If you send lists to Andy or to any moderator we can forward them for review.
They're sort of like bots though, they tend to get made faster than resources can be assigned to remove them. I know people always try to scream blasphemy at such statements but a coalition of trusted individuals to rate and report foundry quests would be really helpful to expedite the trash out of the system and improve the way quests are organised and promoted.
Working on it.
NWS-DLXTNXRF2 - Angeline von Stein NWS-DOVA9JIJV - The Lost Seneschal NW-DT3221YUY - The Wildcross Bride
maybe not everyone who has made those is aware of them being not allowed, maybe if the person who can delete the quests can also send a message to the authors to make sure they know it's now allowed? also, please, don't allow short quests to count for achievements, 15 for the ex daily was a great way to measure them.
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torontodaveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 992Arc User
If you send lists to Andy or to any moderator we can forward them for review.
They're sort of like bots though, they tend to get made faster than resources can be assigned to remove them.
"fast achievement quest" or something like it, ranked on the top 10 of all time lists, has 16,000 plays? can't be that new. ;D
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
But we had a lot of issues to finish them, with the foundry down for a lot of time, the sound crash to desktop bug (that is now fixed) and not to mention the teleporter bug.
I don't know if there still some more authors to want to participate on the contest to get at least 5 entries.
Anyway the contest is in standby at the moment to my knowledge. I'm guessing we could fix a final date after the teleporter bug is fixed.
Yep - any contest entrants *should* have "#DS" as part of the title to allow easy searching.
...and mine is "basically" finished - I just need to make the "Easter Egg" items visible. But I think you are right - I think others have had some difficulty due to foundry bugs teleporter especially, so I think the "official" contest will resume after that is fixed.
Since it will be judged by a panel of judges, don't see any reason why they couldn't be featured though.
If you send lists to Andy or to any moderator we can forward them for review.
They're sort of like bots though, they tend to get made faster than resources can be assigned to remove them.
"fast achievement quest" or something like it, ranked on the top 10 of all time lists, has 16,000 plays? can't be that new. ;D
I have no doubt it isn't new.
Unfortunately the response time is reeeeeaally slow on removing exploitative Foundry content even when it is reported. Sorry for saying that Cryptic but if it wasn't slow I wouldn't be saying it.
I don't know how often they look for exploit quests in house or exactly who is even allowed to remove them but I know it has taken at least two weeks or longer after sending reports in the past to get quests removed.
Point is, slow response times doesn't mean it's allowed. It's just another example of them not putting enough effort into the Foundry which just adds to the whole chicken or the egg debate of whether the Cryptic shouldn't put resources into the foundry because there is no interest of if there is no interest because Cryptic hasn't put enough resources into it.
In NW they are not encouraged to play content that doesn't give rewards because the progression is tied to gear. That doesn't mean people are lootheads.
There's plenty of people who played NWN 1 + 2, BG I + II and the Diablo series. Players will do what they are given incentive to do. The only thing that is insulting about the statements you are making is that you assume because they are doing what they are given incentive to do that they don't like other content when simply asking people would tell you otherwise.
The bottom line is that people are rarely only one specific type of player. Just because people play pure gear grinds like Diablo doesn't mean the same players don't also enjoy a game like the Witcher series. To try and say that people who play X only want X games is completely inaccurate. People will play the content they enjoy as long as the content helps with their progression in the game they are playing. If the content is unrewarding the only conclusion that can be made is that people will not play content which doesn't add to their progression in the game.
If the content added to progression in a meaningful way (not necessarily on par with the dev content) and players still did not play Foundry content then you could make that claim...but any content in any game which does not add to progression is left unplayed.
I am sure anybody who has played MMO's that have lasted for more than a few years has seen the most popular content abandoned because the rewards didn't age well with the MMO. It's not that the content suddenly wasn't good...it's that it no longer adds enough to progression to justify playing it. Foundry content was simply never given enough reason to justify playing it to begin with.
torontodaveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 992Arc User
Which is why we need a 0/100 Featured Foundry Mote Mainhand/Offhand.
It would encourage people to play 100 great stories that have been featured. NO ONE
NO ONE
N O O N E ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! !
wants to do the same Heroic Encounter 100 times. Yet that's what we got. =X If they choose to run the shortest featured foundry 100 times, thats up to them, but at least they have the OPTION to engage other quests within the foundry.
