I reached out the devs regarding the Skill Check issue this morning...haven't heard back yet. I will keep you all updated as I get more info. Not to be a downer, but it might be wise to follow Eldarth's lead...just in case. I'm doing all I can to push this, but there are still some super major issues that need addressing and our devs are doing all they can to fix them in as timely a fashion as possible.
I reached out the devs regarding the Skill Check issue this morning...haven't heard back yet. I will keep you all updated as I get more info. Not to be a downer, but it might be wise to follow Eldarth's lead...just in case. I'm doing all I can to push this, but there are still some super major issues that need addressing and our devs are doing all they can to fix them in as timely a fashion as possible.
I gave up trying to use skill checks in beta. It was obvious it's something not on their priority list. Might be nice if they worked, but... I don't think the motivations to play foundry quests revolve around 'skill checks'. At that point, you would be making a 'Theive's World" setting or something, for people to level their specific skill sets.
That idea has some appeal, but unless you get contracted to make a 'class tutorial' I doubt it will ever happen.
There seems to be a problem with publishing quests. Over two days since I published my own and it's still not ready. Since it's not published I can't submit it as a contest entry. Any chance for some info on this Akromatik?
Echo of the Ancient - NW-DT2ABLPD2 - The Wizards forces are pillaging ruins of the ancient, elven kingdom of Illefarn. In order to stop them, you need to lead your party through old, abandoned mines. But beware... you are not alone there...
There seems to be a problem with publishing quests. Over two days since I published my own and it's still not ready. Since it's not published I can't submit it as a contest entry. Any chance for some info on this Akromatik?
Same problem for me. During these weeks for the contest i had several issue, now this; i feel like living in a Kafka's nightmare.
Same issue. Made some edits and now stuck with "Currently Publishing". However, we also cannot click the button "submit to cryptic", the last step we need to do for the contest which is submit for featuring.
I suggest those of us having this problem post info so some research can be done/patterns be found by the Devs.
Foundry short code - NW-DNAIJI3I4
Author - @waryur
When started to be stuck in "Currently Publishing"? - Around 2AM PST on 08/25/14.
Was your quest previously published? - Yes
If previously published, were your edits major or minor, i.e. new maps and encounters or typo editing? - Minor edits
Zone chat working? - No
Hidden Valley Ranch - NW-DPNGENL6E D&D Adventures Part I House of 1000 Corpses - NW-DIEYVLCML D&D Adventures Part II Well of Dragons - NW-DTPJEKZCT Third Place Winner CotD Foundry Contest
It's Just a Flesh Wound Pt. 1 - NW-DM8GHAME2 Monty Python!
It's Just a Flesh Wound Pt. 2 - NW-DFADOS4EX Monty Python!
Well, yeah, the final update of mine seems to be stuck as well, though I submitted before that. So unless the new publish takes down the old one, I should at least have a version available. I hope the final edit gets in, though...
I'm in contact with our devs over the foundry publishing issue. That being said, can I have 8-10 volunteers who would like to have their quests featured first?
EDIT: This info is out of date, please read the most recent post of mine.
Well, if the publishing thing were worked out, I'd volunteer.
If it is not worked out by tomorrow, will (whenever that bug IS fixed) the publishing attempts already cued go through for the features in the upcoming weeks? Because I'd really prefer my quest to be featured when that change goes through.
After three days of publishing it finally went live! Playtested it, sadly only once, but everything works. Just clicked submit to cryptic so I hope that will count as an entry.
If it's submitted (not sure how fast it work) you can use mine: Sharandar's Defense - NW-DDFUT2JXY
Hope the publishing works for everyone else.
Echo of the Ancient - NW-DT2ABLPD2 - The Wizards forces are pillaging ruins of the ancient, elven kingdom of Illefarn. In order to stop them, you need to lead your party through old, abandoned mines. But beware... you are not alone there...
Well, I got a reply from the devs on the issue. Apparently there are a few technical issues happening with the Foundry right now. One of them affecting publishing a quest and another affecting my ability to feature them...*sigh*
I'd be pulling my hair out, but it falls out easily enough by itself (the dye).
Our guys are trying to have it all fixed in time for Thursday's patch, but nothing is certain at this time. Obviously, the 8/26 deadline no longer applies. Let's shoot for a 9/2 6AM PDT start date. If things are still broken then, I think it might be worth revisiting the idea of us doing the judging (we will have multiple judges, each with different tastes)...but the optimist in me tells me that it won't come to that (Worst case scenario: I put up a poll about who should judge and we'll go with the majority).
I can't thank you all enough for your patience and support through all this. I know these delays have caused a good deal of frustration...believe me...you're not alone in that. Please know, however, that I'm doing all I can to make our needs known and get things fixed so we can show your art to the rest of the Neverwinter community.
