Devs: Foundry authors are all leaving and frustrated.

boomba66

As a teacher with his summer's off I spent much of my free time this summer creating foundry's. Usually I create a years worth of dm material for my weekly dnd night with my friends, this year I finally had a large audience again for story telling in the realms(used to write con adventures for RPGA living city). I have talked to many writers, spent nights chatting with people in the foundry and helping my guild mates with issues in the foundry. I really have had fun with your tools to tell a story.

That said I have noticed that the author community seems to have hit its tipping point. Many of the best authors and map makers have given up and left. Why? Its not the lack of feed back, its not the fact that you haven't tried to help support with new tools and listening to our feedback. It's the lack of support to get played, here is the list recent authors I have spoken with have been complaining about.

1. Plays. The new sorting system only favors those highly played modules and makes it very hard for a new module to get plays. I am lucky my campaign has been on the best page about 30 down and gets played, thou not much since the single player Fey wild campaign progresses the players character forward power wise where a foundry does nothing for player advancement.
2. Progression: Half exp, small rewards, no coins tokens, MMO's are progression driven, foundry doesn't add to it. I get 4 times the amount of ad in a day from using leadership then I can from foundry quests.
3. Rating Bombing: Good author being spammed by 7 1's out of the blue when they finally make best list. Not one person leaving a comment. Suddenly there back in can't find the mod never played list.


I enjoyed this summer, I hope to continue to have time to finish my series, but I also want to help this part of the game get some of the credit it deserves. It would be great if the foundry developer would pick a night and pop in the foundry chat and speak to the working community about the issues. Together we can make more content then any other mmo in the world, tell more stories and have a new way to play MMO's(the story teller side) but if there isn't some sort of communication or collaboration the community which is rapidly shrinking may disappear.

Thanks for listening

lolsorhand

Wasn't the above, for it it was just the game itself

karitr

On the bright side, Tilt is back to continue his 'From the Shadows' campaign :cool:

People come and go, Foundrys will continue to be made and played.

saerrael

Personally, I'm not leaving (cause I'm addicted to the Foundry, yes). But I do hear left and right about what the OP stated. Authors are finding it hard to remain motivated when months of hard work (however fun) is basically stomped into the ground and rendered invisible to players within a handful of reviews.

zahinder

The devs have shown some good new ideas since the last Foundry version in STO.

I'm hoping in another MMO or two they'll finally get it right.

agentjaspor

WTB paging on the search results pages! That single feature would go a longgggggggg way towards giving more quests greater visibility.

koboldsmell88

agentjaspor wrote: »

WTB paging on the search results pages! That single feature would go a longgggggggg way towards giving more quests greater visibility.

I would have paid for greater visibility gladly back when I was an up-and-coming author, this game wasn't broken, and I had hope for its future. Now? Naaaaahhhh. Not unless they started pumping out lots of classes, and gave us dragons of every variety.

zovya

I'm still here. I had to take a break due to a few things: broken ship interiors, foundry down, and working on another project elsewhere. I'm logging in again tonight to check to see if the ship is still broken. If not, I'll be back to crafting my questies.

tilt42

"Foundry authors are all leaving and frustrated" - When did you become a spokesperson for the author community? I prefer to speak for myself, thank you very much. If you are leaving and frustrated, then that's ok. Don't put words into other authors' mouths though. You really have no idea where people have gone. If you ask me, I'd say a lot of people are gone because most games only have a shelf life of a month or so for most people. Few games can counteract that. Then again, I can't say for sure, and neither can you.

zahinder

I left out of frustration and disappointment. So there's one.

celantra

I think some authors like myself are just tired of all the negative comments and such on the boards and in chat and so simply have cut back on our communications rather then be the subject of abuse both on the forums and ingame. After a comment made on the forums I received 12 one stars on my featured quest within 3 hours. You cant have it both ways. You cant have a thriving community if that community is constantly attacking its members. I look forward to another 30 or 40 one stars for making this post.

crok2

celantra wrote: »

After a comment made on the forums I received 12 one stars on my featured quest within 3 hours. You cant have it both ways. You cant have a thriving community if that community is constantly attacking its members. I look forward to another 30 or 40 one stars for making this post.

Exactly. It's been like that for a while. I would tell Iz, I have been posting today on the forums, let's see how many 1 stars I get. I think we all have our own ideas of who it is. In any case, if you are about to publish a new quest, it's rating suicide to post about it which is sad since people need reviews.

antonkyle

crok2 wrote: »

Exactly. It's been like that for a while. I would tell Iz, I have been posting today on the forums, let's see how many 1 stars I get. I think we all have our own ideas of who it is. In any case, if you are about to publish a new quest, it's rating suicide to post about it which is sad since people need reviews.

I'm not really buying this to be honest. I post on here all the time, recently a little negative maybe, because of all the bugs and messed up rubbish.
With the exception of my featured quest I have received maybe 3-4 1 stars over 4 quests.

