What The Foundry means to me

mathmaster74

Hello everyone.
I just wanted to start this thread of positive experiences with The Foundry so we can all share what it means to us. Please stay focused on the positives for this thread. Thank you in advance.

What The Foundry means to me...

...I was introduced to The Foundry (and Neverwinter) as a student of Game Art & Design in college. I used The Foundry to demonstrate my skills for my Level Design class. That class produced my first sense that I could really be a Level Designer. For my final project, I published my first quest. After, I began toying with notions of grander levels/quests in anticipation of using The Foundry for Advanced Level Design class. That didn't turn out to be the direction the class took...but I was hooked. I began creating maps to challenge myself. Could I find a way to max. out the count for every category? Could I do this? Could I do that? Along the way...I began creating quests that were...a Foundry Tutorial, a Foundry museum, and of course, my next great level design. I was burning my irons in several fires in The Foundry, and believe I have true talent and something of a new experience to give players. I was really learning the ins and outs of design cans and can'ts as well as do's and don'ts in The Foundry. My quest from Level Design class remains for review. Now, with The Foundry functionally down, I actively play characters named after the short code for my quest. I proudly wear my Foundry Neophyte title on all of my characters. I hope for the day The Foundry functionality returns so I can share a finished tutorial quest, a finished museum, and all sorts of finished quests and/or campaigns.

Thank you for taking the time to read what The Foundry means to me. If you have positive experiences to share. Please do. I look forward to reading them in reciprocation.

Sincerely,
The Mathmaster

valcontar73

I really enjoy the foundry and creating quests. I did 16 in total (some of them are still in progress).

I've imagination for almost 20 more, but well you know...

I'm really proud of my campaign "Angeline von Stein" (spanish only, but I think that some scenarios are worth viewing). I would like to have more slots to translate it to english.

For me was a real challenge to do the campaign "The lost seneschal" in english, thanks to the help of many authors I could achieve that goal, and I really enjoyed every moment creating it.

It's amazing too, to see what other authors can achieve with the foundry tools. It never stops to surprise me.

But for now, I'll not return until they fix the foundry.

demonmonger

Foundry to me was a place where we could make our fantasies come to life.
Create pve test your might zones, and guild requirement challenges (fail means you cannot join). Foundry has been a place to create mazes, race tracks and more events that we could use to generate zen for users who beat our challenges.

sandukutupu

My experience started 30 years ago, when I was playing D&D with my friends. We went to a man's house and played D&D in his kitchen all night long. He was an excellent dungeon master, he made us maps, drawings, and even did voices well. We enjoyed many campaigns at his house, so I married him. We continued to play D&D until the early 1990's, when we raised our 2 son's. Many years later they also enjoyed the game at the same kitchen table.

I tried my hand at writing a novel about vampires and I am talking old school vampyres with the "Y". But my novel was turned down by publishers. Since we were over 30ish, it felt a bit creepy sitting in on my boys and their young friends games of D&D. I turned to the PC when I found Morrowind TES 3 and Neverwinter Nights. I also learned a tad about how to make a module using their editors. But I would need either my oldest son or my husband to help with the tech issues. They have a complicated editor.

In 2008, my sons started playing a game called Guild Wars, but there was no editor, no way to add stories, however when the price dropped in 2011, and I started playing it myself. I found it very enjoyable. In 2012, I read this company was "reviving" Neverwinter and putting it online with a dungeon editor known as The Foundry. My heart had wings. I found out they were testing it on Star Trek. I don't like Star Trek, never did watch it because it is not about magic, dragons, monsters, etc. Star Trek is about science that attempts to explain away magic, dragons, and monsters. Sorry if you are a Star Trek fan, my husband is a trekker, he assisted me with the lore.

Regardless of my feelings, I wrote 4 to 5 Star Trek missions just in preparation to starting up here. There was delays as usual with games but I was thrilled. I made 1 quest here to get the "feel' of the new editor. STO Foundry never had options for music and there is only the 2D editor. I thought by now I should have 8 or 10 quests here... but they took it away too often for me to finish. I have been working on quest now for years. I really do miss the Foundry. To me, it is an excellent tool, should they ever decide to develop it properly. To me, the Foundry is my way of making my stories come alive in 3D, an interactive novel that sparks the imagination.