Here's the excerpt with the judging procedures:
"Starting Tuesday 8/19, we will start featuring the contest entries that are eligible for winning. We ask that all entrants make sure their Foundry quests are eligible for featuring and have been submitted for featuring. Due to the high volume of entries, we will be featuring the quests in batches to ensure all entries receive enough visibility. Each batch of entries will be featured for 1 week at a time and we will only count the stars accumulated during that week. Once a given entry's week is over, we will record the accumulated stars for quests featured that week in our super-secret ledger. When we have featured all of the eligible entries, we will declare the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize winners based upon their accumulated stars. We realize that this will result in us having to push back the date of our winner's announcement, so we've gone ahead and added 2 more "Judges Choice" prizes. These winners will be chosen by the Neverwinter team and they will each receive a Dragonborn Legend pack!"
Alright, mine went through, so I'd like to finalize my status as a volunteer to go in the first round. Here's hoping the bug with featuring gets worked out!
Well, I got a reply from the devs on the issue. Apparently there are a few technical issues happening with the Foundry right now. One of them affecting publishing a quest and another affecting my ability to feature them...*sigh*
I'd be pulling my hair out, but it falls out easily enough by itself (the dye).
Our guys are trying to have it all fixed in time for Thursday's patch, but nothing is certain at this time. Obviously, the 8/26 deadline no longer applies. Let's shoot for a 9/2 6AM PDT start date. If things are still broken then, I think it might be worth revisiting the idea of us doing the judging (we will have multiple judges, each with different tastes)...but the optimist in me tells me that it won't come to that (Worst case scenario: I put up a poll about who should judge and we'll go with the majority).
I can't thank you all enough for your patience and support through all this. I know these delays have caused a good deal of frustration...believe me...you're not alone in that. Please know, however, that I'm doing all I can to make our needs known and get things fixed so we can show your art to the rest of the Neverwinter community.
:cool: Ya know, I'm really glad i made my quest. I've learned alot about the Foundry, and i had fun doing it. I actually quit caring about the contest when the first postponement happened. After the second postponement, I was already jaded to how shoddy this Chinese based company runs things. Honestly, I just don't care at this point. I would rather have the dev team working on the Foundry than the next 'expansion' of the game, however that's just my thoughts because i'm really only here for the creative outlet the Foundry offers me. The authors here could produce more viable adventures, than the dev team does. However, I feel like they simply want to advertise 'unlimited end game content' without giving us the tool to actually accomplish that. It's been a big downer for me in general. I can wholeheartedly feel the pain this community manager is going through, and do not wish for his 'pank?' hair to be torn out or fall out prematurely. However, if the dev team ended up bald..... well.... that's a different story. Just kidding... i do not wish baldness on anyone.
:mad: I spent a month of my life pulling 14 hour days on this foundry. Have any of the devs been doing 7 day work weeks like that? I have to ask, cuz you never know about game developers. Some are crazed hard working types and others are total slackers that need the boot. I will say this much though, with huge titles like Warlords of Draenor coming out... they're gonna have to do something more than their usual to retain customers. Maybe like.... lower the outrageous prices in their item mall, buy some decent server hardware, hire some talented devs, lease a proper amount of bandwidth... and things that other mmorpg companies have to do to keep the business afloat. Which of course has nothing to do with this contest. In that case, hmm.... let's see... what has been said a thousand times regarding the Foundry by PWE customers? Improve the rewards? Some how making an incentive to play the Foundry quests something worthwhile would fit the bill. Many ways to bypass exploitation without hindering authors.
> Anyhow, don't pull your hair out bro, you tried... we see that. Not worth expediting male pattern baldness. As I said in the beginning of this contest, I don't expect to actually ever receive anything from PWE if I actually won it. There is a huge difference between the asian gaming business models and those of North America (I can't speak for the EU). It's not that I'm trying to bash their model, it's simply that it does not do well here. It's not designed to create competition for game developer jobs, it's designed to milk out the content which they already possess and gradually release.
> Nuff said on that, just trying to put it in perspective so our Community Manager doesn't leap *ahem*... rip out his hair. If you're really looking at putting a panel together, it tells me a lot about just how bad things are in the PWE shop. However, on that note, I mentioned earlier that you should just give a prize to everyone that put in the time. I stand by this. If you look at the list of criteria for Foundry commendations on the review tab it has a very long list of things to judge by. To be very honest most foundry works out there (even crummy ones) will actually hit 5 of those. It's a very broad, forgiving list. I don't have a problem with that one bit. If everyone is getting 5 stars from that judging method though, how do you pick a winner?
> I've played a few quests that i've enjoyed in the Foundry. The rest... well I didn't enjoy. Does that mean they aren't worthy of stars for other reasons? Nope, just that i didn't enjoy them for those efforts. If you're going to be judging by opinion, not by the structure of contest entries, then the panel of people you set up will be dictating an entirely new contest. One based off of their personal tastes, not by the validity of their Foundry effort.
Like I said before, just give everyone who put time into their quest a Dragonborn Pack or something of note. Easiest way to encourage Foundry Authoring and to make amends for poor planning (and/or execution) of the contest. I think most everyone has thrown their hands up in the air already and just said.... 'i give up'. I know I heard that all month long on the Foundry server. When people find out how lackluster the Foundry tools are, they quit.
