I find the standard auction systems particularly useful in regards to crafting. That is where I tend to shine. I love gathering crafting materials, hoarding them for myself or choosing to sell them at auction. Players are often willing to pay a few good coins for a crafting mat rather than going out and farming them on their own. And say you are on the other side of that spectrum and are attempting to craft a fine weapon or armor set for yourself or a friend. You are in a hurry and find yourself a bit short on materials. You can just stroll on over to the auctioneer, pay a few extra coins, and Bam! Now you have your shiny new toy all freshly crafted and ready to rock. In the process, both parties are happy. Those that crafted the item, and those that worked hard to farm the materials that sold at market.
I agree with some posters in that this game would probably be better off without Auction House due to its nature, but I guess you can always opt for not using it.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- W.E.H.
so when a GM decides to create a new adventure module for players to go on, will they be able to select treasures as well to place on the adventure ??? and they can be then sold in auction houses to other players ??
AH presumably yes. How the Auction House is going to work has not been detailed yet, but based on other AHs you will be able to sell your items to other players through it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
0
iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
so when a GM decides to create a new adventure module for players to go on, will they be able to select treasures as well to place on the adventure ??? and they can be then sold in auction houses to other players ??
No. Treasures are randomly selected based on the difficulty of the module's monsters' killed (and they are scaled up if you bring in more people for the module up to five players,) The module is not run live but created and uploaded as a mission so no live (or exploit) DM manipulation playing is allowed. A clever author-player can enter the module as a PC but actually be a narrator if you wanted the DM experience, but do note the Foundry has "pop up" dialog that acts the way the DM would describe areas.
so when a GM decides to create a new adventure module for players to go on, will they be able to select treasures as well to place on the adventure ??? and they can be then sold in auction houses to other players ??
A simple way to handle that would be to make most (if not all) Foundry drops BoP (Bind on Pickup) The game mods can easily manage what items are tradable making them BoP or BoE (Bind on Equip)
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2013
Jack Emmert did discuss at Gamescom 2012 that he would love to see the possibility, in the future, for DM's to have more control over item drops but any option would have to be carefully considered.
His likely solution, to allow Monty Haul style content, would be to prohibity any item from leaving that DM's Content and remove/reduce the rewards but that is obviously just him rattling off thoughts off the top of his head. It's not a guarantee or a promise.
The point is, it will not be in at launch but it is something that is being at least considered for later release.
By the way, simply making items BoP or BoE would not solve the problem. That would cause people to simply kit their characters with items they couldn't trade...which would effect any in game market just as badly since why would I buy anything if I can get whatever I want from Foundry Content even if it's BoP or BoE. Instead of flooding the market with overpowered items the market simply isn't used.
And that is why any way to allow Foundry Creators to give their own personal items of use has to be very carefully considered.
Lotro has a good ah system the only trouble with it is lack of unique items found throughout the world because all the good stuff is either craftred by other players or bind on aquire. Keep real money out so it doesn't turn into a piece of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> like d3.
Jack Emmert did discuss at Gamescom 2012 that he would love to see the possibility, in the future, for DM's to have more control over item drops but any option would have to be carefully considered.
His likely solution, to allow Monty Haul style content, would be to prohibity any item from leaving that DM's Content and remove/reduce the rewards but that is obviously just him rattling off thoughts off the top of his head. It's not a guarantee or a promise.
The point is, it will not be in at launch but it is something that is being at least considered for later release.
By the way, simply making items BoP or BoE would not solve the problem. That would cause people to simply kit their characters with items they couldn't trade...which would effect any in game market just as badly since why would I buy anything if I can get whatever I want from Foundry Content even if it's BoP or BoE. Instead of flooding the market with overpowered items the market simply isn't used.
And that is why any way to allow Foundry Creators to give their own personal items of use has to be very carefully considered.