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Hello, a scant few of you know who I am in real life. I am just getting up this morning scratching my head and trying to guess what I am reading. Coffee helps. Allow me first to identify what makes me a "so-called expert" in how this and other games like it function. In the real world I work for a large database company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am in charge of the security of keeping bank and shopping records safe. So I know my SQL, I have to walk a path between the shadow world of the potential thief and my career knowing what they know, before it effects a client in a bad way.
Some of you are under the misconception that Foundry assets are kept on the server. The fact is all the models mesh, texture, and sound is there inside the Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\piggs folder the files called hoggs are nothing more than compressed game files. The need model, for say, Charthraxis is already on your hard drive. The only time the hogg is changed is when they send you changes and this occurs when the patch the hoggs. This is the only time "bandwidth" is a real issue because they are uploading 1 GB patch to your PC and everyone else too! If the population is say 5,000 customers then they incur 5,000 GB (5 Terabytes) of bandwidth for patching.
The rest of the time while playing the game a tiny bit of data is sent via your PC to the server. Called packets, they mostly tell the server every 100 ms (one tenth of a second) what you are doing (keystrokes), your global coordinates in the game, chat, etc.. Then the server collates all this user data and shoots back your information to people you are nearby so they know what you look like and your position in the game. Stating the positions of nearby enemies such as Chartraxis could be as simple as; model number, global x, y, z position, and his rotation. Just a string of numbers and not as much bandwidth as patches.
The Foundry takes even less bandwidth and should really take none at all during editing, however they insist on the connection. When you are in Protector's Enclave the game reports and sends back reports on 45 players per full instance. No Foundry can have more than 5 players, roughly one-tenth the number of people in a single instance of Protector's Enclave. Anyone viewing the number of instances can do the math.
I expressed the following on Star Trek Online years ago and will state the obvious once more. The Foundry does NOT need to be online during editing. However Cryptic forces the issue that the server must be running with the client or the client won't work. They do this, more than likely, so we don't play this game in an offline mode. All the game at this point is passing back and forth is your chat. Everything you edit is in fact saved to your hard drive here;
Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\Data\ns
Because the server checks its saved copies against yours. If they differ, it states, there is a newer version of your saved game since you dropped carrier without saving the last time. Then it prompts you to load the version from your hard drive.
Since you play test by yourself, there is no one to send data to or get data back from. This mean all the network does is keep the chat window active. Anyone telling you the Foundry uses more bandwidth is full of shaving cream.
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. ~ Mark Twain
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instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
Since you play test by yourself, there is no one to send data to or get data back from. This mean all the network does is keep the chat window active. Anyone telling you the Foundry uses more bandwidth is full of shaving cream.
We know all this. @terramak used "bandwidth" as "industry jargon" for "dev time", and that was misinterpreted by we, the plebes.
But thank you for the intelligent and informative response. :-)
Yes, I read that and it sounded to me like blatant misdirection. I don't know how they talk at work on the west coast, but here I demand people to say exactly what they mean. Heavy workload is not bandwidth in my lexicon, slang is for the street kids. If an employee cannot express themselves in appropriate terms, they need retraining. Maybe they don't require or practice the same guidelines we do in database security, but I would hope they hold the same business acumen.
You are very welcome.
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. ~ Mark Twain
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instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
What I'm curious about.. since all the assets in the game are, in fact, stored in the HOGG files, why they don't just link the Foundry to those assets...?
Like many workplaces, you don't do something until the boss tells you to do it. I think that's where our struggle lies. They need to allocate resources (programmer and time) to activate those assets for us to use. This has long been asked for, likely by more than just the players, yet it seems to always be rebuffed by the decision makers.
"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
What I'm curious about.. since all the assets in the game are, in fact, stored in the HOGG files, why they don't just link the Foundry to those assets...?
That would be the easiest way to do it, I agree. 1 problem I can think of, is that there's probably much more in those files than they want us to use or know about. Keep in mind that the FEditor would probably read everything, even assets that are not active yet. And I don't think they'll ever allow us to use Tiamat herself in Foundry quests, awesome as it would be. Also, the editor would require a major update if we were to play with her attack powers and have people survive the encounter without dragon crystals. Even with those it would be a major problem for any solo character. Scaling her would only go that far. It's not that simple I'm afraid.
