Foundry Sunset Feedback

dionchi

I think Cryptic should still allow for Foundry quest creations, just not make them available to the public...

The idea being if someone can come up with a great quest/campaign/dungeon or whatever Cryptic can offer to buy the quest from the creator (maybe for AD's, VIP, or a special awarded Mount) and Cryptic can publish it for the playing public later as a special event... of course Neverwinter/Cryptic will have to set some specific and acceptable parameters...

Wouldn't it be nice to once in a while have something other than the same CTA's that players have already run over and over and over?

I don't know how much of a "drain on resources" something like this would be for a programmer to play the game and make minor tweaks before it's released, but if it is do-able the result could be a near constant influx of new quests for players without having to dedicate Cryptic staff to come up with the idea, program it out and test it, on top of all the maintenance and current game adjustments they have to do now.

If something works and seems to be popular it can be a reoccurring event, if not it will be a one time wonder but it's like having a volunteer creative and production staff with the paid staff simply responsible for smoothing some of the rough edges.

Just a thought...

argrosch

I think its not only staff needed for the Foundry but Server capacity aswell…

IMO the loss of the Foundry is a huge loss for Neverwinter itself. I think many of us here played Quests that were so much better and entertaining than any ingame Quest ever could be… You just Need to find them, which actually wasn´t that easy always. Well in the end the Foundry was kinda doomed Right from the beginning. They had big plans for it ( for the first two modules at least...) but never really used the opportunities they had with it... I remember an interview with Rob Overmeier where he mentioned Playerhousing using the Foundry, that could have got some Players in touch with the Foundry for instance. But well. Guess I will replay some Foundrys before they are gone...

dread4moor

I'm Nostradamus Took.
2 years ago to the day...

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1230101/prediction-this-is-how-foundry-will-end

Compare this to the Foundry announcement. Sound familiar?

hustin1

I for one place a lot of blame squarely on Cryptic. They removed Foundry hour and any incentive for average players to take the time to run Foundry quests; all players have limited amounts of time and a Foundry that only gives green junk simply can't compete with all of the campaigns that we all have to run to acquire boons and gear.

The devs have utterly refused to feature any new quests for four years and have pointedly ignored any and all inquiries as to why. They've ignored any and all suggestions for making the effort of maintaining the Foundry profitable.

We've heard Thomas and company say repeatedly that they cared about the Foundry and wanted to fight for it but whenever it came to backing up words with actions they've never followed through -- at least as far as we can see. From our limited vantage point as players on the other side of the screen they've done nothing but let it wither on the vine.

Since the announcement I haven't been able to bring myself to run any campaigns on any of my alts. It's just too demoralizing. I've been chasing what Foundry authoring and community achievements that I can, the ones that aren't broken, at least, in the time remaining. I've finished Blood Magic and while I'd like to work on the other 2 WIP ones, I don't think I can make any realistic headway in the next 7 days. Hopefully people can at least check out the map in Buried Under Blacklake and use their imaginations. It was my first attempt at a Foundry and was meant to investigate the Academy of Magic that used to exist there in NWN2 before it burned down under mysterious circumstances (*cough* Qara *cough*). A rock had been observed to land on Qara's head when they all tried to escape but nowhere did it ever say that the blow was fatal...

argrosch

Just consider the time given from announcement to shutdown and you know "How much they care"...

wylonus

they are not honest, when they say they will fix, but all they did, take away, just like general custer did, he just lied and took away, that made local tribes put the end of his life. we like the game and had been looking forward for bug fix for years. look like they gave up completely.

hustin1

I just finished rerunning the quest series And Justice for All. It's a long series but it's one of the most captivating and poignant quest series you can find in the Foundry. One of the earlier parts is missing (The Sound of Justice), but it doesn't take away from the entire series (which comprises 7 parts). It is not to be missed -- you might even shed a few tears at the end of the final one.

Hopefully it shall see the light of day again after the sunset. Tyr's justice demands nothing less.

(and if you wonder why I typed that last part, run it and find out)

argrosch

Well bad Thing is there are many Quests that are worth beeing replayed before they are gone. And even more that are on the list to be played first time too. Just the time to do so is missing. Not to mention that some authors would have liked to at least be able to finish quests they started to do...

checkmatein3

I want to thank all the foundry authors who put their time and passion into creating content for the player-base. From the preparatory ideas of Ravenloft (yes, it is in foundry), to the utterly weird (an alien space ship filled with body pods), to the puzzling (you had to read the lore to win), to the confusing (which one of you made that impossible maze filled with traps before VIP?), to the frustrating (I hate you jumping puzzle dudes!), to the hilarious (fighting demon fire chickens on a ceiling), it has all been fun. And in between the long grinds for AD, gear, enchants, or whatever, the foundry has been an integral part of my game play from the beginning. I am sorry to say that the lack of support over the years created a self-fulfilling prophecy that it would eventually be removed. The ability to monetize the foundry never came to fruition for players. But, you at least helped keep one player in the game for all these years entertained.

Happy Memories from the Foundry! Respect to all! Cheers!

hustin1

Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm sure that a great many authors will appreciate them.

It's indeed going to be a rough day tomorrow, almost as if a member of the family has died. Ever since the end of Foundry Hour it's been nigh impossible to get people to play the quests that we have poured so much of our hearts into, where we are met half the time with snark when asking for reviews in zone chat (though PE zone chat being what it is, there are likely other contributing factors at work here, but I digress )

That's not to say that the player community is all bad. I've been ingame nearly all day asking for reviews to try to snag the Foundry Stalwart title, and while it's looking like I'll come up just a little short, it's been gratifying how many people stepped up and were willing to be a little curious about what another player has created. It's been even more gratifying to see how much those players enjoyed -- and were even awed -- by what I managed to create. I think I can speak for many authors when I say that this is what we have desired the most: to tell stories that awe and inspire, that instill wonder and joy, and even sadness at times. The best stories speak to us at a visceral level, they tell us something about the human condition that perhaps we knew but didn't realize, or perhaps that we didn't know but find ourselves the better for finding out. To be praised for such a thing is the highest honor a storyteller can ever hope to achieve, and I can say with complete honesty that many authors have been blessed to receive such an honor from the players in Neverwinter.