> If you simply wanted to get authors churning out quests, rewards like 'adding more detail objects to the Foundry database', and their is a whole list of forum posts about what they would like.... would be a good place to start. Personally having a Reward Chest that dropped 'Epic Foundry Encounter Unlock' or "Rare Foundry Object Unlock" would suffice for me. Of course what I heard as an excuse to oppose this was "Then we'd have to store seperate Foundry assets for every account". So what? Massive databases exist in other mmorpgs, websites and whatnot... all over the planet.
:rolleyes: I understand the dev team has serious current issues, like having hundreds of Warlock Puppets stuck at every zone exit in the game that are lagging everyone to death. Totally understandable. Please make things like this their immediate focus. Definitely. That doesn't mean that a seperate position like a 'foundry dev' couldn't be created. The Foundry is the crowning achievement of this game, whether your investor(s) realize that or not. Full time effort their should be a priority. Most other games have auto-looting, and many other refined game engine mechanics. Most of them DO NOT HAVE a Foundry though. I'm only here for the Foundry. I can live without auto-looting and other refinements. I cannot live without the visible effort of this gaming company to make the Foundry into a professional grade tool for us to use, and I'm not seeing that. I only see bare minimum effort. I know that's a seperate issue from the contest and I'm sorry for bringing it up, but I'm honestly just trying to solidify why I said what I did at the start of this debacle. Just give everyone the winning prize who entered and put forth effort. Chalk it up for what it is, and what it isn't. Learn from the mistakes to make the next effort better.
:cool: Ya know, I'm really glad i made my quest. I've learned alot about the Foundry, and i had fun doing it. I actually quit caring about the contest when the first postponement happened. After the second postponement, I was already jaded to how shoddy this Chinese based company runs things. Honestly, I just don't care at this point. I would rather have the dev team working on the Foundry than the next 'expansion' of the game, however that's just my thoughts because i'm really only here for the creative outlet the Foundry offers me. The authors here could produce more viable adventures, than the dev team does. However, I feel like they simply want to advertise 'unlimited end game content' without giving us the tool to actually accomplish that. It's been a big downer for me in general. I can wholeheartedly feel the pain this community manager is going through, and do not wish for his 'pank?' hair to be torn out or fall out prematurely. However, if the dev team ended up bald..... well.... that's a different story. Just kidding... i do not wish baldness on anyone.
:mad: I spent a month of my life pulling 14 hour days on this foundry. Have any of the devs been doing 7 day work weeks like that? I have to ask, cuz you never know about game developers. Some are crazed hard working types and others are total slackers that need the boot. I will say this much though, with huge titles like Warlords of Draenor coming out... they're gonna have to do something more than their usual to retain customers. Maybe like.... lower the outrageous prices in their item mall, buy some decent server hardware, hire some talented devs, lease a proper amount of bandwidth... and things that other mmorpg companies have to do to keep the business afloat. Which of course has nothing to do with this contest. In that case, hmm.... let's see... what has been said a thousand times regarding the Foundry by PWE customers? Improve the rewards? Some how making an incentive to play the Foundry quests something worthwhile would fit the bill. Many ways to bypass exploitation without hindering authors.
> Anyhow, don't pull your hair out bro, you tried... we see that. Not worth expediting male pattern baldness. As I said in the beginning of this contest, I don't expect to actually ever receive anything from PWE if I actually won it. There is a huge difference between the asian gaming business models and those of North America (I can't speak for the EU). It's not that I'm trying to bash their model, it's simply that it does not do well here. It's not designed to create competition for game developer jobs, it's designed to milk out the content which they already possess and gradually release.
> Nuff said on that, just trying to put it in perspective so our Community Manager doesn't leap *ahem*... rip out his hair. If you're really looking at putting a panel together, it tells me a lot about just how bad things are in the PWE shop. However, on that note, I mentioned earlier that you should just give a prize to everyone that put in the time. I stand by this. If you look at the list of criteria for Foundry commendations on the review tab it has a very long list of things to judge by. To be very honest most foundry works out there (even crummy ones) will actually hit 5 of those. It's a very broad, forgiving list. I don't have a problem with that one bit. If everyone is getting 5 stars from that judging method though, how do you pick a winner?
> I've played a few quests that i've enjoyed in the Foundry. The rest... well I didn't enjoy. Does that mean they aren't worthy of stars for other reasons? Nope, just that i didn't enjoy them for those efforts. If you're going to be judging by opinion, not by the structure of contest entries, then the panel of people you set up will be dictating an entirely new contest. One based off of their personal tastes, not by the validity of their Foundry effort.
Like I said before, just give everyone who put time into their quest a Dragonborn Pack or something of note. Easiest way to encourage Foundry Authoring and to make amends for poor planning (and/or execution) of the contest. I think most everyone has thrown their hands up in the air already and just said.... 'i give up'. I know I heard that all month long on the Foundry server. When people find out how lackluster the Foundry tools are, they quit.