I think that's part of it. The other part is that assets available to the foundry need to have more data than what is used by their internal toolset. They need to add things like "size 1'x1'" (to nearly every foundry asset regardless of actual size - lazy a$$hats).
I'm sure there is also a flag informing the foundry editor that it is "usable" in the foundry. The "anchor/rotation point" is probably also foundry specific (since it's always all over the place and usually wrong). And they have to assign a "cost" for the foundry assets to be deducted from the foundry "budget."
So, yes, the "graphical" asset model is all stored locally, in the hogg files, but there are little fiddly bits that Cryptic needs to add to enable their use. Still, it's likely just a handful of values that ANY intern/idiot could change in whatever database those values are stored. So their "bandwidth" excuse is, in the case of "adding" assets "full of excrement." In the case of fixing bugs in a 15 year old game engine -- probably highly likely given the fragility that foundry breaks everytime they fix/change something in the game itself. "Technical debt" on this game engine is likely scarier than any mob.
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2016
Sure the argument could be made that interns (which are not slave labor despite that internet users still try to make them as such) could input all of the data to get more Foundry Assets but more likely that it has to do with somebody having to decide which is given and which is not as well as somebody testing the impact such assets have on performance before anybody can opt to simply add them to the Foundry.
If it was as simple as adding info then I am sure at least one of the developers would volunteer their time. CrypticCliff has always been known to help with WINE support one his free time so if it was that simple I am sure somebody would do it.
I think that's part of it. The other part is that assets available to the foundry need to have more data than what is used by their internal toolset. They need to add things like "size 1'x1'" (to nearly every foundry asset regardless of actual size - lazy a$$hats).
I don't think it is as simple as that. I am thinking that the way the game renders Foundry Content is completely different from the way the game renders official content.
Look at all the assets used in official content. It more or less looks like they use the assets to build most content and do some post building rendering to remove hidden polygons and textures. That is of course simply a guess but it is a guess that I have made based on the difference between Cryptic Content and Foundry content load times and in game performance in asset heavy areas.
If such a tool exists I would really love the ability for authors, even if it is only experienced authors, to have access to the ability.
I don't think it is as simple as that. I am thinking that the way the game renders Foundry Content is completely different from the way the game renders official content.
Look at all the assets used in official content. It more or less looks like they use the assets to build most content and do some post building rendering to remove hidden polygons and textures. That is of course simply a guess but it is a guess that I have made based on the difference between Cryptic Content and Foundry content load times and in game performance in asset heavy areas.
If such a tool exists I would really love the ability for authors, even if it is only experienced authors, to have access to the ability.
No, actually it is a lot easier than that. Here is an extract of a cell door.
Component 93 { ParentID 35 VisibleName "Cell Door" Type OBJECT
See the line up there "ObjectID -2130346694" that is the model ID number. That number accesses it. That is ALL you need to access that cell door that opens and closes. Truth is they don't want you to have access to dragons, etc.. This would make the Foundry better than the game itself. Just as I said, they don't want you using the Foundry offline either, some people would play everything in God mode and beat finish the game within the Foundry.
Over on STO a few years back, a Foundry author created a third party tool that imported custom maps. This meant you could make a detailed world map and export it to a file. Share the file with other Foundry authors and they could import the same custom made map into their Foundry in just minutes. Cryptic put a stop to that right away, after all we can't have Foundry authors sharing. It might lead to communism!!
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. ~ Mark Twain
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
I think you missed what I said entirely.
And the fact that they do not want you to have access to all assets is well known and was even mentioned within my post. Further evidence that I don't think you understood what I said but I have no idea where you went astray.
And the fact that they do not want you to have access to all assets is well known and was even mentioned within my post. Further evidence that I don't think you understood what I said but I have no idea where you went astray.
I'm not sure where you think he went astray, but I think he's completely right -- the 3-D model is the 3-D model, there is no post-processing that is done to it. It is placed into the scene/area by an entirely different toolset, but the model IS the model. This is why if you look around, say in the Protectors Enclave shop where you get your first artifact quest you will see bottles and hourglasses that are entirely "black" and opaque. They "broke" those models/textures/transparency/whatever and is evident (and reported) in Foundry bugs and can be seen everywhere. That is also why you will see untextured "backsides" and bottoms of assets because THEY chose to "optimize" the graphics rendering of the main game by removing those textures, which then of course broke those of us that used upside-down carts and other assets.
