important, unless you add PVP function to the Foundry, in which case that definitely needs its own tab. It would be good if puzzle quests got their own tab too. The tags (at least initially) NEED to be set by the author, and the author's vote should be weighted more heavily than player tag votes. Having a quest show up under any search criteria it has been tagged with doesn't work. The Search function needs a bit more intelligence, and if it is going to take player tags into consideration, needs to at leas figure out what a MAJORITY of players think it is, and only officially "tag" it for search under THOSE criteria. As it is, farmers need to wade through longer story quests to find the farms, and story players need to wade through the farms to find their story quests.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I have never played a game like Neverwinter before, so I am not really sure. That said I understand Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 did a very good job. I also would like to point to RPG Maker for some basic features like conditional branches, switches, and variables, among some other details that seem like they shouldn't be too hard to use.
As far as UGC implementation in other games, please, please, PLEASE take a look at Legend of Grimrock. I've even done a mod for it using its editor. The flexibility it gives you is nothing short of incredible.
Holy <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> Yes!! This I agree would be mindblowing! ["Oh dear god, pleeeeaasse" let the Devs give this is serious thought."]
Good call hustin
- Major Peachy Bottom * Gutbuster's Brigade -
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
A ton of good ideas in here. Im actually shocked this wasnt the first thing to monetize in this game. I mean thats all that second life is about, monetizing virtual objects that are player created so they can play their social rp game. You would probably of made more money monetizing this then how the zen store is now.
I hope to see Foundry mobs scaled to be a challenge, more epic boss encounters if it fits the story line. It might even be cool to integrate a campaign feature with foundry's. I Personally would like to see more foundry's being created into permanent game settings. Doesnt even have to be a contest. Find a good compelling foundry and work with the author to make it work in the entire game. Then level designers could tweak it after that or add extra more relevent story/mod concepts to it.
Its fairly obvious the devs do not have a large group and content suffers for it. Why not use the player base to delegate that work to in a fun way. There are some amazing foundry's and many of them missed.
And of course, having no loot, even something I can give to an alt or sell is one of the silliest ideas. Even if you can only get 1 good piece of loot a day, it would be better then its current state. And I'd like to see a different set of loot and/RP items as rewards for the foundry. Make it the fun and unique thing it is and capitalize on it. You would probably make more money off selling new fashion/foundry items and things like that then trying to sell us overpriced blood rubies o.O
Foundry is currently pointless. No rewards for time spent, Even Dragon Hoard enchantment doesnt work in foundries sicne its now like a 2 or 3 minute cooldown before another RP item can drop.
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arcticblitzMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 126Arc User
Better Final Chest Rewards - The final chest for daily eligible quests should drop rare or epic gear, with a chance to drop Temporary Zen store assets as well. Additionally, the Foundry needs its own "coin" system which are earned alongside the daily AD quest (thus limited to 4 coins per day at level 60). The Foundry coins (Harper Coins, maybe?) can be traded for other campaign coins, RP, and/or cosmetic equipment.
I really like this idea of foundry "coins" (coming from QC checked foundry quests) that could be exchanged for other meaningful campaign currencies, given that campaign progression through dailies eats up so much player time it would be great to have a complimentary method to progress which keeps game play fresh and lets players enjoy the foundry without falling behind in the campaign.
Blitzy : PVE only Barbarian
Martin ConDion PVE only Ranger Guild Founder: -HunterS-
Things I would like to see in the foundry?
1. A more comprehensive encounter selection. More non-humanoid creatures such as Dragons, Centaurs, Giant Insects (other than spiders) Snakes, Chimera, Giant Rat, Giant Lizard, Beholder and its kin, Hydra, and many others. As well as a more varied selection of allied encounters.
2. When a player elects to leave feedback, add a window explaining the author has no control over the basics like loot control, vendors, crafting nodes...etc.
3. Require each foundry to be at least 15 mins of play time, therefore eliminating those cheater quests simply designed to abuse the foundry to achieve certian in-game goals like Achievements or kill boxes for power leveling characters.
4. Allow authors to choose the level limits of their quests. Like in classic Dungeons and Dragons adventures (For player levels 30 -35)
5. Change the current foundry search engine to include other categories like Roleplay, Hack-n-Slash, Dungeon, Multiplayer, and others.
6. Provide a system of reward to entice players to play foundry content. Such as adding special "Foundry Tokens" to the end chest of each foundry. Then providing a title reward or a special vendor to utilize the tokens to purchase unique foundry transmogs, Dye packs, Companions, and perhaps even mounts. (Always wanted that Pegasus)
7. Add randomly generated skill nodes to the maps in any given foundry. Giving the author only the control of turning them on or off.
That's it for now hope to see some of these some day. Thanks for listening.
"...projects are never finished, only abandoned....." HellsHot is a proud member of Scribes' Enclave.
1. The Haronomous Saga NWS-DJIKP5IWK a four part, story driven, campaign.
2. The Ruins of Xylon NWS-DC76ORA4I a two part, dungeon crawl.
3. Armor Odyssey NWS-DAUPTR46M a three part, story driven, odyssey.
3. Require each foundry to be at least 15 mins of play time, therefore eliminating those cheater quests simply designed to abuse the foundry to achieve certian in-game goals like Achievements or kill boxes for power leveling characters.
This would be virtually impossible. I forget what the average time was for "Tired of being the hero" but I know it was above 15 minutes. I zerged it on a mod2 GWF in 5mins. What would you do at that point? Lock me in time out till the 15 mins were up? Remove the quest from the foundry? Give me no rewards even though I broke no rules?