If what you say is true then that is really sad. We should be looking out for one another. The player base is bad enough. (damb you empty chests)

What I find hard to grasp is that anyone would bother playing 15+ mins to one star someone. Time is short enough.

harbingerdrum

antonkyle wrote: »

What I find hard to grasp is that anyone would bother playing 15+ mins to one star someone. Time is short enough.

Haters Hate. Simple as that.

I do not say I understand it, but all your life you will bump into haters. They are usually not stupid people, sadly. So they will figure a way to game anything to what They feel is an advantage.

It can affect your life, your employment, and yes, even your foundry.

izatar

antonkyle wrote: »

What I find hard to grasp is that anyone would bother playing 15+ mins to one star someone.

This may not be necessary. Discussing why is not allowed.

boomba66

tilt42 wrote: »

"Foundry authors are all leaving and frustrated" - When did you become a spokesperson for the author community? I prefer to speak for myself, thank you very much. If you are leaving and frustrated, then that's ok. Don't put words into other authors' mouths though. You really have no idea where people have gone. If you ask me, I'd say a lot of people are gone because most games only have a shelf life of a month or so for most people. Few games can counteract that. Then again, I can't say for sure, and neither can you.

You clearly didn't read my post tilt. In it I was stating in talking to the authors among my guild and the authors I have spoken with in the foundry. I try not to put words in anyone's mouth and was simply pointing out the shrinking number of authors and their reasons why. Excuse me for trying to be part of the community and make posts that I consider positive way to help the game.

However in response to your quote "can't say for sure." in the cases I am referring to I can because I have spoken with MANY people that have given the reasons I list as the reason for no longer writing and or unpublishing. Perhaps my title was a little to catch all, however it has been a recent trend. If you can help keep the game from losing interest in the way that say DnD has for the past 36 years n you have a game that people stay with and play with. I know you produce good quality quests having played them, imagine if many more in the game got to play them.

Most people leave games and move on to others for new content, yet there is a ton of content being produced, just much of it not played including some really great quests. I just was hoping to point out to Cryptic the reasons some of my peer's have found reasons to leave and hope they can work on it.

celantra

Anton, I have no axe to grind one way or the other. While I don't like the 1 stars they don't affect me greatly either. I do this for my own reasons, and recognition is not huge on my list. Though I don't like people who work the system just to be nasty bastages.

I was happy to have been featured recently in the Tower District contest, but you should know that none of my other quests are submitted to cryptic. The only other quest I have submitted to cryptic was during beta for the Black Lake contest and while that did not win, it was featured in Alpha. The main reason why I don't normally submit to cryptic for featuring is because I don't care, and I want the ability to go back and change things, should I want to alter the story in my campaign as it progresses.

The fact remains that despite a causal effect, there was a direct correlation between a comment that was taken negatively here on the forums, and within an hour being bombarded with 1 stars. This has happened to numerous authors and while it would be nice to think these things happening are something of an urban legend, they have been proven time and time again. Even to the point where devs acknowledged the issue, though they did little to rectify the situation, other then ban the junk accounts that were placing the reviews.

Your belief is not required. It happens. More often then you may think.

chili1179

Not going to lie, some of the community drove me away as much as the foundry frustration.

thalazar1

public opinion of foundries, a very small select few authors and the game mechanics. I ran into a problem of not being able to create anything just staring at the screen for hours on end. but before that, the game it's self. I always jump on every D&D title i can and am usually disappointed. with my old gaming group long since moved away with families and no time any more and my own career , i often look for something to get back the enjoyment of table top.

Many foundries helped this a bit but in truth i just cant stand the mechanics of the game. It's not D&D for me its just another mmo lost among many. and sadly no mater how good the story a foundry has i just cant stand any of the classes. for me being a D&D game with out being D&D is a deal breaker. I only held in as long as i did as i enjoyed talking to other authors and playing their quests.

But after a few weeks maybe a month now away i have zero urge to get back in.

reagenlionel1

agentjaspor wrote: »

WTB paging on the search results pages! That single feature would go a longgggggggg way towards giving more quests greater visibility.

Agree to this.

bazag

This might be an interesting topic to be discussed on Bazag Stabs. Not so much the leaving aspect. But the trials, tribulations and rewards of being a foundry author.

antonkyle

thalazar1 wrote: »

public opinion of foundries, a very small select few authors and the game mechanics. I ran into a problem of not being able to create anything just staring at the screen for hours on end. but before that, the game it's self. I always jump on every D&D title i can and am usually disappointed. with my old gaming group long since moved away with families and no time any more and my own career , i often look for something to get back the enjoyment of table top.

Many foundries helped this a bit but in truth i just cant stand the mechanics of the game. It's not D&D for me its just another mmo lost among many. and sadly no mater how good the story a foundry has i just cant stand any of the classes. for me being a D&D game with out being D&D is a deal breaker. I only held in as long as i did as i enjoyed talking to other authors and playing their quests.