But, indeed it DOES require a choice by someone at Cryptic to "release" an asset to foundry. And as I mentioned to be usable in Foundry it must have certain pieces of data - size, description (typically wrong), and a foundry anchor point. The 3D models used in the game by their development toolset don't need special data.
So, yes, it does take "some" work. I'm 99% certain it is as simple as a handful of data fields.
So development "bandwidth" involves a management "yes/no" and, oh, say about 8 text fields.
Easy guys, if they have decided there's no "bandwith" for it (even if they are right or wrong from our point of view) there's nothing we can do about except complain.
So again, if we can help in any way, here we are.
We spend lots of hours creating content, for free or for a few tips, (at least me), maybe some of us can spend some hours helping to import some assets to the foundry, with some dev supervising us, not a lot of them, we can begin with a few.
NWS-DLXTNXRF2 - Angeline von Stein NWS-DOVA9JIJV - The Lost Seneschal NW-DT3221YUY - The Wildcross Bride
Foundry Grand Master.
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instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
Cryptic has a small army of people who are not only willing and able to write content, but who wish to help improve on that content, by way of importing/whatever assets, bugtracking, etc.
I, for one, am happy to help in whatever way I can... all I want in return is an easier, smoother way to tell stories.
We have offered help countless times and still have been ignored. Sadly, an change still require someone in cryptic to have some time even if it is just to supervise us uploading models. Id love to be able to upload models and textures to the foundry.
Easy guys, if they have decided there's no "bandwith" for it (even if they are right or wrong from our point of view) there's nothing we can do about except complain.
There's something else you can do. Not complain and instead make the stuff you want to elsewhere. As Ambi points out, people play other games too.
I'm not certain of the current workload distribution, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to request to the lead team, one day per month for one developer to work on Foundry upgrades. That's 8 man hours, per month. That may not be nearly enough time to squash many of the issues we're having, but it may make a difference over time. It may mean we get some new assets, maybe not all, but some trickling in on a monthly basis. It could be regarded as a step, albeit a baby step, in the right direction. @terramak, @Strumslinger, thoughts?
"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
Now if only we could get 5 people from this thread who DIDNT create a drowned shore entry to volunteer as judges.
That'd be super. ;D
Considering the quest I'm currently working on, it makes me wonder: what do you think the INSIDE of a redcap hut should look like? Remember:
- They are in the Feywild, also known as the Plane of Faerie. Consider it a demi-plane, but it isn't the Prime Material. - They are gnomes -- of a sort. Magicically twisted into something not their natural state, but still gnomes. - They are Dark Fey Creatures, and that includes the effect of Fey Magic.
Don't consider this an official call for a contest, but it's tempting
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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torontodaveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 992Arc User
Think of Gollum.. ;D He was once a fisherfolk, but twisted by dark magic. ;D
So regular gnome stuff, but .. derelict.
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
torontodave, and everyone else too, go join the cryptic facebook group. Even if you don't have/like facebook, you can make a profile just for that, don't fear for memes or political propaganda, or pictures of kittens, we only talk about the foundry, and I can assure you we have all learned more in there than in here. https://facebook.com/groups/CrypticFoundry/
Comments
NWS-DOVA9JIJV - The Lost Seneschal
NW-DT3221YUY - The Wildcross Bride
Foundry Grand Master.
also, please, don't allow short quests to count for achievements, 15 for the ex daily was a great way to measure them.
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Yep - any contest entrants *should* have "#DS" as part of the title to allow easy searching.
...and mine is "basically" finished - I just need to make the "Easter Egg" items visible. But I think you are right - I think others have had some difficulty due to foundry bugs teleporter especially, so I think the "official" contest will resume after that is fixed.
Since it will be judged by a panel of judges, don't see any reason why they couldn't be featured though.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Unfortunately the response time is reeeeeaally slow on removing exploitative Foundry content even when it is reported. Sorry for saying that Cryptic but if it wasn't slow I wouldn't be saying it.
I don't know how often they look for exploit quests in house or exactly who is even allowed to remove them but I know it has taken at least two weeks or longer after sending reports in the past to get quests removed.
Point is, slow response times doesn't mean it's allowed. It's just another example of them not putting enough effort into the Foundry which just adds to the whole chicken or the egg debate of whether the Cryptic shouldn't put resources into the foundry because there is no interest of if there is no interest because Cryptic hasn't put enough resources into it.