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imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
This would be virtually impossible. I forget what the average time was for "Tired of being the hero" but I know it was above 15 minutes. I zerged it on a mod2 GWF in 5mins. What would you do at that point? Lock me in time out till the 15 mins were up? Remove the quest from the foundry? Give me no rewards even though I broke no rules?
I'm pretty sure Shandizar was talking about the average time, not the actual time.
I'm pretty sure Shandizar was talking about the average time, not the actual time.
That might honestly be even worse.
What happens then when the name of one quest or it's story attracts a bunch of people like me that zerg and an identical quest with a different name and description attracts a bunch of "flowersniffers" (not being insulting just the easiest way to describe it). The author of the quest that the zergers run did nothing wrong but suddenly his work that is identical to author b is not allowed and removed. In fact I would worry that this could become a griefing tactic if you didn't like someone. Zerg their content till it's removed. The current time limit system where if the average goes down too far you don't get credit for the daily is probably the best system that could be used.
Here's an off-the-wall thought: Foundry quests as a player-housing path.
We play heroes who fight evil for a living: as such, our heroes aren't cut out for building their dream house/mansion with their own two hands. They have to either hire people to do it for them or find people who are willing to help out in gratitude for performing heroic deeds. And, of course, our heroes first have to encounter those people in the first place.
Want dwarven construction? You'll have to do quests that put you in the good graces of certain dwarves. Want goblins to corral your beast companions (spiders, rust monsters, drakes, etc.)? You'll have to do quests that get you on the goblins' good side. Want your housing up in cold areas? You'll have to do quests that clear out ice trolls and ice giants, and maybe even winterkill goblins (unless you want the goblins to provide security, in which case you might need to stop the trolls from eating them!)
Want a redcap hut? This could be a tough one -- you'll need redcaps to help build it but then where do you put it? You might have to clear out hostile redcaps (or, gods forbid, help redcaps blight the forest if you want to live among them!). Those quests might also put you in the elves' BAD graces such that it will take extraordinary heroic feats to get their construction experts to give you the time of day.
Want an underground nest for your spiders? Be prepared to do some exotic drow-related questing, which might or might not put you in someone else's bad graces.
The more of a certain type of construction you want, the more questing you'll have to do. The dwarves you rescued might be grateful, but it only goes so far before you'll have to do something else (read: different) for them.
There are tons of possibilities, but it would require a real commitment to vetting and categorizing foundry quests.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
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oeildujambonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5Arc User
edited January 2015
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
Foundry is innovative cause it give a real opportunity to players to improve the game experience in Neverwinter; its more than fan art, its a real part of the game. Unfortunetly Foundry are not properly rewarded, as for player than for author: players often consider that this lack of reward is a waste of time, authors work for hours with very few retribution.
I hope that this first question is not a way to question relevance of the foundry...
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
-I think lack of reward is the main critic that i heard; author could be frustrated that nobody care about their Foundry work cause they can "only offer creativity". Finnaly it came to the point that few "author" offer new kind of map like horrible farming experience to loot RP/XP (empty map/full monster) and this exploit give a very negative feedback to author who try to create map, story, etc...
-Story line builder is also frustrating cause you can only think to offer a linear story; even you could cheat this part of the builder it require lot of effort and copy/past to reach an "half freedom" experience.
-Boss building is also a week point for authors.
-Cosmetic change could be also boring sometime.(CDF recently organised an indie contest, but it show also the lack of patern)
-Teleport are a bit annoying for new authors
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Rethink reward(s) is i guess a priority to give more attractivity;
i hate xp/loot mission in foundry but it seems that theses kind of creation give you an anwser of "why players come to foundry". When you create a mission with very few monsters its hard to compete with the desire of reward. Another thing that is hard to hear for authors is " players only play mission between 15 and 25 min".... Finnaly if you want to make a a 35 min quest you must know that only few players will test it.
Globally we need to think about new kind of reward, i try to give some idea:
-Time base XP reward for 30+min quest
-Limited placable "checkpoint" xp/loot reward; could be usefull to secondary objective or for 30+min quest
-To strugle against cheated map, think about a "common pool of loot" for each quest(you could loot x peridot, x subli stone,etc.. by mission). In this config no need to kill 100 monsters if you can have the same loot with 10 monsters.
For authors pride is a reward, but regarding the time we cooperated with you to create new content i guess you could do better.
Zen market new content for foundry was a debated subject in my community, and we came to the conclusion that it will lead split authors community between those who can pay and those cannot afford buy content. So not a positive sign for new comer.
Looting new content(monster, building, cosmetic change,etc..) in event, T1/T2 dungeon, special mission could be a solution.
You give opportunity to players to buy a RPG dice recently, but nothing was done to connect this new tool to Foundry design. Offering more interaction between foundry storyline and dice rolling could be very interesting for old school rolist.
Other last minute idea; but the organisation of co-creation is nearly impossible. You can't "send" a map to someone to try to build a common quest/campaign. That was the main point of editor in NWN and NWN2: you can co create.
Campagne: La Pupille de Savorellis - Ep1 - Une visite de courtoisie (NW-DT4MNSB5Z)
So far there has been a lot of talk about rewarding players so they play foundries as a way to "reward" authors. We've also seen discussion about the fact that we don't need an increased quantity of authors but an increase in quality.
Getting back to the question about rewards for Authors: The rewards we have now are somewhat lackluster. We have two rare companions, a series of cloaks, a mount, and some titles.