Long live the Foundry and our wonderful community.

- Thia.



cc: @nitocris83 @mimicking#6533 @eldarth @melinden @iandarksword @warrians
... and so many others that I simply can't name them all

hustin1

For Oghma's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of Foundries:
How some have been forgotten, some abandon'd,
Some haunted by Bugs they have inherit'd,
Some broken by the Patches, some kill'd at Sunset;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of an author
Keeps Amnesia his court.

- Inspired by the great Bard

sol2286

Our guild from russian sector created a fun memory-video about The Foundry. Be pleased to watch.
https://youtu.be/41QLW8OFeXU

hustin1

*sniff* I suddenly can't see. You killed me with that ending.

(reaches for tissues)

robertthebard

warrfb#9532 said:

> @klangeddin said:

> While the sentiment is understandable, and no one wants to see a feature that they loved so much to be removed, you have to realize that this kind of decision was not lightly taken and there's no chance in hell, they're going to revert it after they made such an announcement. They kept a half dead foundry going on for years before giving up on the idea entirely, they wouldn't make such an announcement if the foundry wasn't gone for good. You're simply going to have to accept it and move on.

>

> You're not gonna like what I'm gonna say, but I'm actually glad it's gone. It was a hog of resources for the team, and spending so much time/maintenance for a feature that affected... say... 5% of the player base at best (I'm being generous, I suspect it's actually closer to 0,5% nowadays) is just not fair to the vast majority of the player base who was not touching it at all.

>

> I tried making something with the foundry myself, and I played some missions when the game was released, back in 2013, but it was never meant to be. I shall explain why.

> Let's be frank for a moment now, shall we? Neverwinter's Foundry was pathetic. Yes, pathetic. In the features (you could not even change the skin of weapons or customize the set of powers of enemies, if you gave an enemy the doomlord's power set, it was stuck with sword + shield, and those two attacks, swing and slam on the ground), in its scripting powers, in how it allowed creators to be creative and create decent content, and it was pathetic in the incentives it gave the player base to actually play those missions. In terms of gameplay, the foundry was already gone in mod 1. (as in, there was really no more reason to play it, as a player).

> They didn't even allow a party scaling option, or a party size restriction (like making foundry missions for 5 players or 10 players ONLY).

>

> I have played games that offered tools that were superior in every way, and some of those games are much older than Neverwiner, in fact, the two Neverwinter Nights games (especially the second one, which has a tremendously powerful editor). More recently, even games like Divinity Original Sin 2 allow a much better experience for user content creation.

>

> You will say that those games are single players and not mmorpgs, but that's actually kind of the reason why the foundry was such a failure here.

> Single player games can give much more freedom to content creators because they give the creators the opportunity to host those games, to BE the server host (you can understand why this is simply not possible to do here). And, in today's internet, if the game is successful and the content created is very good, they can reach just as many players as a mmorpg can.







Nah. Check the top number of players online back when the foundry was a thing, and now.



A tool like the foundry isnt just about what you can and can not do with the micromanaging of mechanics, its about the story. The NWO foundry will never be like the neverwinter nights toolset, simply because they have to worry about cheating. If pelple didnt care, threads like these would not exist. If the foundry currently affects 5 or 0.5 % of the community, notice that its because the bulk of the foundry players have LEFT after the foundry was first abandoned. - And they took their pve activity AND their wallets with them.



The foundry could have been a big source of income - Had the team the mind to have invested in it while it was hot. This game sells "character slots" on a regular basis, having players pay for their extra character storage. Well ?? Like any foundry user would know, the Foundry ha budget limits, some visible some not, and they are tight. I would gladly * have paid zen for a foundry budget Author boost, and I would promote it and beetch you until you bought one too. And thats just one idea on the fly - Campaign slot limit, adventure slot limit, and zen-only resources all come to mind.



What really killed the foundry ? Doesnt take a genius to guess.

It really doesn't. Now, I'm from back when it was really active, and what killed it was that it had to be monitored constantly to make sure there weren't any more pits full of mobs that couldn't hit you, but you could kill them. That was a very real thing back then. So if you want to know what really killed the Foundry, have a look at the Foundry forums, and maybe check for any top secret reddit type forums with names of modules that were more exploiter than actual game play. It's too bad, because I really liked the idea, but cheaters gonna cheat, and it costs money to keep them under control.

sandukutupu

Exploits didn't kill the Foundry, Cryptic's financial issues did.

There was a twitch stream years ago with Andy and Thomas Foss, in which Foss stated "at the end of the day when I have $10 left in the budget, I have to ask if I am going to spend it on fixing something in the game or in Foundry and while I would like to spend it on the Foundry, it is not enough". That is not a direct quote but close enough. You can probably find the interview in their media page.

The Foundry exited on a separate database and sad to say, it has most likely been deleted by now. I am frankly surprised they still have the Foundry sub topics on the forum and more surprised on of the "heavy handed" moderators hasn't closed this topic down, no offense to any moderator in particular. The Foundry is gone now and it suffered the killing blow long ago from removing rewards, spotlight, and the Foundry hour. If a bored housewife, such as myself, can figure out how it needed to be fixed, I am sure they knew and just never cared.

greywynd

Care, yes. Time and money to throw at it, no.