In NW they are not encouraged to play content that doesn't give rewards because the progression is tied to gear.
That doesn't mean people are lootheads.
There's plenty of people who played NWN 1 + 2, BG I + II and the Diablo series. Players will do what they are given incentive to do. The only thing that is insulting about the statements you are making is that you assume because they are doing what they are given incentive to do that they don't like other content when simply asking people would tell you otherwise.
The bottom line is that people are rarely only one specific type of player. Just because people play pure gear grinds like Diablo doesn't mean the same players don't also enjoy a game like the Witcher series. To try and say that people who play X only want X games is completely inaccurate. People will play the content they enjoy as long as the content helps with their progression in the game they are playing. If the content is unrewarding the only conclusion that can be made is that people will not play content which doesn't add to their progression in the game.
If the content added to progression in a meaningful way (not necessarily on par with the dev content) and players still did not play Foundry content then you could make that claim...but any content in any game which does not add to progression is left unplayed.
I am sure anybody who has played MMO's that have lasted for more than a few years has seen the most popular content abandoned because the rewards didn't age well with the MMO. It's not that the content suddenly wasn't good...it's that it no longer adds enough to progression to justify playing it. Foundry content was simply never given enough reason to justify playing it to begin with.
It would encourage people to play 100 great stories that have been featured. NO ONE
NO ONE
N O O N E ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! !
wants to do the same Heroic Encounter 100 times. Yet that's what we got. =X If they choose to run the shortest featured foundry 100 times, thats up to them, but at least they have the OPTION to engage other quests within the foundry.
@dextructoid @asterdahl @badbotlimit @graalx3 @goatshark @panderus hm. if i missed anyone I apologize.
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Some of you are under the misconception that Foundry assets are kept on the server. The fact is all the models mesh, texture, and sound is there inside the Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\piggs folder the files called hoggs are nothing more than compressed game files. The need model, for say, Charthraxis is already on your hard drive. The only time the hogg is changed is when they send you changes and this occurs when the patch the hoggs. This is the only time "bandwidth" is a real issue because they are uploading 1 GB patch to your PC and everyone else too! If the population is say 5,000 customers then they incur 5,000 GB (5 Terabytes) of bandwidth for patching.
The rest of the time while playing the game a tiny bit of data is sent via your PC to the server. Called packets, they mostly tell the server every 100 ms (one tenth of a second) what you are doing (keystrokes), your global coordinates in the game, chat, etc.. Then the server collates all this user data and shoots back your information to people you are nearby so they know what you look like and your position in the game. Stating the positions of nearby enemies such as Chartraxis could be as simple as; model number, global x, y, z position, and his rotation. Just a string of numbers and not as much bandwidth as patches.
The Foundry takes even less bandwidth and should really take none at all during editing, however they insist on the connection. When you are in Protector's Enclave the game reports and sends back reports on 45 players per full instance. No Foundry can have more than 5 players, roughly one-tenth the number of people in a single instance of Protector's Enclave. Anyone viewing the number of instances can do the math.
I expressed the following on Star Trek Online years ago and will state the obvious once more. The Foundry does NOT need to be online during editing. However Cryptic forces the issue that the server must be running with the client or the client won't work. They do this, more than likely, so we don't play this game in an offline mode. All the game at this point is passing back and forth is your chat. Everything you edit is in fact saved to your hard drive here;
Cryptic Studios\Neverwinter\Live\Data\ns
Because the server checks its saved copies against yours. If they differ, it states, there is a newer version of your saved game since you dropped carrier without saving the last time. Then it prompts you to load the version from your hard drive.
Since you play test by yourself, there is no one to send data to or get data back from. This mean all the network does is keep the chat window active. Anyone telling you the Foundry uses more bandwidth is full of shaving cream.
But thank you for the intelligent and informative response. :-)
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
You are very welcome.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
I think that's part of it. The other part is that assets available to the foundry need to have more data than what is used by their internal toolset. They need to add things like "size 1'x1'" (to nearly every foundry asset regardless of actual size - lazy a$$hats).
I'm sure there is also a flag informing the foundry editor that it is "usable" in the foundry. The "anchor/rotation point" is probably also foundry specific (since it's always all over the place and usually wrong). And they have to assign a "cost" for the foundry assets to be deducted from the foundry "budget."