-the titles are nice and Authoring is the only way to get them. Thumbs up
-the Book Imp is nice, I have in fact had other players stop and ask about him
-Cloaks....not very special (and as my character is not a stick thin waif my butt clips into all cloaks so I never display them)
-the Ioun Stone: Not that helpful, the active bonus isn't as good as many other augment companions
That brings me to:
-the Bear....good grief, do not get me started on our broken bear. For ages it was ugly and bugged. Currently it is just very unimpressive. The Zen Store bears with armor are much nicer looking. Mounts are one of the few really impressive ways to show off in Neverwinter. For all the rarity of the foundry Bear mount I would want it to look as nice as the armored polar bear. I was so excited to earn one and then I saw what it looked like. I never use it. That's hardly the reaction you want from players and many of us who have the bear had the same reaction.
So yes, some unique, showy rewards would be a good "thank you" for the authors who spend hours and hours creating quests.
Find me in game with @DoctorBadger (Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
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imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
...
-Cloaks....not very special (and as my character is not a stick thin waif my butt clips into all cloaks so I never display them)
The main issue I have with the cloaks is that the stats are on par with a transmute item, but they don't get first transmute free. So, if you want your level 60 to show off that spiffy cape by transmuting your end-game neck item, it will cost you a bunch of ADs to do so... IF it lets you. For some reason, many items can't have the cloak as a transmute. And no, I'm not taking about things that have no graphics to change. I don't know if it's a problem with the end-game items or with the foundry cloaks, but the majority of the time it tells me I can't transmute using the foundry cloak.
So what I'm saying here is that I really like the idea of the Foundry cloaks, but they are unnecessarily expensive due to not being set as transmute items, and the limitations on what we can transmute are extremely frustrating. I'd love to see that get fixed.
For rewards to authors -- Let me tip more than 500. I mean some of these folks put major time in and they are pretty awesome. Let me give up to 25k or something. 500 is kind of insulting.
For rewards to authors -- Let me tip more than 500. I mean some of these folks put major time in and they are pretty awesome. Let me give up to 25k or something. 500 is kind of insulting.
I'm all for this. I'm not insulted by 500, but I see no reason why that needs to be the limit, or why there needs to be a limit on the amount an author can be tipped for a quest.
I'm all for this. I'm not insulted by 500, but I see no reason why that needs to be the limit, or why there needs to be a limit on the amount an author can be tipped for a quest.
It was probably put in to avoid giving RMT an easy way to pass AD from account to account. Granted it doesn't work but, I'd guess that's the original intent.
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dragoness10Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 780Arc User
edited January 2015
What do you feel The Foundry does right?
It lets me have a creative outlet when I have Dev-like twitches to make something again.
What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing?
Puns. Stabbing stuff. Helping others with a goal. I like giving the guild I'm in an alternative place to go for a bit.
Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
The "usual randomness" I seem to end up with I can put into stories. Really, every storyline resembles a sort of RP day I had before. Random happens.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short?
Fewer options on customizing a landscape in terrain like NWN Classic used to have. You could put in your own hills/ walls/ buildings etc without using placeables to do it. You could also actually sit in chairs or on benches, and even lie down on a bed. I loved the customization NWN Classic had even with the pain in the heinie coding.
What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry?
Getting stuck unable to complete an idea. I sadly have a Foundry that's set there for two weeks now with no real progress. I'll get to it tomorrow. Tomorrow.... tomorrow. AUGH must complete like quest.. ohhmm.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation?
Zen coupons for Foundry achievements. Not the lower 15% ones, but one free green companion of choice or a full Fashion outfit.
If doing Foundry also offered a "purchase with star ranks" option for some of the Campaign currencies or items that'd be awesome too. Earn 100 stars get something. Earn 5o0 stars next rank, 1000, 3000, etc for next rank reward like the XP rewards do.
How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Maybe let players design the next CTA/ Event area, and apply some past/new rewards to running it so it's both new AND old.
I didn't have much of an answer for the last questions here.
" I tried to figure out the enigma that was you, and then I realized mastering Wild Magic was easier." - Old Wizard in Waterdeep
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
edited January 2015
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
I really like the ability to make your own custom maps, and your own custom NPC's. I am glad that the Foundry was implemented because it gives the foundry author's a chance to express themselves to the community in ways that Cryptic hasn't been able to, either due to lore, or time constraints.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
The loot and reward system for the foundry is very lacking. People generally don't even run foundry missions anymore because the rewards are so horrible. I also wish that there was a way to prevent the empty achievement maps that people have been making in 2 seconds just to have their friends run for the achievements.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
First and foremost - bug fixes. There's a whole list of bugs related the foundry that need to be addressed. After that, I would very much like to have bosses added. I wouldn't mind if you are only allowed 1 boss per map, but I would very much like to be able to have them. I also would like Foundry quests to be able to qualify for Daily Foundry (meaning, 15 minutes or longer) in order for people to get achievements for running them. This would take care of the aforementioned empty maps.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I have not played any other games that had this much UGC, so I'm unable to answer this question.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
After that, I would very much like to have bosses added. I wouldn't mind if you are only allowed 1 boss per map, but I would very much like to be able to have them.
On the topic of bosses/mini-bosses. I'd also like to see the ability to separate encounters into single creatures and expand their respective health bars, similar to the Dragonsoul bossses. This could allow for a single creature to function as a boss/mini-boss like Jareth Grim, using it's existing tactics and powers.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
On the topic of bosses/mini-bosses. I'd also like to see the ability to separate encounters into single creatures and expand their respective health bars, similar to the Dragonsoul bossses. This could allow for a single creature to function as a boss/mini-boss like Jareth Grim, using it's existing tactics and powers.
Didn't they basically say that they weren't going to give us bosses? I mean, I know it's something we'd all love to have, so I'd still love to see it happen, but I've rather redirected my energy towards other things. I'm putting the focus of my push for things on Branching quests, OR Logic, and Costumes.