I guess I don't follow your point. Most MMOs with auction systems make boss drops in dungeons BoP. BoE gear tends to be world drops that are slightly less powerfull than you can get from your average dungeon boss. Being able to get good gear from a dungeon has never prevented people from looking at the auction house for a nice upgrade. Maybe not as good as lvl appropriate dungeon drops, but upgrades none the less. Keeping BoE gear out of the foundry would simply prevent DMs from flooding the market with OP gear.
Btw I'm certainly not suggesting that DMs be able to toss whatever gear they choose into a dungeon. I agree there certainly needs to be heavy restrictions on that. Otherwise you could simply make your own dungeon with epic BoP drops and gear yourself to the teeth. I suppose that is what you are saying. I was only suggesting that keeping all foundry items BoP would prevent market flooding. Even if weak.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2013
The quote you used says GM, implying Cryptic Employee, but from the context I'm fairly sure they meant Player Content Developers. Refer to Truth's response to the same quotation on the previous page who also answered the poster as if he was questioning Player Foundry Content.
If the Foundry allowed people to give out the best items on purpose rather than randomized, which is what the post you quoted questions, then there would be nothing to stop players from abusing methods to equip their characters with the best gear.
BoE and BoP methods work fine in other MMO's and likely will be around in NW, however allowing Foundry Content Developers to give specific items as rewards is not comparable to other MMO's in the least.
User generated content will be given random rewards to prevent exploitation. If it's not random then it could easily be abused even if items were BoE or BoP.
Simple Logic Dictates that if players don't need items because they exploited to get the best gear then there would be no reason for them to buy gear on the Auction House thereby causing havoc in any in game economy.
Simple Logic Dictates that if players don't need items because they exploited to get the best gear then there would be no reason for them to buy gear on the Auction House thereby causing havoc in any in game economy.
Jack Emmert did discuss at Gamescom 2012 that he would love to see the possibility, in the future, for DM's to have more control over item drops but any option would have to be carefully considered.
Jack Emmert is a bag of hot air. I am sorry. I like the guy and all, but he loves to talk about his visionary stuff, but he makes no effort to see that his vision gets turned into reality. There are STILL some people over on Star Trek Online holding out a thread of hope that STO will turn into the game he said it would be when it was first revealed. So if I ever read about something he says about a game, it automatically gets chalked up in my book as him just rambling on about whatever pops in his head. His ideas are awesome. They get poor schmucks who don't know better interrested and really hoping for something awesome, but the fact that they aren't really ever delivered on tends to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> a lot of people off.
When he stood there and revealed his vision of what Star Trek Online was GOING TO BE, I imagine that this was the reaction from his dev team.
Like I said, I have nothing against the man. One who runs a game development company should first and foremost be an idea person. But their enthusiasm for their ideas should be tempered with wisdom and common sense. He knew that they had only two years to go on the license. Many of the things he talked about have been on the to-do lists of developers who had five years development time on their game and couldn't get them in. I believe in dreaming big, but jeez...
I don't think NW is in the same sort of danger. They have steadily been working on it and have not been down to a crunch on anything. Wizards of the Coast is very interested, and as I understand it, involved enough that they are even taking some cues from Cryptic for the future of the IP.
The only way that a foundry author can be allowed to set specific quest rewards for his content is if Cryptic introduces foundry-driven persistant worlds complete with their own central social hubs and everything, and when creating a character, it is created specifically for that persistant world.
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
0
iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited January 2013
I think you insulted hot air
And if you'e talking about ST and facepalm, you have to stay in context.
Jack Emmert did discuss at Gamescom 2012 that he would love to see the possibility, in the future, for DM's to have more control over item drops but any option would have to be carefully considered....
-1 to Jack.
Rewards should always be random otherwise where is the fun in that?
Rewards should always be random otherwise where is the fun in that?
Now now... The ability for foundry authors to designate rewards would be an element of persistant worlds, which would essentially have to be closed systems unto themselves, so characters could be created specifically for those worlds, and all content experienced in them would be designed by the author.