> If you simply wanted to get authors churning out quests, rewards like 'adding more detail objects to the Foundry database', and their is a whole list of forum posts about what they would like.... would be a good place to start. Personally having a Reward Chest that dropped 'Epic Foundry Encounter Unlock' or "Rare Foundry Object Unlock" would suffice for me. Of course what I heard as an excuse to oppose this was "Then we'd have to store seperate Foundry assets for every account". So what? Massive databases exist in other mmorpgs, websites and whatnot... all over the planet.
:rolleyes: I understand the dev team has serious current issues, like having hundreds of Warlock Puppets stuck at every zone exit in the game that are lagging everyone to death. Totally understandable. Please make things like this their immediate focus. Definitely. That doesn't mean that a seperate position like a 'foundry dev' couldn't be created. The Foundry is the crowning achievement of this game, whether your investor(s) realize that or not. Full time effort their should be a priority. Most other games have auto-looting, and many other refined game engine mechanics. Most of them DO NOT HAVE a Foundry though. I'm only here for the Foundry. I can live without auto-looting and other refinements. I cannot live without the visible effort of this gaming company to make the Foundry into a professional grade tool for us to use, and I'm not seeing that. I only see bare minimum effort. I know that's a seperate issue from the contest and I'm sorry for bringing it up, but I'm honestly just trying to solidify why I said what I did at the start of this debacle. Just give everyone the winning prize who entered and put forth effort. Chalk it up for what it is, and what it isn't. Learn from the mistakes to make the next effort better.
End Rant,
Me
Don't really see how most of this has to do with the contest. Apart from wanting a free reward for time to make the quest. Though no one forced any of us to spend time making it and the majority of authors do it because of personal enjoyment. If you did not enjoy it and want some incentive because you thought you wasted time. Well I don't think that is a healthy reason or mindset to go into this, whether the content is better or worse than the actual game content does not matter it is not our job.
On the topic at hand, I would not say giving us more time, a more fair judging system, foundry achievements (getrates/tips/featured which is a huge boost and makes book imp easy/easier to obtain) and a pet. And most importantly getting alot of public (1000ish people) to play your piece of work, is more than we ever expected or asked for. Now you want a free $75-100 pack because of time spent on a hobbie?
Well Grimah, I'm not going to start a flame war with you. It's obvious you cannot read, nor took the time too. I cannot fix the limits of your intellect quotient. I'm sorry for that my friend, I wish I could.
My post was long, and in support of our community manager. The rewards weren't for me, as I've stated many times, I've never expected anything from them. The simple fact is, more people quit during the process of making a foundry for the contest than we have entries for. The tool is buggy and we all know it.
Get over yourself Grimah. We are all entitled opinions here.
Now you want a free $75-100 pack because of time spent on a hobbie?
I'm not wasting the time to respond to that type of ignorance. It's not worth what they ask. Full games cost less than that, and have more content. You think they aren't price gouging Grimah? You're the first i've met too say so. In fact since you're so rich... there's a couple bridges i'd like to sell you. I even helped design a few of them.
Like I said before, just give everyone who put time into their quest a Dragonborn Pack or something of note. Easiest way to encourage Foundry Authoring and to make amends for poor planning (and/or execution) of the contest.
Again, if you read my post I addressed this. I fully understand that there are a ton of entries where people plopped mobs down and put no effort into their quests.... all to get the green Mystagogue companion. To further elaborate, I understand that if we get our quest featured... it will more than likely receive alot of plays and there are some achievement unlocks to go with this.
You missed my point entirely. It's not that there aren't static rewards for entering, it's that most of those entries will be farming rubbish for free stuff. Now the actual winning prizes (which are nice) would be decided by the community if they stick to what they planned. However, the community manager has stated he was thinking about just having a panel to pick the winners because he can't even feature the quests at the moment. Instead he has postponed. Again. Due to 'technical difficulties'.
Mostly I was just ranting about how little the Foundry has gotten attention from the DEV team, and how I feel they need to dedicate a team too it.
Not to mention the rampant Warlock Puppet spawn... which I hope is what they are fixing right now.
@sn0wst0rmz - I am not a contestant or anything, but I feel where you are coming from at least, and I understood your post clearly.
As it stands, if this contest is like the one with the Tower District I'm already willing to bet some of these quests will have NOTHING to do with the Cult of the Dragon. I bet few people even bothered to read the lore. It happened with the Tower District ones, so I'm expecting the same thing. I mean, I'm already bothered by the quests that are like "Tip me and do this for your achievements and mine!" and there's no content or anything because people are lazy. The people who take the time to make something quality can spend days and months in the For Review tab waiting to be played out.
I know things can get out of control and out of hand easily, so that happens with the push back, but some people lack the patience, they hate waiting. You can only do that for so long before people get fed up.
I am hoping for more content and such to be added to the Foundry, but as doubt is one of my strong suits, I am very optimistic. NW was said to have the best player generated content system (see here: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/8818/page/1 ) and yet it could seriously be improved.