Seriously, give us access to all the NPC costumes piecemeal. They're already in the system. We can replace them item-by-item with our current options; we just can't select them for a model that wasn't built with them. I want the chainmail shirts that many NPCs wear, so I can make fully armored women. I want access to Merchant doublets and dresses so I can make a variety of peasants that aren't either all wearing the same ******* peasant tunic, or geared up like adventurers. Give us some puffy frilly shirts, pantaloons, baggy pants, real skirts and dresses. Give us a variety of hats, like pillbox hats, wide-brimmed hats, floppy hats ala Henry VIII, straw hats, phrygian caps, chain coifs, maybe some furry hats for cold weather...
While on the subject of cold weather gear, maybe some wool or fur-lined cloaks, gloves, and boots for winter. Heavy coats, things like that. Add to that some warm weather gear, like bare feet or sandals.
One thing I would add to my original post, more of a "fantasy-in-the-future" if foundry every got some actual attention from Cryptic, would be to ad a "6th-man" style DM foundry type. Where one person could DM the dungeon, maybe using voice chat to read NPC text and having some control over dynamic-ish encounters.
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
I enjoy the seemlessness of being able to produce and publish your adventure, for the entire audience of Neverwinter Players. I like creating the stories and enviroments, creating branching dialogue to personalise your interaction.
The Foundry makes it easy to produce ideas and your creativity into something concrete and enjoyable to all.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
I hate having to battle the mechanics of the Foundry to make something work, because of the limited conditions we've been supplied to change something. Unlike the devs, we don't have access to code in a script that does more advanced things then just the GUI supplies us.
Timers is one thing that comes to mind that we miss, or AND/OR conditions. Or remembering states across maps (I can't make the game remember a dialogue trigger in one map, to produce a different result in the map following). We're stuck with mostly linear objective design.
Rewards deserve their own chapter, I would like for cryptic to account length of mission to reward tables, and consider that story missions with little combat need consideration as well.
I can't think of anything that I wouldn't want implemented in the Foundry, just things I wish were expanded or done less annoyingly.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Attracting more Foundry authors is more a question of making the foundry seem less daunting. The live stream with Akromatik, if anyone has followed it - was a perfect tutorial with a newbie to the foundry getting some slight advice from a veteran. Co-creating with maybe voice implementation,or making streaming with Steam more popular.
If we can make the same missions/dungeons/mobs/bosses the devs can do, we'de be quite content.
I would like to see Cryptic to allow Player made Campaigns for Storylines, in the Campaigns window. A page you can visit, and stays active as long as the foundry campaign is active, maybe that it even follows different mission lines. Something to remember the progress made, maybe even centralised maps ala Dread Campaign.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Arma 3 has an amazing mission editor with deep scripting capabilities. The beauty of its system is that anyone can download the mission and play it, because extra files - be it scripts or other files...will be packed in the missionfile.
Even without mods, the possibilities are extensive because despite the UI giving you allot to play with - mission makers can use code and add their own scripts to the game, and make things even more interesting.
Since Arma 3, it has Steamworkshop implementation, so it's quite seamless...not unlike Foundry Catalog.
In fact, scripting is so extensive, people make programs to help out on certain functions - like this one. A Loadout editor
So I had a delve into some of the other Cryptic/PW games out there and found that STO also had a Foundry system. However, it was pay-to-use. WHY?????
The Foundry is possibly one of the best parts of Cryptic games! Even if STO was made before this and there is a lot more content - possibly.
So you want to make a profit. Fair enough, but at least let everyone be able to use the entirety of the content but either up the prices on other aspects or whatever, or (related to Q4/5 - which ever) it's not so much the Foundry that's the problem in this instance, it's the buisiness model for the earlier games. Or have we actually been taking the Foundry for granted because Neverwinter is one of the few games that lets people use it for free?
...I am trying to do some research on The Foundry and gather data concerning the player community's thoughts on the design and implementation of The Foundry as a medium for user generated content (UGC). We are asking for your help in considering how we might improve UGC now and in future Cryptic projects...
Is this the Foundry in general or just Neverwinter? And what about past projects? Are you still doing anything with those? It is inevitable that there will be others who have taken the same path as me and played Neverwinter before other MMO's you've made and feel the same dissapointment that the beloved Foundry isn't free on all Cryptic games. In short. If you're going to do present and future games, at least think about the past games aswell.
I'm not exactly sure which forums this should be on really because it's related to both Neverwinter, STO and potentially other games with a Foundry system.
So I had a delve into some of the other Cryptic/PW games out there and found that STO also had a Foundry system. However, it was pay-to-use. WHY?????
Partially false. To open Foundry slots in STO requires refined dilithium (the equivalent of AD) but does not require real money. It may be a leftover from when STO was a subscription based game, though. NW does not have the AD requirement but it was designed as fully free to play.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
No offense...but before I answer any of your questions, would you mind answering just a few of mine first?
Question One... as a "sound designer for cryptic studios" are we to believe that you have any sway what-so-ever concerning PWE's handling of this product?
Question Two... are we to believe that PWE does not know what problems exist in the foundry or what the authors want? ( uh.. bosses, timers, 'or' logic, REWARDS FOR PLAYING FOUNDRY MISSIONS, etc... , etc... )... these items have been WELL documented many, many, many, many times.
Question Three... this one really kind of gets me a little riled up .. SINCE DAY ONE... This game had ONE BIG SELLING POINT... this game had one thing that every review just raved and raved about... since the first day this game became available, everyone knew it was the foundry system that would make this game stand out from everything else. We have already seen a few other projects that dabbled with this idea (by the same company).. but Neverwinter was gonna really do this right... remember? I do... and so does everyone else. There was the belief by this company (at least it's what they said) that the user generated content would really make this game special... but somewhere along the line... the foundry became ... uh... unprofitable ... for PWE. Here's my third question... is what we say in answer to your questions going to make any difference at all in how Perfect World Entertainment handles the foundry?