We know that foundry slots for deploying missions for players to experience will be cash shop purchases. And we also know that additional character slots will be cash shop purchases as well... In order to build a meaningful world, a single foundry slot may work for a city and its immediate surrounding area. But for a workd to grow truly large and significant, it will require many adventure zones and towns and such, which would likely require slots of their own. So the foundry author who would be a world builder would likely end up buying a lot of foundry slots. Just like many players who wish to experience many worlds of gameplay are likely to purchase many character slots. They won't be priced very high, but if a high volume of them are sold, it could be pretty profitable...
But as I have already indicated, if it comes out of Jack's mouth, it likely will never happen. He's great at sharing his ideas, but does not have a good track record with making sure they become reality.
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
...But as I have already indicated, if it comes out of Jack's mouth, it likely will never happen. He's great at sharing his ideas, but does not have a good track record with making sure they become reality.
Well, there already are quest specific items as confirmed by videos. You can use those to spawn tougher or easier mobs. So if you have "awesome sword of awesomeness of Jedi" item which you get in your inventory after solving an optional puzzle, you can make mobs respond to it.
E.g.:-
Place 20 high difficulty mobs.
Place an altar of prayer which requires that item "awesome sword of awesomeness of Jedi"
Place 20 easy mobs overlapping 20 high difficulty mobs.
Make a condition that 20 high difficulty mobs are visible while easy mobs are hidden.
Next, make it so that using altar with item triggers a signal that 20 high difficulty mobs vanish and 20 easy mobs appear after you use the altar.
Lastly, check every mob and make it look similar in costume to its corresponding mob.
There you have it - a quest item sword of light which makes it easier to slay mobs. You can't pray altar unless you got item.
So all Jack has to do, or what he will do is, a cosmetic change that when you have X item in your inventory, your character looks like Y.
Well, there already are quest specific items as confirmed by videos. You can use those to spawn tougher or easier mobs. So if you have "awesome sword of awesomeness of Jedi" item which you get in your inventory after solving an optional puzzle, you can make mobs respond to it.
E.g.:-
There you have it - a quest item sword of light which makes it easier to slay mobs. You can't pray altar unless you got item.
So all Jack has to do, or what he will do is, a cosmetic change that when you have X item in your inventory, your character looks like Y.
There is a difference between quest items and quest rewards. Quest items are tools within the foundry quest that allow for item-specific plot hooks. You don't carry those items away from the quest when you are done with it. The rewards you get will come from a general loot table created for foundry. And if they do it like they currently do in Star Trek Online, the foundry quest itself will have no rewards associated with it, but there will be a repeatable wrapper-quest that will involve completing a foundry quest that takes at least 15 minutes. The wrapper-quest can be repeated every 30 minutes, and it will probably grant a reward from the foundry loot table, plus some guild marks and some game currency. Mobs in the foundry quest will likely drop standard loot as well, but like in STO, there will probably be a daily cap on how much of it drops, that way foundry missions cannot be used just for farming lots of standard loot people will use as vender trash and get lots of gold.
If foundry authors were to be able to designate quest rewards, unless their module is part of a closed system, then nothing will stop an author from rewarding players with the best possible gear, and before it gets reported and removed, all their friends will be decked out in best-in-slot gear for their level, bypassing the nead to earn it over time.
In a persistant world, which would by nature need to be a closed system, it won't matter if the world builder does this, because the only people who would benefit from it would be everyone who creates a character for that world, and that means everyone would have the best stuff, so everyone will be on equal footing. But if it wasn't a closed system and someone could get the best studd and carry it back to the core game, then it becomes an exploit, because the core game would not mean for players to have access to the best stuff on a whim.
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
0
iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Now now... The ability for foundry authors to designate rewards would be an element of persistant worlds, which would essentially have to be closed systems unto themselves, so characters could be created specifically for those worlds, and all content experienced in them would be designed by the author.
The Devs have already said this is wishlisted and are working on ideas to see if this can be done in the future.
We know that foundry slots for deploying missions for players to experience will be cash shop purchases.