That said, I hope that the contest continues, I do want to play them when/if they are featured (and I'll be taking guildies along as some of them are Foundry lovers) and give people votes/tips for the ones that I thoroughly enjoy. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to a panel or anything, and if it does, I hope the judges are very meticulous.
@sn0wst0rmz - I am not a contestant or anything, but I feel where you are coming from at least, and I understood your post clearly.
As it stands, if this contest is like the one with the Tower District I'm already willing to bet some of these quests will have NOTHING to do with the Cult of the Dragon. I bet few people even bothered to read the lore. It happened with the Tower District ones, so I'm expecting the same thing. I mean, I'm already bothered by the quests that are like "Tip me and do this for your achievements and mine!" and there's no content or anything because people are lazy. The people who take the time to make something quality can spend days and months in the For Review tab waiting to be played out.
I know things can get out of control and out of hand easily, so that happens with the push back, but some people lack the patience, they hate waiting. You can only do that for so long before people get fed up.
I am hoping for more content and such to be added to the Foundry, but as doubt is one of my strong suits, I am very optimistic. NW was said to have the best player generated content system (see here: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/8818/page/1 ) and yet it could seriously be improved.
That said, I hope that the contest continues, I do want to play them when/if they are featured (and I'll be taking guildies along as some of them are Foundry lovers) and give people votes/tips for the ones that I thoroughly enjoy. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to a panel or anything, and if it does, I hope the judges are very meticulous.
Thanks for the support. I'm so used to people just flat out trolling me, I forgot what it was like to find like-minded people. That link you posted to mmorpg.com had a fraudulent image for the Neverwinter Foundry. Our Foundry looks nothing like that picture. At least mine doesn't. In fact i've seen that picture before posted elsewhere, and it is misleading. It makes it look like they spent some advertising dollars to falsify an image that is not a true representation of the actual product. (Like that's a new marketing ploy or something right?)
It's depressing when an IP as awesome as DnD gets dragged through the mud like this. The worst part is that when the founders of WotC sold out.... all of their assets began to get wh0red out by Hasbro. That's life. Too bad that TSR was run into the ground by a crook. Nothing we can do about that now.
Anyways, I don't let it bother me. The smart@ss troll comments, nor the stupidity brought on by the greed of low cunning businessmen.
I just wait and hope they actually wake up and smell the coffee someday. If they ever deliver a powerful game editor, it will be worth the wait. There are a multitude of good storytelling GM's around the world.... and hopefully someday... someone will harness their creativity. Just hope i'm not too old when it happens.
"The Icy Depths of the Past."
It is tested and ready to go. Fits in very well with current campaign, and I believe its a fun adventure so feel free to feature it in first ten!
:mad: I spent a month of my life pulling 14 hour days on this foundry. Have any of the devs been doing 7 day work weeks like that? I have to ask, cuz you never know about game developers. Some are crazed hard working types and others are total slackers that need the boot. I will say this much though, with huge titles like Warlords of Draenor coming out... they're gonna have to do something more than their usual to retain customers. Maybe like.... lower the outrageous prices in their item mall, buy some decent server hardware, hire some talented devs, lease a proper amount of bandwidth... and things that other mmorpg companies have to do to keep the business afloat. Which of course has nothing to do with this contest. In that case, hmm.... let's see... what has been said a thousand times regarding the Foundry by PWE customers? Improve the rewards? Some how making an incentive to play the Foundry quests something worthwhile would fit the bill. Many ways to bypass exploitation without hindering authors.
> Anyhow, don't pull your hair out bro, you tried... we see that. Not worth expediting male pattern baldness. As I said in the beginning of this contest, I don't expect to actually ever receive anything from PWE if I actually won it. There is a huge difference between the asian gaming business models and those of North America (I can't speak for the EU). It's not that I'm trying to bash their model, it's simply that it does not do well here. It's not designed to create competition for game developer jobs, it's designed to milk out the content which they already possess and gradually release.
> Nuff said on that, just trying to put it in perspective so our Community Manager doesn't leap *ahem*... rip out his hair. If you're really looking at putting a panel together, it tells me a lot about just how bad things are in the PWE shop. However, on that note, I mentioned earlier that you should just give a prize to everyone that put in the time. I stand by this. If you look at the list of criteria for Foundry commendations on the review tab it has a very long list of things to judge by. To be very honest most foundry works out there (even crummy ones) will actually hit 5 of those. It's a very broad, forgiving list. I don't have a problem with that one bit. If everyone is getting 5 stars from that judging method though, how do you pick a winner?
> I've played a few quests that i've enjoyed in the Foundry. The rest... well I didn't enjoy. Does that mean they aren't worthy of stars for other reasons? Nope, just that i didn't enjoy them for those efforts. If you're going to be judging by opinion, not by the structure of contest entries, then the panel of people you set up will be dictating an entirely new contest. One based off of their personal tastes, not by the validity of their Foundry effort.