Oh... just one more thing...
If Cryptic Studios wants to know how to make UGC more successfully implemented in any upcoming projects... I have many thoughts, but first DON"T SELL YOUR GAME TO PEOPLE WHO WILL KILL IT. Perfect World Entertainment is well known for wringing out every penny from their investments, and then throwing them away.
Oh... just one more thing...
If Cryptic Studios wants to know how to make UGC more successfully implemented in any upcoming projects... I have many thoughts, but first DON"T SELL YOUR GAME TO PEOPLE WHO WILL KILL IT. Perfect World Entertainment is well known for wringing out every penny from their investments, and then throwing them away.
Slight correction -- PWE does not "own" and did not "buy" Neverwinter Online. It bought the ENTIRE Cryptic Studios company.
The rewards from Foundry have to be unique to differentiate them from epic dungeons or PvP. Disable all resource nodes and refinement drops. Everything that drops in Foundry quests should be BtC. Instead make mobs drop BtC crafting currencies. These new crafting currencies would allow players to craft customized stats not available elsewhere on a blank piece of equipment through a new Crafting NPC. And the gear has to be BtC so it can't be traded. This new crafting npc will also allow players to salvage green/blue gears for blank equipment or crafting materials.
Comments
In the low level zones are NPCs called Well Informed Harpers. When I first met them I got the feeling that they are showing me Foundry quests from the area I am in (I guess that is what they have in a description). But it is not working at all, they are still offering the same quests whenever you are. But if it does... You like the map, you can play more quests in there. But for this we need to have option to set as a starting map of the guest any map in the game.
We can use any existing map as the starting map -- the Well Informed Harpers are just yet another foundry related search that is broken,
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I am an actor and a writer, and D&D has been a part of my life since I was a teenager, so having a platform to, in a sense, share in stories with others; to come up with an adventure that others could take part in and enjoy is a huge draw. There were a couple features I found somewhat interesting about Neverwinter, but to be honest, none of them would have captured my attention much if not for the Foundry. It's the only real reason I am here, and even with all of its faults, it is the best around. I love creating maps and characters.
Several authors have come up with some very fun and very creative quests. The best quests I have played in Neverwinter were in the Foundry. It opens us all up to such great talent. Some quests have fantastic dialogue, choice (wrought through great effort), and stunning, beautiful maps. Some are so detailed, and so well-crafted that it is legitimately a work of art. So the foundry has definitely succeeded in providing this set of tools for us.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
Nothing has made me wish the Foundry was never implemented, but that is not to say there have not been major frustrations. Among them are
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
I think I agree with some others here that you are barking up the wrong tree with trying to incentivize content CREATION. I find, and this SEEMS to be true of the rest of the authors I interact with on these forums on a semi-regular basis as well, though I don't claim to speak for them, that having the tools available is the only real incentive the authors need. Would it be nice to gt paid for my work? Sure! I'd love to receive some form of reward or monetary compensation for creating foundry quests, but I don't expect it, and it isn't required. Tips are nice, and maybe if the players could tip Zen I might go and buy something from the store when I had enough (or was close and just had to buy a little extra zen to make up the shortcoming), but I'm not too concerned about Zen store products to begin with, and most of my attention goes to making and playing foundry quests. But the things I want to see in the foundry as an author are:
What really needs to be incentivized is the PLAYING of Foundry Quests, and a number of things need to be improved to make that happen. For one thing, there needs to be some kind of incentive for playing foundries longer than the Daily Eligible minimum length of 15 minutes. As it is, except for the tiny minority of me and some of the immediate foundry authoring community, not much of the Neverwinter players feel they have anything to gain by playing a half-hour quest. They want to rush through 4 15 minute quests so they can get their AD reward from Rhix and they're done, rushing off to their laundry-list of dailies. So there are a few things that I feel should be done to increase the incentive to play, not only foundry quests, but a variety of foundry quests.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I have never played a game like Neverwinter before, so I am not really sure. That said I understand Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 did a very good job. I also would like to point to RPG Maker for some basic features like conditional branches, switches, and variables, among some other details that seem like they shouldn't be too hard to use.
Holy <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> Yes!! This I agree would be mindblowing! ["Oh dear god, pleeeeaasse" let the Devs give this is serious thought."]
Good call hustin
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
I hope to see Foundry mobs scaled to be a challenge, more epic boss encounters if it fits the story line. It might even be cool to integrate a campaign feature with foundry's. I Personally would like to see more foundry's being created into permanent game settings. Doesnt even have to be a contest. Find a good compelling foundry and work with the author to make it work in the entire game. Then level designers could tweak it after that or add extra more relevent story/mod concepts to it.
Its fairly obvious the devs do not have a large group and content suffers for it. Why not use the player base to delegate that work to in a fun way. There are some amazing foundry's and many of them missed.
And of course, having no loot, even something I can give to an alt or sell is one of the silliest ideas. Even if you can only get 1 good piece of loot a day, it would be better then its current state. And I'd like to see a different set of loot and/RP items as rewards for the foundry. Make it the fun and unique thing it is and capitalize on it. You would probably make more money off selling new fashion/foundry items and things like that then trying to sell us overpriced blood rubies o.O
I really like this idea of foundry "coins" (coming from QC checked foundry quests) that could be exchanged for other meaningful campaign currencies, given that campaign progression through dailies eats up so much player time it would be great to have a complimentary method to progress which keeps game play fresh and lets players enjoy the foundry without falling behind in the campaign.