But after a few weeks maybe a month now away i have zero urge to get back in.

I'd agree, remove the foundry and D&D and what are you left with? Possibly the worse, most buggy piece of **** I have ever had the misfortune of playing. The way the game treats PVP is a joke. The Zen store, meh! The story telling in the PVE area's, meh! Four, just four classes, meh. Graphics are ok but not ground braking. Did I mention that PVP is a ****ing joke. I can't even duel with my friends.

By saying it's just another mmo lost among many, I actually think you do a huge disservice to 90% of the mmo's on the market. Without the foundry this is just rubbish in every aspect, especially the PVP, or what they like to call PVP.

I go on holiday in 12 days but when I come back I will be jumping ship. Unless they drastically change things. After seeing the work they did on the new content. I don't think they are even capable. In fact, if you pulled the best of the best from the ESO, Blizzard and Mythic Entertainment teams, I still don't think this game could be saved.

Did I mention that the PVP is rubbish? The foundry is good though, when it's working.

apocrs1980

bazag wrote: »

This might be an interesting topic to be discussed on Bazag Stabs. Not so much the leaving aspect. But the trials, tribulations and rewards of being a foundry author.

There are very little rewards as a Foundry Author, most spend days toiling away at their quests only to watch the gaming community dump on it.
If your building a foundry mission for anything other than for the simple fact that you love to create, you end up being disappointed in the end. Even then there is that harsh sting of other people crapping on your hard work for the simple fact that they can.
I have even watched other authors blast new authors trying their hand at making a foundry mission. It's sad to see truly.

narayansingh

apocrs1980 wrote: »

There are very little rewards as a Foundry Author, most spend days toiling away at their quests only to watch the gaming community dump on it.
If your building a foundry mission for anything other than for the simple fact that you love to create, you end up being disappointed in the end. Even then there is that harsh sting of other people crapping on your hard work for the simple fact that they can.
I have even watched other authors blast new authors trying their hand at making a foundry mission. It's sad to see truly.

Plus if you do not get the required number of plays in the first few weeks, you fall into never never land. Never to be seen again. Unless of course you are willing to come here and beg/trade for reviews. (And lets face it most don't even read these forums. IMO) And that doesn't always work either.

Narayan

savagedeacon

boomba66 wrote: »

2. Progression: Half exp, small rewards, no coins tokens, MMO's are progression driven, foundry doesn't add to it. I get 4 times the amount of ad in a day from using leadership then I can from foundry quests.


Thanks for listening

This is something that a way or another always comes out and the answer is:
it would be too easy for the foundry authors to create easy quests with high rewards and then ,sure, a lot of players would play the foundry quests ,even the boring ones, just because that way they would get easy xp and rewards. But would it be fair?
The task of a foundry author is to create a quest that the players enjoy to play for its fun value not the rewards

koboldsmell88

I'm happy to see I'm not the only author who is fed up anymore.

zahinder

The huge problem, for me, is having people find good quests. The search is primitive (it really needs something like predictive analysis).

Huge amounts of work, and even the folks who would love to play can't find you, and unless you get very lucky, you have to beg constantly just to get a trickle of plays.

kirksplat

zahinder wrote: »

Huge amounts of work, and even the folks who would love to play can't find you, and unless you get very lucky, you have to beg constantly just to get a trickle of plays.

It's been this way forever for STO foundry authors. Nobody can find our missions unless we have a spotlight, or if we beg them to do a custom search. We've been asking for a change to that for a very long time. They took our whining to heart and you guys got a tag system.

I have a mission STO-side that took 90 hours to make. After one year it has about 200 reviews. I'm also a foundry podcast host. I would hate to think what that number would be if I wasn't either noteworthy or notorious.

ddsauter

I have not left but.... i have to say i was quite shocked and unnerved by 1 star bombing with hateful comments. 6 over 3 days. Now i could give a ****ing flying fig what anyone thinks of my work but the comments... now that was something i was not prepared for. My first reaction was to unpublish and not republish. I'm still undecided on if publishing is something i even need to do. I enjoy making quests simply for the fun of it. anyway, i'd love to see a solution eventually that either blocks me from seeing hate/harassing comments or disallows anyone from leaving them... dunno.

koboldbard2

ddsauter wrote: »

1 star bombing

A serious problem that's not been addressed, it repeatedly happens to quests that threaten to get on the best list, all the sudden there's a rash on anonymous 1 stars.

zahinder

kirksplat wrote: »

It's been this way forever for STO foundry authors. Nobody can find our missions unless we have a spotlight, or if we beg them to do a custom search. We've been asking for a change to that for a very long time. They took our whining to heart and you guys got a tag system.

Yeah, I've been over on STO for a short time before frustrations got to me.

I'll point out that the tag system does precisely f-all right now, because apparently it doesn't distinguish number of tags. (Possibly it does some sort of weighting or something, but since the devs don't tell us how things are designed, who knows!)