We do? After I spent a lot of time noting you will NOT be spending secondary currency to buy foundry slots and the slots will be for free and that highly ranked authors unlock bonus slots? All I can say is before paying for points to unlock additional Foundry slots in STO (which the previous slots currently cost 10,000 secondary currency each which NWO won't do once again,) that number is eight, so that's likely the number of FREE slots we will get. No, we DON'T know if this wil be done even if you meant for persistent world missions. Please check out the Foundry videos and posts as well as my FAQ linking the Foundry info which is specifically (at the time of this posting) in the second entry bottom part.
And we also know that additional character slots will be cash shop purchases as well...
Likely, but expect us to have a heck of a lot more free slots than what we have on that mess they call "Free to play" for STO and CO. No idea on what that number will be.
In order to build a meaningful world, a single foundry slot may work for a city and its immediate surrounding area. But for a world to grow truly large and significant, it will require many adventure zones and towns and such, which would likely require slots of their own. So the foundry author who would be a world builder would likely end up buying a lot of foundry slots. Just like many players who wish to experience many worlds of gameplay are likely to purchase many character slots. They won't be priced very high, but if a high volume of them are sold, it could be pretty profitable...
Again, how do you know the cost of the slots? Do you play STO and have bought it or checked the ZEN-Dilithium conversion rates at the time of the post? Or how the in discussion and not development persistent wold will work? ?
But as I have already indicated, if it comes out of Jack's mouth, it likely will never happen. He's great at sharing his ideas, but does not have a good track record with making sure they become reality.
On that opinion, there is more likelihood of "accuracy" based on his history of speculation. If you want a more-likely accurate prediction of what's going to show up here, follow Andy Velasquez. Nothing wrong with Craig BTW, but Andy heads up the Cryptic Producers while Craig is the Cryptic COO.
There is a difference between quest items and quest rewards. Quest items are tools within the foundry quest that allow for item-specific plot hooks. You don't carry those items away from the quest when you are done with it. The rewards you get will come from a general loot table created for foundry. And if they do it like they currently do in Star Trek Online, the foundry quest itself will have no rewards associated with it, but there will be a repeatable wrapper-quest that will involve completing a foundry quest that takes at least 15 minutes. The wrapper-quest can be repeated every 30 minutes, and it will probably grant a reward from the foundry loot table, plus some guild marks and some game currency. Mobs in the foundry quest will likely drop standard loot as well, but like in STO, there will probably be a daily cap on how much of it drops, that way foundry missions cannot be used just for farming lots of standard loot people will use as vender trash and get lots of gold.
If foundry authors were to be able to designate quest rewards, unless their module is part of a closed system, then nothing will stop an author from rewarding players with the best possible gear, and before it gets reported and removed, all their friends will be decked out in best-in-slot gear for their level, bypassing the nead to earn it over time.
In a persistant world, which would by nature need to be a closed system, it won't matter if the world builder does this, because the only people who would benefit from it would be everyone who creates a character for that world, and that means everyone would have the best stuff, so everyone will be on equal footing. But if it wasn't a closed system and someone could get the best studd and carry it back to the core game, then it becomes an exploit, because the core game would not mean for players to have access to the best stuff on a whim.
Currently, quest items have absolutely no in-game enhancement and are just physical items you can carry that can act as "keys" in further accessing the next part of the mission. Or be used as role-playing aspects but still take inventory space.
Rewards actually are possible in Foundry missions if a module is picked as a "spotlight" mission and are designed and placed by Cryptic Developers and never the original author The author has to "select" that mission as being potentially entered for section by Cryptic to do so, so no, there are item rewards but never placed by the author and only potentially as a "feature". When that spotlight ends, so do the items. This feature is being mentioned as being used in this game after Launch.
What you mention is a separate daily feature in STO that if you play three foundry missions and complete them you get either a character level appropriate item or secondary currency. And yeah, items dropped by enemies are never author-manageable for exploit reasons. This absolutely will carry over here.