Martin ConDion PVE only Ranger
Guild Founder: -HunterS-
1. A more comprehensive encounter selection. More non-humanoid creatures such as Dragons, Centaurs, Giant Insects (other than spiders) Snakes, Chimera, Giant Rat, Giant Lizard, Beholder and its kin, Hydra, and many others. As well as a more varied selection of allied encounters.
2. When a player elects to leave feedback, add a window explaining the author has no control over the basics like loot control, vendors, crafting nodes...etc.
3. Require each foundry to be at least 15 mins of play time, therefore eliminating those cheater quests simply designed to abuse the foundry to achieve certian in-game goals like Achievements or kill boxes for power leveling characters.
4. Allow authors to choose the level limits of their quests. Like in classic Dungeons and Dragons adventures (For player levels 30 -35)
5. Change the current foundry search engine to include other categories like Roleplay, Hack-n-Slash, Dungeon, Multiplayer, and others.
6. Provide a system of reward to entice players to play foundry content. Such as adding special "Foundry Tokens" to the end chest of each foundry. Then providing a title reward or a special vendor to utilize the tokens to purchase unique foundry transmogs, Dye packs, Companions, and perhaps even mounts. (Always wanted that Pegasus)
7. Add randomly generated skill nodes to the maps in any given foundry. Giving the author only the control of turning them on or off.
That's it for now hope to see some of these some day. Thanks for listening.
"...projects are never finished, only abandoned....."
HellsHot is a proud member of Scribes' Enclave.
1. The Haronomous Saga NWS-DJIKP5IWK a four part, story driven, campaign.
2. The Ruins of Xylon NWS-DC76ORA4I a two part, dungeon crawl.
3. Armor Odyssey NWS-DAUPTR46M a three part, story driven, odyssey.
This would be virtually impossible. I forget what the average time was for "Tired of being the hero" but I know it was above 15 minutes. I zerged it on a mod2 GWF in 5mins. What would you do at that point? Lock me in time out till the 15 mins were up? Remove the quest from the foundry? Give me no rewards even though I broke no rules?
I'm pretty sure Shandizar was talking about the average time, not the actual time.
That might honestly be even worse.
What happens then when the name of one quest or it's story attracts a bunch of people like me that zerg and an identical quest with a different name and description attracts a bunch of "flowersniffers" (not being insulting just the easiest way to describe it). The author of the quest that the zergers run did nothing wrong but suddenly his work that is identical to author b is not allowed and removed. In fact I would worry that this could become a griefing tactic if you didn't like someone. Zerg their content till it's removed. The current time limit system where if the average goes down too far you don't get credit for the daily is probably the best system that could be used.
We play heroes who fight evil for a living: as such, our heroes aren't cut out for building their dream house/mansion with their own two hands. They have to either hire people to do it for them or find people who are willing to help out in gratitude for performing heroic deeds. And, of course, our heroes first have to encounter those people in the first place.
Want dwarven construction? You'll have to do quests that put you in the good graces of certain dwarves. Want goblins to corral your beast companions (spiders, rust monsters, drakes, etc.)? You'll have to do quests that get you on the goblins' good side. Want your housing up in cold areas? You'll have to do quests that clear out ice trolls and ice giants, and maybe even winterkill goblins (unless you want the goblins to provide security, in which case you might need to stop the trolls from eating them!)
Want a redcap hut? This could be a tough one -- you'll need redcaps to help build it but then where do you put it? You might have to clear out hostile redcaps (or, gods forbid, help redcaps blight the forest if you want to live among them!). Those quests might also put you in the elves' BAD graces such that it will take extraordinary heroic feats to get their construction experts to give you the time of day.
Want an underground nest for your spiders? Be prepared to do some exotic drow-related questing, which might or might not put you in someone else's bad graces.
The more of a certain type of construction you want, the more questing you'll have to do. The dwarves you rescued might be grateful, but it only goes so far before you'll have to do something else (read: different) for them.
There are tons of possibilities, but it would require a real commitment to vetting and categorizing foundry quests.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Foundry is innovative cause it give a real opportunity to players to improve the game experience in Neverwinter; its more than fan art, its a real part of the game. Unfortunetly Foundry are not properly rewarded, as for player than for author: players often consider that this lack of reward is a waste of time, authors work for hours with very few retribution.
I hope that this first question is not a way to question relevance of the foundry...
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
-I think lack of reward is the main critic that i heard; author could be frustrated that nobody care about their Foundry work cause they can "only offer creativity". Finnaly it came to the point that few "author" offer new kind of map like horrible farming experience to loot RP/XP (empty map/full monster) and this exploit give a very negative feedback to author who try to create map, story, etc...
-Story line builder is also frustrating cause you can only think to offer a linear story; even you could cheat this part of the builder it require lot of effort and copy/past to reach an "half freedom" experience.
-Boss building is also a week point for authors.
-Cosmetic change could be also boring sometime.(CDF recently organised an indie contest, but it show also the lack of patern)
-Teleport are a bit annoying for new authors
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Rethink reward(s) is i guess a priority to give more attractivity;
i hate xp/loot mission in foundry but it seems that theses kind of creation give you an anwser of "why players come to foundry". When you create a mission with very few monsters its hard to compete with the desire of reward. Another thing that is hard to hear for authors is " players only play mission between 15 and 25 min".... Finnaly if you want to make a a 35 min quest you must know that only few players will test it.
Globally we need to think about new kind of reward, i try to give some idea:
-Time base XP reward for 30+min quest
-Limited placable "checkpoint" xp/loot reward; could be usefull to secondary objective or for 30+min quest
-To strugle against cheated map, think about a "common pool of loot" for each quest(you could loot x peridot, x subli stone,etc.. by mission). In this config no need to kill 100 monsters if you can have the same loot with 10 monsters.
