How does foundry spotlight work?

arkanarge

Every week I see an update for the foundry on the calendar, yet I don't see anything? The featured is still the same, the rich get richer while the ones on the bottom rot away. Best is still the same. Shouldn't they add a spotlight tab with like 4-5 quests every week? if there isn't any good ones just recycle the old ones until people submit some good ones? Why not shuffle the featured quests automatically once a day so tired of being the hero can get outta there to promote people trying others. I'm tired of seeing that tiresome tire of being the hero quest. HUEHEUHEHUE

I have never seen a new feature. They just appear and I'm never sure if there are old or new. It says last updated was a few months ago but thats just when foundry came back up. I actively play foundries but its really REALLY hard to find the gems unless I go down 4-5 loads or find a quest code to put down. I really think they should just make a spotlight tab so we can actually see new updates. Maybe even add a *new* icon next to the updated quests, 4-5 should be enough per week to satisfy casual foundry goers.

arkanarge

The hay day for foundry is long over, if you didn't get featured during the golden age, I dont think you'll ever have a chance again. I have yet to see any work that was actually good to show up on top. They do win eventually, sorta. They can get 1 review per week but eventually crawl out. Yet fast reviews and item grinds crawl out from the depths faster, ones that only take literally 10 minutes to make. Yet, I see several really good ones, sitting in review and new for months without a single budge.

things need to change or else people will lose motivation to spend 30+ hours on a quest just for it to sit around with 8 plays and 3 5 star reviews, while; again. the fast review and mob grinds get 23 reviews, bad reviews but still a ton of exposure.

arkanarge

get the coder to to spend 1 hour of their time to add a new tab "Spotlight" tab. Then get the intern to play and select 5 new quests per week. As well as implementing all the solutions and ideas to make foundry better thats been bombarding you guys for years. Again, foundry is like; atleast for me. 20% of this game. There is nothing at endgame but farming and grinding yet not everyone is hardcore. Good foundries can save our souls.

arkanarge

Cuz imma be honest, begging for reviews from people who dont care is kinda degrading. I wish the system just helped us with that.

iandarksword

Foundry Spotlight was what they called Featured quests. This used to be a CM function before Module 7-ish. Over time, it seemed there became less and less time for the CM to approve quests, as well as a large author exodus when outages became lengthy. The most recent Featured quests were from the community contest for re-imagining the Drowned Shore, almost two years ago. Shortly before that AD rewards were removed from playing 4 daily foundry quests (4k AD for 4 qualifying quests of at least 15 minutes in play time.) This single decision crippled interest in the Foundry, which had followed the game-wide decline of "speed running" content for efficiency. It was said that speed running a dungeon in 15-20 minutes was more lucrative than playing 4 foundry quests, which often took longer than an hour. Astral diamonds and rewarding drops drive players to desired content. Players will avoid anything they see as lacking in either of those aspects.

This being a rewards driven player base, migrated away from the longer content and a culture of "efficiency over enjoyment" rose to be. There is still a large portion of the player base that focuses on efficiency, this is, essentially a community culture issue. Changing a culture that has become established takes time, it can be done, but often requires a grass roots approach that generally faces a lot of push back at the beginning. Sadly, the masses will not likely return until lucrative rewards are linked to Foundry content.

This also brings up the possibility of exploitation. There aren't a lot of people at Cryptic that are capable of policing quests, hence the rise of the bait and switch "fast review" quests. These quests claim that players can earn foundry achievement rewards by simply completing and reviewing the entire campaigns. This is only partially true, because many foundry achievement rewards also require authoring achievements be made. Essentially, the authors of these type of quests have received their achievement rewards and moved on. It is unlikely that any of us who are still active will achieve the final "Moonstar" achievement given the current level of player interest.

Long story, but it will require more work in order to shore up the Foundry as something the grander player base finds intriguing. For now, those of us who are interested will try to get reviews in, when we have time, (because most of us have responsibilities outside of the game) and continue to request more development attention for the Foundry. That being said, I do have a quest that is ready for Feature, should that once again become a possibility.