I had a feeling I was getting my wires crossed a little bit. One interesting thing to note is that the STO foundry wrapper mission is no longer a daily, and can be repeated every 30 minutes and requires only one qualifying foundry mission rather than three missions. It is now a great source for Dilithium, as well as fleet marks.
Also, I was under the impression from one of the videos about NW's foundry that the quest slots would be sold. I know you have to buy them in STO.
Regarding the quest items, I was under the impression that they do not come out of the Foundry mission if we leave. Has that changed? If so, that's pretty cool. There are some major differences between STO's foundry and NW's. I really do hope that after NW launches, they give STO an overhaul that puts its foundry on par with NW, and that they will keep the codebase updated. It's a cool system over there, but it is beginning to feel pretty neglected.
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
...
What you mention is a separate daily feature in STO that if you play three foundry missions and complete them you get either a character level appropriate item or secondary currency. ...
Didn't they already get rid of such mission by making it so that those missions in which you spend less than 3 mins(or so) are not counted as daily (or they were at least going to with next foundry update...)
Didn't they already get rid of such mission by making it so that those missions in which you spend less than 3 mins(or so) are not counted as daily (or they were at least going to with next foundry update...)
They did indeed. They revised the way the wrapper-mission works. It now only requires one mission, but that mission needs to take at least fifteen minutes to qualify... I think the game actually tracks the average completion time and disqualifies missions that begin to average less than 15 minutes. When you are browsing the available foundry missions it tells you if it qualifies or not.
The pros are that you cannot use a quick mission to game the system. The cons are that a lot of the qualifying missions run longer than 15 minutes. Sometimes as long as an hour or more. A lot of people don't want to be tied to a single mission that long.
The wrapper mission is no longer a daily, as I mentioned. It can now be repeated every 30 minutes. This makes it an excellent source of Dilithium and fleet marks, and it has resulted in more people trying out the Foundry who otherwise didn't bother...
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2013
Quest Slots will be sold but they have claimed you will get plenty for free...what that means is not yet clear.
There's really very little information on anything about quest slots yet, you can bash them for past mistakes in STO or you can hope for a better system...which they've already confirmed they have supplied in rewards for Foundry Content.
You will be given X Amount of Free Slots.
Depending on your content ratings you will be given additional free slots.
If you still run out you may purchase more slots from the store.
That's all we know. However I think this thread in particular has seen enough 'in the past bla bla bla' so let's wait to bash it until after they announce specifics.
As for quest items not leaving quest creations...no that hasn't changed. Foundry quests are instances anyway so if you leave for a long enough time period the instance closes. There's no reason for quest items to leave content...at this time.
They really have been improving things over on STO. I just wish that their official content was less grind-oriented. I do sincerely hope that the neverwinter side of things will see more in the way of official quest content, even if it is to show off new and cool cosmetic items to be found in the cash shop. Nothing like good old fashioned product placement advertisement techniques to encourage people to spend monye. All they have to do is add new towns, or new areas to existing towns and put new NPCs roaming around wearing new outfits. People will see them and want them. New areas would also naturally provide new hooks for foundry content.
The more interconnected everything is on a systemic level, the more awesome this game can be...
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2013
From what I've heard a lot of the grind STO has is caused by improper Foundry Support. When I first joined this community I kept hearing you didn't even get rewards for playing STO Foundry content but rather a daily reward for completing any 3 Foundry quests...
I'm not sure if that's changed since I do know they have really improved their Foundry to include some features which were developed for NW.
STO, for all it's short-comings, has always been described as a great learning situation for Neverwinter's Development. Remember it's far easier to design something from the ground up to fix core problems than it is to alter the core systems of a pre-existing entity. Cryptic started on Neverwinter knowing that The Foundry lacked proper support in STO and has/will be bringing various improvements from here over there.
However, consider this...
Let's say for arguments sake they believe people hate the grind of STO's Dilithium and want to remove some of the grind. They either reduce item's Dilithium prices or greatly increase the speed in which player's can gain Dilithium. This can be as bad, if not worse, than simply altering the grind. While such action could promise a great future also outright belittles all work players have done previously.