Like I said before, just give everyone who put time into their quest a Dragonborn Pack or something of note. Easiest way to encourage Foundry Authoring and to make amends for poor planning (and/or execution) of the contest. I think most everyone has thrown their hands up in the air already and just said.... 'i give up'. I know I heard that all month long on the Foundry server. When people find out how lackluster the Foundry tools are, they quit.
> If you simply wanted to get authors churning out quests, rewards like 'adding more detail objects to the Foundry database', and their is a whole list of forum posts about what they would like.... would be a good place to start. Personally having a Reward Chest that dropped 'Epic Foundry Encounter Unlock' or "Rare Foundry Object Unlock" would suffice for me. Of course what I heard as an excuse to oppose this was "Then we'd have to store seperate Foundry assets for every account". So what? Massive databases exist in other mmorpgs, websites and whatnot... all over the planet.
:rolleyes: I understand the dev team has serious current issues, like having hundreds of Warlock Puppets stuck at every zone exit in the game that are lagging everyone to death. Totally understandable. Please make things like this their immediate focus. Definitely. That doesn't mean that a seperate position like a 'foundry dev' couldn't be created. The Foundry is the crowning achievement of this game, whether your investor(s) realize that or not. Full time effort their should be a priority. Most other games have auto-looting, and many other refined game engine mechanics. Most of them DO NOT HAVE a Foundry though. I'm only here for the Foundry. I can live without auto-looting and other refinements. I cannot live without the visible effort of this gaming company to make the Foundry into a professional grade tool for us to use, and I'm not seeing that. I only see bare minimum effort. I know that's a seperate issue from the contest and I'm sorry for bringing it up, but I'm honestly just trying to solidify why I said what I did at the start of this debacle. Just give everyone the winning prize who entered and put forth effort. Chalk it up for what it is, and what it isn't. Learn from the mistakes to make the next effort better.
End Rant,
Me
Creativity has it's rewards for hard work, but if you over-work you can get over frustrated and burn out. As someone who has worked 14 hours a day on films (college major/never completed), it's easy to let your creativity take control of your day and your mood. You have to focus on what YOU can control, it's difficult to master, but there is so much going on outside of the contest (earthquakes, bugs, etc.) that it may be a good time to use the added submission period to step back and get some air, just to clear your mind. When you create something with limited resources, you find creative ways to do more with less. It can be incredibly frustrating at times, but if you focus on creative solutions you'll be surprised with what you can come up with. The biggest mistake people make is they focus on "winning." I didn't create my foundry to win a contest, I saw an opportunity to be creative and entered it into the contest, if it wins great, if people play it and enjoy it, great. If the opposite, then take what reviews are telling you, move on, and improve. There really is nothing to lose. Having dealt with audiences (which can be incredibly finicky) it's difficult to say what type of foundry will win. Keep in mind, some very, very poor quality films are incredibly popular and incredibly financially successful. I personally think the devs involved with this contest are looking for more than just a farm quest. Often times people put countless hours into creating things they perceive will "win the trophy", then when they don't win, they feel like a failure and step away. If people play your quest, if people enjoy your quest, you have already won. Don't focus on the prize, focus on your work and what you learn from it. I'm not trying to bring you down, or say that you're wrong in being frustrated, just trying to give you a different perspective.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Comments
I reached out the devs regarding the Skill Check issue this morning...haven't heard back yet. I will keep you all updated as I get more info. Not to be a downer, but it might be wise to follow Eldarth's lead...just in case. I'm doing all I can to push this, but there are still some super major issues that need addressing and our devs are doing all they can to fix them in as timely a fashion as possible.
I gave up trying to use skill checks in beta. It was obvious it's something not on their priority list. Might be nice if they worked, but... I don't think the motivations to play foundry quests revolve around 'skill checks'. At that point, you would be making a 'Theive's World" setting or something, for people to level their specific skill sets.
That idea has some appeal, but unless you get contracted to make a 'class tutorial' I doubt it will ever happen.
Same problem for me. During these weeks for the contest i had several issue, now this; i feel like living in a Kafka's nightmare.
I suggest those of us having this problem post info so some research can be done/patterns be found by the Devs.
Foundry short code - NW-DNAIJI3I4
Author - @waryur
When started to be stuck in "Currently Publishing"? - Around 2AM PST on 08/25/14.
Was your quest previously published? - Yes
If previously published, were your edits major or minor, i.e. new maps and encounters or typo editing? - Minor edits
Zone chat working? - No
House of 1000 Corpses - NW-DIEYVLCML D&D Adventures Part II
Well of Dragons - NW-DTPJEKZCT Third Place Winner CotD Foundry Contest
It's Just a Flesh Wound Pt. 1 - NW-DM8GHAME2 Monty Python!
It's Just a Flesh Wound Pt. 2 - NW-DFADOS4EX Monty Python!
I'm in contact with our devs over the foundry publishing issue. That being said, can I have 8-10 volunteers who would like to have their quests featured first?
EDIT: This info is out of date, please read the most recent post of mine.
If it is not worked out by tomorrow, will (whenever that bug IS fixed) the publishing attempts already cued go through for the features in the upcoming weeks? Because I'd really prefer my quest to be featured when that change goes through.
