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Forums > Home› Neverwinter Discussion › The Foundry

Oddness with Publishing First Quest

zenjennzenjenn Member Posts: 4 Arc User
edited July 2013 in The Foundry
So I just published my first quest, and after much confusion and dismay, it appears it is only visible in-game if I enter its obscure foundry ID in the 'Name' search field of the 'Best' Tab. (I'd love to think my quest is the best, but this seems odd to me.)

So, wow, they don't call themselves Cryptic for nothing. Is this by design? As a new dungeon master, am I supposed to beg, whine, and plead with passersby to play my little quest that has been relegated to an obscure, passcode-protected corner of the internet? Will it be easier for folks to find a published quest of mine once I have stars and happy adventurers on my side?

(As an aside, shameless plug for NW-DKMJMQV8O. Perhaps if just one person plays my quest, I won't feel I wasted the entire week designing it. It's fairly short and straightforward.)
Post edited by zenjenn on

Comments

  • mee2002mee2002 Member Posts: 100 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    It's that way until you get 5 plays. Not sure how much of that is intended and how much is a bug (I imagine being searchable only in the best tab is a bug) but that's how it is. That's why most people review trade in the forums to get 5 plays (20 to be eligible for daily).
    NW-DPTTECLTF - Cindy Jones and the Holy Stein. A simple but hopefully entertaining foray into the world of Foundry.
    Scribes' Enclave: Volunteer Foundry Reviewers and Tutors
  • zenjennzenjenn Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Thanks for the response. Here we go then. I'm off to check out Cindy Jones and the Holy Stein. Please consider checking out mine. :)
  • zenjennzenjenn Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Mee2002 - I just wanted to follow up. First, to thank you for your review. I already made some modifications for a more conclusive ending to the storyline. Thanks!

    I also wanted to let you know I didn't blow off my promise to review yours. I got confused by the jumping puzzle and died a few times, then ended up trying to follow the sparkle path to see if that would lead to the second artifact, and ended up trapped in an area of rock underneath the jumping puzzle that had no way out except jumping to one's death again. I ran out of time and exited the dungeon.

    Either I'm not clever enough or the puzzles need some reworking to be more intuitive? Or maybe it's just not possible? One of my complaints with the Foundry so far is that it seems to force very linear quests. Anything non-linear you do has to be with HAMSTER around with tools in weird ways. I'm not sure if I was just not being clever enough or if I just found all the loopholes in the Foundry that just put me in crappy positions. Anyways, sorry!
  • karitrkaritr Member Posts: 662 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    @meee. I don't think it is a bug, simply that all tabs except the 'best' tab have some sort of qualifier for what appears.

    @zenjenn. Once you have 5 reviews (not plays) then your quest will be searchable under author name/quest title. But to be honest, whether by title, author name or code, if you don't do any promotion your quest is more likely to fall into obscurity and I don't think the 'code' could be blamed for that. In many ways, the real hard work starts once your quest is published.

    Fortunately, if a quest is fun AND well polished, the number of plays can grow at quite the rate from word of mouth alone and once you have subscribers you may find you don't have to work quite as hard on your next quest to get a satisfactory number of plays :)

    How tabs work (x probably equals 5):

    For review = Quests with under x number of reviews with an additional, unknown and arbitrary factor.
    New = Quests with over x number of reviews that are newly published or recently edited. NB: Quests linked to an existing campaign bypass review requirements.
    Subscribed = self-evident
    Featured = self-evident
    Best = Complete catalogue, with a selection of the higher rating quests shown.


    EDIT: I think of all the problems with the catalogue, the 'For Review' tab is the most annoying. There are a ton of 'TEST' maps with (0) plays published back in May. These 'quests' are hogging a lot of the valuable space on that tab and should be cleared from it.
  • mee2002mee2002 Member Posts: 100 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    @zenjenn I sent you a PM.

    @karitr It could be working as intended, but if so it's rather counterintuitive. Every new author I've seen on here (myself included) tried to search for their quest under For Review or New, since it is a new quest for review. Personally I think if you have the short code you should be able to search for it in any tab you want. though I can't complain much since right now you search in the first default tab.
    NW-DPTTECLTF - Cindy Jones and the Holy Stein. A simple but hopefully entertaining foray into the world of Foundry.
    Scribes' Enclave: Volunteer Foundry Reviewers and Tutors
  • karitrkaritr Member Posts: 662 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    Yeah mee2, couldn't agree more with your 'counterintuitive' comment, I just feel it is something they are forced to do because of the way data for the Foundry is collated. Hopefully I am proven wrong and better search functions will be available for new quests in future.

    Talking of which, I think the added detail as previewed in the "New Foundry Search" thread runs the risk of making the function even more clunky that it already is. I hope I am wrong about that too :p
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