If I can get back on and republish, I will. For now, I have to wait and look for other ways to entertain.

adinosii

The Foundry has great potential in theory, but there is one massive problem, and unless that can be solved, we are not going to see the Foundry getting the attention it deserves.

The problem is the following: How do you make Foundry missions worth playing, without making them exploitable? By "worth playing", I do not mean for the storylines - they are enough for some people, but they are a minority. No, most players will look at the reward/effort ratio, and currently that is pretty low - lower than pretty much any other NWO activity.

The problem with just increasing the rewards (like giving some worthwhile drops in the final chest) is that it is far too easy to exploit.

This is the simple truth - and unless you can solve this problem, you should not expect any improvements to the foundry.

I have a few suggestions myself, but what they all have in common is the idea that Foundry reward should primarily have a "prestige" value - not an AD value as such. This could include "fun" items, equipment that only works inside the Foundry, new titles, a special "Leaderboard" for those successfully completing the largest number of different, hard foundry missions. I don't dare hope for anything like player housing in NWO, but if we had that,, getting "furniture" drops as Foundry rewards would be perfect.

vandignesca

For myself, I love being dungeon master. That's what I enjoy the most from the foundry. Crafting a little story, and giving a player or my friends an adventure. While I have made some actual stories in the past, I much prefer a more combat/atmospheric dungeon designer approach to the foundry. I love looking back at my MMO history, and thinking, "wow, that was a fun raid, is there a way that dungeon or raid can inspire me here". I was working on two small projects when the Foundry went down, and have a list of things in my head I want to work on when it gets back up. It really allows me that purely creative output that can be hard to find in today's world.

mathmaster74

demonmonger said:

Foundry to me was a place where we could make our fantasies come to life.

Create pve test your might zones, and guild requirement challenges (fail means you cannot join). Foundry has been a place to create mazes, race tracks and more events that we could use to generate zen for users who beat our challenges.

@demonmonger Fantasies came to life for sure. I have a maze in my quest and a test your might zone for the dungeoneering class. There's a scavenger hunt for Trickster Rogues, too. Guild requirement challenges and race tracks are interesting notions I never considered. I'm not sure what your events to generate zen for users who beat your challenges entailed, but all of your other input, and agree with it too. Thanks!

@sandukutupu I really enjoyed reading your history which, for brevity's sake, I will not quote here. I think you could republish now. We just aren't able to add new things (other than, perhaps, edited duplicates). My quest had to be republished. At any rate...thank you for sharing, contributing, and remaining positive. May you always roll a 20 when needed.

waryur

Not posted in a long time.
The Foundry means a lot of things to me.

When NW went live I got lost in the Foundry. I played so many quests. And I was so excited seeing all the things the Foundry could do! And the stories being told were way better than what I expected. The Foundry made me look forward to all the possibilities of what Neverwinter could do, with effects, environments, stories, for the main game itself. And then the sheer potential of what it could mean, instead of a couple PvP maps players have dozens, quest lines that intersect with the main game, adventure stories that include so much more of the DnD universe and settings.
Then a certain few quests from certain authors happened that made my jaw drop open. Stories I wanted to see, effects I wanted to do. I don't know or do anything with game design, but figured I would try.

My firsts quests were real adventures I played with friends with 4e. I made them all play them. I wanted to see if I brought to life their characters and the stories we told. I made the foundries for them. They loved them. And that's all I wanted. For me, the Foundry is a place for those characters and quests to continue on, even though life and times has made us all move on. With a certain nostalgia, I hoped other people could enjoy our fun times too, no matter how weird and derpy they and we were.

Then the Cult of the Dragon contest happened. Man, that was a crazy month. But I was excited beyond belief - here was something I hoped would happen - a big ol' fat ginormous spotlight on the Foundry itself. It needed love then too. Coupled with the challenge of churning something out in a month that you hope would win a prize. AND get to see all the other awesome and crazy things people came up with given the same topic and criteria. For me, the Foundry is a place to challenge yourself and each other to your creative limits. Because that's DnD, right?