Another MMO I played did this to me and I constantly rant about that game still for taking all my years of work and making it meaningless. One skill on that game took me three weeks of 5 hours a day of grinding to get from 95-100% of max level experience. They have since changed it so 20-100% can be done within two weeks.
So even if they wanted to remove the grind it is so central to STO, from what I've heard, that while it may be possible to reduce it's requirement in the long term if they wanted they can't simply throw out the work people have already put into the game by either making new items cheap or reducing all Dilithium prices.
Comments
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- W.E.H.
No. Treasures are randomly selected based on the difficulty of the module's monsters' killed (and they are scaled up if you bring in more people for the module up to five players,) The module is not run live but created and uploaded as a mission so no live (or exploit) DM manipulation playing is allowed. A clever author-player can enter the module as a PC but actually be a narrator if you wanted the DM experience, but do note the Foundry has "pop up" dialog that acts the way the DM would describe areas.
As long as it does not turn to diabolical laughter .... Well actually I am more than ok with that...
A simple way to handle that would be to make most (if not all) Foundry drops BoP (Bind on Pickup) The game mods can easily manage what items are tradable making them BoP or BoE (Bind on Equip)
His likely solution, to allow Monty Haul style content, would be to prohibity any item from leaving that DM's Content and remove/reduce the rewards but that is obviously just him rattling off thoughts off the top of his head. It's not a guarantee or a promise.
The point is, it will not be in at launch but it is something that is being at least considered for later release.
By the way, simply making items BoP or BoE would not solve the problem. That would cause people to simply kit their characters with items they couldn't trade...which would effect any in game market just as badly since why would I buy anything if I can get whatever I want from Foundry Content even if it's BoP or BoE. Instead of flooding the market with overpowered items the market simply isn't used.
And that is why any way to allow Foundry Creators to give their own personal items of use has to be very carefully considered.
I guess I don't follow your point. Most MMOs with auction systems make boss drops in dungeons BoP. BoE gear tends to be world drops that are slightly less powerfull than you can get from your average dungeon boss. Being able to get good gear from a dungeon has never prevented people from looking at the auction house for a nice upgrade. Maybe not as good as lvl appropriate dungeon drops, but upgrades none the less. Keeping BoE gear out of the foundry would simply prevent DMs from flooding the market with OP gear.
If the Foundry allowed people to give out the best items on purpose rather than randomized, which is what the post you quoted questions, then there would be nothing to stop players from abusing methods to equip their characters with the best gear.
BoE and BoP methods work fine in other MMO's and likely will be around in NW, however allowing Foundry Content Developers to give specific items as rewards is not comparable to other MMO's in the least.
User generated content will be given random rewards to prevent exploitation. If it's not random then it could easily be abused even if items were BoE or BoP.
Simple Logic Dictates that if players don't need items because they exploited to get the best gear then there would be no reason for them to buy gear on the Auction House thereby causing havoc in any in game economy.
Of course. I couldn't agree more.
Jack Emmert is a bag of hot air. I am sorry. I like the guy and all, but he loves to talk about his visionary stuff, but he makes no effort to see that his vision gets turned into reality. There are STILL some people over on Star Trek Online holding out a thread of hope that STO will turn into the game he said it would be when it was first revealed. So if I ever read about something he says about a game, it automatically gets chalked up in my book as him just rambling on about whatever pops in his head. His ideas are awesome. They get poor schmucks who don't know better interrested and really hoping for something awesome, but the fact that they aren't really ever delivered on tends to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> a lot of people off.
When he stood there and revealed his vision of what Star Trek Online was GOING TO BE, I imagine that this was the reaction from his dev team.
Like I said, I have nothing against the man. One who runs a game development company should first and foremost be an idea person. But their enthusiasm for their ideas should be tempered with wisdom and common sense. He knew that they had only two years to go on the license. Many of the things he talked about have been on the to-do lists of developers who had five years development time on their game and couldn't get them in. I believe in dreaming big, but jeez...