For authors pride is a reward, but regarding the time we cooperated with you to create new content i guess you could do better.
Zen market new content for foundry was a debated subject in my community, and we came to the conclusion that it will lead split authors community between those who can pay and those cannot afford buy content. So not a positive sign for new comer.
Looting new content(monster, building, cosmetic change,etc..) in event, T1/T2 dungeon, special mission could be a solution.
You give opportunity to players to buy a RPG dice recently, but nothing was done to connect this new tool to Foundry design. Offering more interaction between foundry storyline and dice rolling could be very interesting for old school rolist.
Other last minute idea; but the organisation of co-creation is nearly impossible. You can't "send" a map to someone to try to build a common quest/campaign. That was the main point of editor in NWN and NWN2: you can co create.
Getting back to the question about rewards for Authors: The rewards we have now are somewhat lackluster. We have two rare companions, a series of cloaks, a mount, and some titles.
-the titles are nice and Authoring is the only way to get them. Thumbs up
-the Book Imp is nice, I have in fact had other players stop and ask about him
-Cloaks....not very special (and as my character is not a stick thin waif my butt clips into all cloaks so I never display them)
-the Ioun Stone: Not that helpful, the active bonus isn't as good as many other augment companions
That brings me to:
-the Bear....good grief, do not get me started on our broken bear. For ages it was ugly and bugged. Currently it is just very unimpressive. The Zen Store bears with armor are much nicer looking. Mounts are one of the few really impressive ways to show off in Neverwinter. For all the rarity of the foundry Bear mount I would want it to look as nice as the armored polar bear. I was so excited to earn one and then I saw what it looked like. I never use it. That's hardly the reaction you want from players and many of us who have the bear had the same reaction.
So yes, some unique, showy rewards would be a good "thank you" for the authors who spend hours and hours creating quests.
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
The main issue I have with the cloaks is that the stats are on par with a transmute item, but they don't get first transmute free. So, if you want your level 60 to show off that spiffy cape by transmuting your end-game neck item, it will cost you a bunch of ADs to do so... IF it lets you. For some reason, many items can't have the cloak as a transmute. And no, I'm not taking about things that have no graphics to change. I don't know if it's a problem with the end-game items or with the foundry cloaks, but the majority of the time it tells me I can't transmute using the foundry cloak.
So what I'm saying here is that I really like the idea of the Foundry cloaks, but they are unnecessarily expensive due to not being set as transmute items, and the limitations on what we can transmute are extremely frustrating. I'd love to see that get fixed.
It was probably put in to avoid giving RMT an easy way to pass AD from account to account. Granted it doesn't work but, I'd guess that's the original intent.
It lets me have a creative outlet when I have Dev-like twitches to make something again.
What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing?
Puns. Stabbing stuff. Helping others with a goal. I like giving the guild I'm in an alternative place to go for a bit.
Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
The "usual randomness" I seem to end up with I can put into stories. Really, every storyline resembles a sort of RP day I had before. Random happens.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short?
Fewer options on customizing a landscape in terrain like NWN Classic used to have. You could put in your own hills/ walls/ buildings etc without using placeables to do it. You could also actually sit in chairs or on benches, and even lie down on a bed. I loved the customization NWN Classic had even with the pain in the heinie coding.
What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry?
Getting stuck unable to complete an idea. I sadly have a Foundry that's set there for two weeks now with no real progress. I'll get to it tomorrow. Tomorrow.... tomorrow. AUGH must complete like quest.. ohhmm.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation?
Zen coupons for Foundry achievements. Not the lower 15% ones, but one free green companion of choice or a full Fashion outfit.
If doing Foundry also offered a "purchase with star ranks" option for some of the Campaign currencies or items that'd be awesome too. Earn 100 stars get something. Earn 5o0 stars next rank, 1000, 3000, etc for next rank reward like the XP rewards do.
How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Maybe let players design the next CTA/ Event area, and apply some past/new rewards to running it so it's both new AND old.
I didn't have much of an answer for the last questions here.
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
I really like the ability to make your own custom maps, and your own custom NPC's. I am glad that the Foundry was implemented because it gives the foundry author's a chance to express themselves to the community in ways that Cryptic hasn't been able to, either due to lore, or time constraints.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
The loot and reward system for the foundry is very lacking. People generally don't even run foundry missions anymore because the rewards are so horrible. I also wish that there was a way to prevent the empty achievement maps that people have been making in 2 seconds just to have their friends run for the achievements.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
First and foremost - bug fixes. There's a whole list of bugs related the foundry that need to be addressed. After that, I would very much like to have bosses added. I wouldn't mind if you are only allowed 1 boss per map, but I would very much like to be able to have them. I also would like Foundry quests to be able to qualify for Daily Foundry (meaning, 15 minutes or longer) in order for people to get achievements for running them. This would take care of the aforementioned empty maps.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I have not played any other games that had this much UGC, so I'm unable to answer this question.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
On the topic of bosses/mini-bosses. I'd also like to see the ability to separate encounters into single creatures and expand their respective health bars, similar to the Dragonsoul bossses. This could allow for a single creature to function as a boss/mini-boss like Jareth Grim, using it's existing tactics and powers.
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Didn't they basically say that they weren't going to give us bosses? I mean, I know it's something we'd all love to have, so I'd still love to see it happen, but I've rather redirected my energy towards other things. I'm putting the focus of my push for things on Branching quests, OR Logic, and Costumes.