Black Ice and Plaguefire
NW-DA9IKSMJW
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
If it's submitted (not sure how fast it work) you can use mine: Sharandar's Defense - NW-DDFUT2JXY
Hope the publishing works for everyone else.
Well, I got a reply from the devs on the issue. Apparently there are a few technical issues happening with the Foundry right now. One of them affecting publishing a quest and another affecting my ability to feature them...*sigh*
I'd be pulling my hair out, but it falls out easily enough by itself (the dye).
Our guys are trying to have it all fixed in time for Thursday's patch, but nothing is certain at this time. Obviously, the 8/26 deadline no longer applies. Let's shoot for a 9/2 6AM PDT start date. If things are still broken then, I think it might be worth revisiting the idea of us doing the judging (we will have multiple judges, each with different tastes)...but the optimist in me tells me that it won't come to that (Worst case scenario: I put up a poll about who should judge and we'll go with the majority).
I can't thank you all enough for your patience and support through all this. I know these delays have caused a good deal of frustration...believe me...you're not alone in that. Please know, however, that I'm doing all I can to make our needs known and get things fixed so we can show your art to the rest of the Neverwinter community.
Yes, only votes after quest is featured will count so no guilds can front-load anything.
This was addressed here:
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
A Call for Heroes
NW-DE4RTZEFQ
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
:cool: Ya know, I'm really glad i made my quest. I've learned alot about the Foundry, and i had fun doing it. I actually quit caring about the contest when the first postponement happened. After the second postponement, I was already jaded to how shoddy this Chinese based company runs things. Honestly, I just don't care at this point. I would rather have the dev team working on the Foundry than the next 'expansion' of the game, however that's just my thoughts because i'm really only here for the creative outlet the Foundry offers me. The authors here could produce more viable adventures, than the dev team does. However, I feel like they simply want to advertise 'unlimited end game content' without giving us the tool to actually accomplish that. It's been a big downer for me in general. I can wholeheartedly feel the pain this community manager is going through, and do not wish for his 'pank?' hair to be torn out or fall out prematurely. However, if the dev team ended up bald..... well.... that's a different story. Just kidding... i do not wish baldness on anyone.
:mad: I spent a month of my life pulling 14 hour days on this foundry. Have any of the devs been doing 7 day work weeks like that? I have to ask, cuz you never know about game developers. Some are crazed hard working types and others are total slackers that need the boot. I will say this much though, with huge titles like Warlords of Draenor coming out... they're gonna have to do something more than their usual to retain customers. Maybe like.... lower the outrageous prices in their item mall, buy some decent server hardware, hire some talented devs, lease a proper amount of bandwidth... and things that other mmorpg companies have to do to keep the business afloat. Which of course has nothing to do with this contest. In that case, hmm.... let's see... what has been said a thousand times regarding the Foundry by PWE customers? Improve the rewards? Some how making an incentive to play the Foundry quests something worthwhile would fit the bill. Many ways to bypass exploitation without hindering authors.
> Anyhow, don't pull your hair out bro, you tried... we see that. Not worth expediting male pattern baldness. As I said in the beginning of this contest, I don't expect to actually ever receive anything from PWE if I actually won it. There is a huge difference between the asian gaming business models and those of North America (I can't speak for the EU). It's not that I'm trying to bash their model, it's simply that it does not do well here. It's not designed to create competition for game developer jobs, it's designed to milk out the content which they already possess and gradually release.
> Nuff said on that, just trying to put it in perspective so our Community Manager doesn't leap *ahem*... rip out his hair. If you're really looking at putting a panel together, it tells me a lot about just how bad things are in the PWE shop. However, on that note, I mentioned earlier that you should just give a prize to everyone that put in the time. I stand by this. If you look at the list of criteria for Foundry commendations on the review tab it has a very long list of things to judge by. To be very honest most foundry works out there (even crummy ones) will actually hit 5 of those. It's a very broad, forgiving list. I don't have a problem with that one bit. If everyone is getting 5 stars from that judging method though, how do you pick a winner?
> I've played a few quests that i've enjoyed in the Foundry. The rest... well I didn't enjoy. Does that mean they aren't worthy of stars for other reasons? Nope, just that i didn't enjoy them for those efforts. If you're going to be judging by opinion, not by the structure of contest entries, then the panel of people you set up will be dictating an entirely new contest. One based off of their personal tastes, not by the validity of their Foundry effort.
> If you simply wanted to get authors churning out quests, rewards like 'adding more detail objects to the Foundry database', and their is a whole list of forum posts about what they would like.... would be a good place to start. Personally having a Reward Chest that dropped 'Epic Foundry Encounter Unlock' or "Rare Foundry Object Unlock" would suffice for me. Of course what I heard as an excuse to oppose this was "Then we'd have to store seperate Foundry assets for every account". So what? Massive databases exist in other mmorpgs, websites and whatnot... all over the planet.