So, yes, the "graphical" asset model is all stored locally, in the hogg files, but there are little fiddly bits that Cryptic needs to add to enable their use. Still, it's likely just a handful of values that ANY intern/idiot could change in whatever database those values are stored. So their "bandwidth" excuse is, in the case of "adding" assets "full of excrement." In the case of fixing bugs in a 15 year old game engine -- probably highly likely given the fragility that foundry breaks everytime they fix/change something in the game itself. "Technical debt" on this game engine is likely scarier than any mob.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
If it was as simple as adding info then I am sure at least one of the developers would volunteer their time. CrypticCliff has always been known to help with WINE support one his free time so if it was that simple I am sure somebody would do it. I don't think it is as simple as that. I am thinking that the way the game renders Foundry Content is completely different from the way the game renders official content.
Look at all the assets used in official content. It more or less looks like they use the assets to build most content and do some post building rendering to remove hidden polygons and textures. That is of course simply a guess but it is a guess that I have made based on the difference between Cryptic Content and Foundry content load times and in game performance in asset heavy areas.
If such a tool exists I would really love the ability for authors, even if it is only experienced authors, to have access to the ability.
Over on STO a few years back, a Foundry author created a third party tool that imported custom maps. This meant you could make a detailed world map and export it to a file. Share the file with other Foundry authors and they could import the same custom made map into their Foundry in just minutes. Cryptic put a stop to that right away, after all we can't have Foundry authors sharing. It might lead to communism!!
And the fact that they do not want you to have access to all assets is well known and was even mentioned within my post. Further evidence that I don't think you understood what I said but I have no idea where you went astray.
I'm not sure where you think he went astray, but I think he's completely right -- the 3-D model is the 3-D model, there is no post-processing that is done to it. It is placed into the scene/area by an entirely different toolset, but the model IS the model. This is why if you look around, say in the Protectors Enclave shop where you get your first artifact quest you will see bottles and hourglasses that are entirely "black" and opaque. They "broke" those models/textures/transparency/whatever and is evident (and reported) in Foundry bugs and can be seen everywhere. That is also why you will see untextured "backsides" and bottoms of assets because THEY chose to "optimize" the graphics rendering of the main game by removing those textures, which then of course broke those of us that used upside-down carts and other assets.
But, indeed it DOES require a choice by someone at Cryptic to "release" an asset to foundry. And as I mentioned to be usable in Foundry it must have certain pieces of data - size, description (typically wrong), and a foundry anchor point. The 3D models used in the game by their development toolset don't need special data.
So, yes, it does take "some" work. I'm 99% certain it is as simple as a handful of data fields.
So development "bandwidth" involves a management "yes/no" and, oh, say about 8 text fields.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
So again, if we can help in any way, here we are.
We spend lots of hours creating content, for free or for a few tips, (at least me), maybe some of us can spend some hours helping to import some assets to the foundry, with some dev supervising us, not a lot of them, we can begin with a few.
NWS-DOVA9JIJV - The Lost Seneschal
NW-DT3221YUY - The Wildcross Bride
Foundry Grand Master.
Cryptic has a small army of people who are not only willing and able to write content, but who wish to help improve on that content, by way of importing/whatever assets, bugtracking, etc.
I, for one, am happy to help in whatever way I can... all I want in return is an easier, smoother way to tell stories.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Id love to be able to upload models and textures to the foundry.
I've enough time to play both games.
NWS-DOVA9JIJV - The Lost Seneschal
NW-DT3221YUY - The Wildcross Bride
Foundry Grand Master.
@terramak, @Strumslinger, thoughts?
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
- They are in the Feywild, also known as the Plane of Faerie. Consider it a demi-plane, but it isn't the Prime Material.
- They are gnomes -- of a sort. Magicically twisted into something not their natural state, but still gnomes.
- They are Dark Fey Creatures, and that includes the effect of Fey Magic.
Don't consider this an official call for a contest, but it's tempting
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
So regular gnome stuff, but .. derelict.
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Even if you don't have/like facebook, you can make a profile just for that, don't fear for memes or political propaganda, or pictures of kittens, we only talk about the foundry, and I can assure you we have all learned more in there than in here.
https://facebook.com/groups/CrypticFoundry/