Seriously, give us access to all the NPC costumes piecemeal. They're already in the system. We can replace them item-by-item with our current options; we just can't select them for a model that wasn't built with them. I want the chainmail shirts that many NPCs wear, so I can make fully armored women. I want access to Merchant doublets and dresses so I can make a variety of peasants that aren't either all wearing the same ******* peasant tunic, or geared up like adventurers. Give us some puffy frilly shirts, pantaloons, baggy pants, real skirts and dresses. Give us a variety of hats, like pillbox hats, wide-brimmed hats, floppy hats ala Henry VIII, straw hats, phrygian caps, chain coifs, maybe some furry hats for cold weather...
While on the subject of cold weather gear, maybe some wool or fur-lined cloaks, gloves, and boots for winter. Heavy coats, things like that. Add to that some warm weather gear, like bare feet or sandals.
That would be my foundry wet dream.
I enjoy the seemlessness of being able to produce and publish your adventure, for the entire audience of Neverwinter Players. I like creating the stories and enviroments, creating branching dialogue to personalise your interaction.
The Foundry makes it easy to produce ideas and your creativity into something concrete and enjoyable to all.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
I hate having to battle the mechanics of the Foundry to make something work, because of the limited conditions we've been supplied to change something. Unlike the devs, we don't have access to code in a script that does more advanced things then just the GUI supplies us.
Timers is one thing that comes to mind that we miss, or AND/OR conditions. Or remembering states across maps (I can't make the game remember a dialogue trigger in one map, to produce a different result in the map following). We're stuck with mostly linear objective design.
Rewards deserve their own chapter, I would like for cryptic to account length of mission to reward tables, and consider that story missions with little combat need consideration as well.
I can't think of anything that I wouldn't want implemented in the Foundry, just things I wish were expanded or done less annoyingly.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Attracting more Foundry authors is more a question of making the foundry seem less daunting. The live stream with Akromatik, if anyone has followed it - was a perfect tutorial with a newbie to the foundry getting some slight advice from a veteran. Co-creating with maybe voice implementation,or making streaming with Steam more popular.
If we can make the same missions/dungeons/mobs/bosses the devs can do, we'de be quite content.
I would like to see Cryptic to allow Player made Campaigns for Storylines, in the Campaigns window. A page you can visit, and stays active as long as the foundry campaign is active, maybe that it even follows different mission lines. Something to remember the progress made, maybe even centralised maps ala Dread Campaign.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Arma 3 has an amazing mission editor with deep scripting capabilities. The beauty of its system is that anyone can download the mission and play it, because extra files - be it scripts or other files...will be packed in the missionfile.
Even without mods, the possibilities are extensive because despite the UI giving you allot to play with - mission makers can use code and add their own scripts to the game, and make things even more interesting.
Since Arma 3, it has Steamworkshop implementation, so it's quite seamless...not unlike Foundry Catalog.
In fact, scripting is so extensive, people make programs to help out on certain functions - like this one. A Loadout editor
So I had a delve into some of the other Cryptic/PW games out there and found that STO also had a Foundry system. However, it was pay-to-use. WHY?????
The Foundry is possibly one of the best parts of Cryptic games! Even if STO was made before this and there is a lot more content - possibly.
So you want to make a profit. Fair enough, but at least let everyone be able to use the entirety of the content but either up the prices on other aspects or whatever, or (related to Q4/5 - which ever) it's not so much the Foundry that's the problem in this instance, it's the buisiness model for the earlier games. Or have we actually been taking the Foundry for granted because Neverwinter is one of the few games that lets people use it for free?
Is this the Foundry in general or just Neverwinter? And what about past projects? Are you still doing anything with those? It is inevitable that there will be others who have taken the same path as me and played Neverwinter before other MMO's you've made and feel the same dissapointment that the beloved Foundry isn't free on all Cryptic games. In short. If you're going to do present and future games, at least think about the past games aswell.
I'm not exactly sure which forums this should be on really because it's related to both Neverwinter, STO and potentially other games with a Foundry system.
STO
Smite
SWTOR
Partially false. To open Foundry slots in STO requires refined dilithium (the equivalent of AD) but does not require real money. It may be a leftover from when STO was a subscription based game, though. NW does not have the AD requirement but it was designed as fully free to play.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Question One... as a "sound designer for cryptic studios" are we to believe that you have any sway what-so-ever concerning PWE's handling of this product?
Question Two... are we to believe that PWE does not know what problems exist in the foundry or what the authors want? ( uh.. bosses, timers, 'or' logic, REWARDS FOR PLAYING FOUNDRY MISSIONS, etc... , etc... )... these items have been WELL documented many, many, many, many times.
Question Three... this one really kind of gets me a little riled up .. SINCE DAY ONE... This game had ONE BIG SELLING POINT... this game had one thing that every review just raved and raved about... since the first day this game became available, everyone knew it was the foundry system that would make this game stand out from everything else. We have already seen a few other projects that dabbled with this idea (by the same company).. but Neverwinter was gonna really do this right... remember? I do... and so does everyone else. There was the belief by this company (at least it's what they said) that the user generated content would really make this game special... but somewhere along the line... the foundry became ... uh... unprofitable ... for PWE. Here's my third question... is what we say in answer to your questions going to make any difference at all in how Perfect World Entertainment handles the foundry?
Thank you so much for your time...
Guitarzan698
If Cryptic Studios wants to know how to make UGC more successfully implemented in any upcoming projects... I have many thoughts, but first DON"T SELL YOUR GAME TO PEOPLE WHO WILL KILL IT. Perfect World Entertainment is well known for wringing out every penny from their investments, and then throwing them away.
Slight correction -- PWE does not "own" and did not "buy" Neverwinter Online. It bought the ENTIRE Cryptic Studios company.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
XP gain inside Foundry has to be capped too.