And the mechanics of the Foundry itself. So. Many. Bugs. And the sheer determination so many authors brought to bear to work around them, because they had stories to tell, NEEDED to tell, and the limitations were not going to hold them back. If the Foundry were to come back now, and those bugs were still there, some of the workarounds weren't written down. We talked about them. Explained them. Ran each other's quests and gave feedback. All the tricks, like how to make all the different timers. Which assets had the shape or texture you could use. That, _that_ is something you can't write a guide for. For me, the Foundry was where I met truly talented, amazing authors that broke the foundry apart, tore it down to its guts, and created beautiful, fun, awesome quests, and were willing to teach others how to do it themselves.

The Foundry, the Foundry authors especially, inspired me to be what I thought I couldn't be - a Foundry author.

mathmaster74

@waryur Beautiful addition to the thread. Thanks for sharing. The determination of the authors to work around those bugs is clear in our continued posts across these Foundry related forum topics, too. I know I had my fair share of workarounds in my quests. Thanks for sharing about the contest, as well! I have never seen a Foundry authoring contest in my time on NW. It must have been amazing to place top three! If The Foundry were to make a full return, buggy or not...such an event would be an awesome way to bring it back with gusto! Also...thanks again for sharing about the ties you made in the community to strengthen your work in transformative ways. These are special rewards few games out there can give like Neverwinter with The Foundry could.

hustin1

To me, the Foundry is about a few things:

- Breathing more life into the existing NWO world and its denizens
- Creating adventures that get players to put their thinking caps on
- Trying to instill a sense of wonder and exploration into players

Every zone, every NPC, and even every enemy has a story. Every denizen in NWO has a past, has motives, desires, fears, and eccentricities. And even then, there is what we do *not* see: what is in that building, behind that dungeon wall, up in those rocky crags, in that dense forest, or below the ground beneath our feet. There is vast untapped potential everywhere we look ingame, and for me I enjoy bringing it to life.

grimah

I used to love foundry, I played many maps. And hunted for as many good ones as possible.

I saw it as another part of the game to challenge me, I worked tirelessly on my first story map and tried to make a unique experience not commonly found on foundry. I feel more proud getting it featured than anything else I have done in this game. My second story map was even more satisfying to complete though it got far less plays. But by the time I got my moonstar agent title foundry was already on it's dying breath.

But like all things in life, this is just another chapter that has come to a close. It's unlikely the foundry will be revived, and my maps have been unpublished for along time due to changes each mod has done and I do not see the point of me going into the editor to fix them. I am fortunate I was part of the foundry community when it was at it's strongest.

hustin1

Sorry to hear about Silence of Haydenwick. One of my guildies brings it up regularly as it's one of his favorite Foundry quests. I wish we could convince you to reconsider republishing it.

beckylunatic

hustin1 said:

Sorry to hear about Silence of Haydenwick. One of my guildies brings it up regularly as it's one of his favorite Foundry quests. I wish we could convince you to reconsider republishing it.

Me too. I always got interrupted away from it and never finished, as with so many things.

I am working on convincing myself that the world won't end if I play the stuff in NW that I want to play instead of being enslaved to grind but it's a process.

dzaims

Foundry has been fun, and made even more so by the feedback and assistance of other authors. @waryur , my former guildie, was a great help when I first plunged into authoring! The storytelling aspect and cerative possibilities make for a very engrossing (and too often frustrating) process to 'birth' a Foundry quest..

Just in the few I published before the 'end' of frequent Foundry running, each story spawned the seeds of the next. Shoot, I have a couple more rattling around in my brain, if I had the tools to make them as rich as they deserve..

instynctive

I've really been having the urge to create these past couple of weeks... I miss the foundry, even as broken as it was.

dzogen

Hi

waryur

dzogen said:

Hi

!!!!
Your Quests. Are. Frigging. Awesome.
They inspired me. Secret Agent 34 really highlighted that anything goes, anything is possible. Made me a true Foundry devotee. Thank you.

iandarksword

@nitocris83 I know this is an older post, wheels turn much slower in the Foundry forum, but I think it's pertinent feedback from an area of the player base that doesn't seem to get much reception. I've held off on posting because I didn't want it to sound like a eulogy. I think it's important to see a purpose for the feature, and what it means/meant? to some. I may share my thoughts on this later, but wanted to put a spotlight on it for just a brief moment.