I don't think NW is in the same sort of danger. They have steadily been working on it and have not been down to a crunch on anything. Wizards of the Coast is very interested, and as I understand it, involved enough that they are even taking some cues from Cryptic for the future of the IP.
The only way that a foundry author can be allowed to set specific quest rewards for his content is if Cryptic introduces foundry-driven persistant worlds complete with their own central social hubs and everything, and when creating a character, it is created specifically for that persistant world.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
And if you'e talking about ST and facepalm, you have to stay in context.
I meant no insult at all, really. to Jack or to hot air :P
I thought of using that, but it just didn't convey as much of a sense of collective shock.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Rewards should always be random otherwise where is the fun in that?
Now now... The ability for foundry authors to designate rewards would be an element of persistant worlds, which would essentially have to be closed systems unto themselves, so characters could be created specifically for those worlds, and all content experienced in them would be designed by the author.
We know that foundry slots for deploying missions for players to experience will be cash shop purchases. And we also know that additional character slots will be cash shop purchases as well... In order to build a meaningful world, a single foundry slot may work for a city and its immediate surrounding area. But for a workd to grow truly large and significant, it will require many adventure zones and towns and such, which would likely require slots of their own. So the foundry author who would be a world builder would likely end up buying a lot of foundry slots. Just like many players who wish to experience many worlds of gameplay are likely to purchase many character slots. They won't be priced very high, but if a high volume of them are sold, it could be pretty profitable...
But as I have already indicated, if it comes out of Jack's mouth, it likely will never happen. He's great at sharing his ideas, but does not have a good track record with making sure they become reality.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Well, there already are quest specific items as confirmed by videos. You can use those to spawn tougher or easier mobs. So if you have "awesome sword of awesomeness of Jedi" item which you get in your inventory after solving an optional puzzle, you can make mobs respond to it.
E.g.:-
There you have it - a quest item sword of light which makes it easier to slay mobs. You can't pray altar unless you got item.
So all Jack has to do, or what he will do is, a cosmetic change that when you have X item in your inventory, your character looks like Y.
There is a difference between quest items and quest rewards. Quest items are tools within the foundry quest that allow for item-specific plot hooks. You don't carry those items away from the quest when you are done with it. The rewards you get will come from a general loot table created for foundry. And if they do it like they currently do in Star Trek Online, the foundry quest itself will have no rewards associated with it, but there will be a repeatable wrapper-quest that will involve completing a foundry quest that takes at least 15 minutes. The wrapper-quest can be repeated every 30 minutes, and it will probably grant a reward from the foundry loot table, plus some guild marks and some game currency. Mobs in the foundry quest will likely drop standard loot as well, but like in STO, there will probably be a daily cap on how much of it drops, that way foundry missions cannot be used just for farming lots of standard loot people will use as vender trash and get lots of gold.
If foundry authors were to be able to designate quest rewards, unless their module is part of a closed system, then nothing will stop an author from rewarding players with the best possible gear, and before it gets reported and removed, all their friends will be decked out in best-in-slot gear for their level, bypassing the nead to earn it over time.
In a persistant world, which would by nature need to be a closed system, it won't matter if the world builder does this, because the only people who would benefit from it would be everyone who creates a character for that world, and that means everyone would have the best stuff, so everyone will be on equal footing. But if it wasn't a closed system and someone could get the best studd and carry it back to the core game, then it becomes an exploit, because the core game would not mean for players to have access to the best stuff on a whim.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Currently, quest items have absolutely no in-game enhancement and are just physical items you can carry that can act as "keys" in further accessing the next part of the mission. Or be used as role-playing aspects but still take inventory space.
Rewards actually are possible in Foundry missions if a module is picked as a "spotlight" mission and are designed and placed by Cryptic Developers and never the original author The author has to "select" that mission as being potentially entered for section by Cryptic to do so, so no, there are item rewards but never placed by the author and only potentially as a "feature". When that spotlight ends, so do the items. This feature is being mentioned as being used in this game after Launch.
What you mention is a separate daily feature in STO that if you play three foundry missions and complete them you get either a character level appropriate item or secondary currency. And yeah, items dropped by enemies are never author-manageable for exploit reasons. This absolutely will carry over here.
I had a feeling I was getting my wires crossed a little bit. One interesting thing to note is that the STO foundry wrapper mission is no longer a daily, and can be repeated every 30 minutes and requires only one qualifying foundry mission rather than three missions. It is now a great source for Dilithium, as well as fleet marks.
Also, I was under the impression from one of the videos about NW's foundry that the quest slots would be sold. I know you have to buy them in STO.
Regarding the quest items, I was under the impression that they do not come out of the Foundry mission if we leave. Has that changed? If so, that's pretty cool. There are some major differences between STO's foundry and NW's. I really do hope that after NW launches, they give STO an overhaul that puts its foundry on par with NW, and that they will keep the codebase updated. It's a cool system over there, but it is beginning to feel pretty neglected.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Didn't they already get rid of such mission by making it so that those missions in which you spend less than 3 mins(or so) are not counted as daily (or they were at least going to with next foundry update...)
They did indeed. They revised the way the wrapper-mission works. It now only requires one mission, but that mission needs to take at least fifteen minutes to qualify... I think the game actually tracks the average completion time and disqualifies missions that begin to average less than 15 minutes. When you are browsing the available foundry missions it tells you if it qualifies or not.
The pros are that you cannot use a quick mission to game the system. The cons are that a lot of the qualifying missions run longer than 15 minutes. Sometimes as long as an hour or more. A lot of people don't want to be tied to a single mission that long.
The wrapper mission is no longer a daily, as I mentioned. It can now be repeated every 30 minutes. This makes it an excellent source of Dilithium and fleet marks, and it has resulted in more people trying out the Foundry who otherwise didn't bother...
but I play one on the forums...
:P
There's really very little information on anything about quest slots yet, you can bash them for past mistakes in STO or you can hope for a better system...which they've already confirmed they have supplied in rewards for Foundry Content.
You will be given X Amount of Free Slots.
Depending on your content ratings you will be given additional free slots.
If you still run out you may purchase more slots from the store.
That's all we know. However I think this thread in particular has seen enough 'in the past bla bla bla' so let's wait to bash it until after they announce specifics.
As for quest items not leaving quest creations...no that hasn't changed. Foundry quests are instances anyway so if you leave for a long enough time period the instance closes. There's no reason for quest items to leave content...at this time.
The more interconnected everything is on a systemic level, the more awesome this game can be...
but I play one on the forums...
:P
I'm not sure if that's changed since I do know they have really improved their Foundry to include some features which were developed for NW.
STO, for all it's short-comings, has always been described as a great learning situation for Neverwinter's Development. Remember it's far easier to design something from the ground up to fix core problems than it is to alter the core systems of a pre-existing entity. Cryptic started on Neverwinter knowing that The Foundry lacked proper support in STO and has/will be bringing various improvements from here over there.
However, consider this...
Let's say for arguments sake they believe people hate the grind of STO's Dilithium and want to remove some of the grind. They either reduce item's Dilithium prices or greatly increase the speed in which player's can gain Dilithium. This can be as bad, if not worse, than simply altering the grind. While such action could promise a great future also outright belittles all work players have done previously.
Another MMO I played did this to me and I constantly rant about that game still for taking all my years of work and making it meaningless. One skill on that game took me three weeks of 5 hours a day of grinding to get from 95-100% of max level experience. They have since changed it so 20-100% can be done within two weeks.
So even if they wanted to remove the grind it is so central to STO, from what I've heard, that while it may be possible to reduce it's requirement in the long term if they wanted they can't simply throw out the work people have already put into the game by either making new items cheap or reducing all Dilithium prices.