:rolleyes: I understand the dev team has serious current issues, like having hundreds of Warlock Puppets stuck at every zone exit in the game that are lagging everyone to death. Totally understandable. Please make things like this their immediate focus. Definitely. That doesn't mean that a seperate position like a 'foundry dev' couldn't be created. The Foundry is the crowning achievement of this game, whether your investor(s) realize that or not. Full time effort their should be a priority. Most other games have auto-looting, and many other refined game engine mechanics. Most of them DO NOT HAVE a Foundry though. I'm only here for the Foundry. I can live without auto-looting and other refinements. I cannot live without the visible effort of this gaming company to make the Foundry into a professional grade tool for us to use, and I'm not seeing that. I only see bare minimum effort. I know that's a seperate issue from the contest and I'm sorry for bringing it up, but I'm honestly just trying to solidify why I said what I did at the start of this debacle. Just give everyone the winning prize who entered and put forth effort. Chalk it up for what it is, and what it isn't. Learn from the mistakes to make the next effort better.
End Rant,
Me
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
Don't really see how most of this has to do with the contest. Apart from wanting a free reward for time to make the quest. Though no one forced any of us to spend time making it and the majority of authors do it because of personal enjoyment. If you did not enjoy it and want some incentive because you thought you wasted time. Well I don't think that is a healthy reason or mindset to go into this, whether the content is better or worse than the actual game content does not matter it is not our job.
On the topic at hand, I would not say giving us more time, a more fair judging system, foundry achievements (getrates/tips/featured which is a huge boost and makes book imp easy/easier to obtain) and a pet. And most importantly getting alot of public (1000ish people) to play your piece of work, is more than we ever expected or asked for. Now you want a free $75-100 pack because of time spent on a hobbie?
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
My post was long, and in support of our community manager. The rewards weren't for me, as I've stated many times, I've never expected anything from them. The simple fact is, more people quit during the process of making a foundry for the contest than we have entries for. The tool is buggy and we all know it.
Get over yourself Grimah. We are all entitled opinions here.
Now you want a free $75-100 pack because of time spent on a hobbie?
I'm not wasting the time to respond to that type of ignorance. It's not worth what they ask. Full games cost less than that, and have more content. You think they aren't price gouging Grimah? You're the first i've met too say so. In fact since you're so rich... there's a couple bridges i'd like to sell you. I even helped design a few of them.
Nuff said.
Um, did you not read the contest details?
You know that... All participants will receive a code for green-level Mystagogue companion! ...right?
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Again, if you read my post I addressed this. I fully understand that there are a ton of entries where people plopped mobs down and put no effort into their quests.... all to get the green Mystagogue companion. To further elaborate, I understand that if we get our quest featured... it will more than likely receive alot of plays and there are some achievement unlocks to go with this.
You missed my point entirely. It's not that there aren't static rewards for entering, it's that most of those entries will be farming rubbish for free stuff. Now the actual winning prizes (which are nice) would be decided by the community if they stick to what they planned. However, the community manager has stated he was thinking about just having a panel to pick the winners because he can't even feature the quests at the moment. Instead he has postponed. Again. Due to 'technical difficulties'.
Mostly I was just ranting about how little the Foundry has gotten attention from the DEV team, and how I feel they need to dedicate a team too it.
Not to mention the rampant Warlock Puppet spawn... which I hope is what they are fixing right now.
As it stands, if this contest is like the one with the Tower District I'm already willing to bet some of these quests will have NOTHING to do with the Cult of the Dragon. I bet few people even bothered to read the lore. It happened with the Tower District ones, so I'm expecting the same thing. I mean, I'm already bothered by the quests that are like "Tip me and do this for your achievements and mine!" and there's no content or anything because people are lazy. The people who take the time to make something quality can spend days and months in the For Review tab waiting to be played out.
I know things can get out of control and out of hand easily, so that happens with the push back, but some people lack the patience, they hate waiting. You can only do that for so long before people get fed up.
I am hoping for more content and such to be added to the Foundry, but as doubt is one of my strong suits, I am very optimistic. NW was said to have the best player generated content system (see here: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/8818/page/1 ) and yet it could seriously be improved.
That said, I hope that the contest continues, I do want to play them when/if they are featured (and I'll be taking guildies along as some of them are Foundry lovers) and give people votes/tips for the ones that I thoroughly enjoy. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to a panel or anything, and if it does, I hope the judges are very meticulous.
I have many alts, I am a class and race rainbow.
Thanks for the support. I'm so used to people just flat out trolling me, I forgot what it was like to find like-minded people. That link you posted to mmorpg.com had a fraudulent image for the Neverwinter Foundry. Our Foundry looks nothing like that picture. At least mine doesn't. In fact i've seen that picture before posted elsewhere, and it is misleading. It makes it look like they spent some advertising dollars to falsify an image that is not a true representation of the actual product. (Like that's a new marketing ploy or something right?)
It's depressing when an IP as awesome as DnD gets dragged through the mud like this. The worst part is that when the founders of WotC sold out.... all of their assets began to get wh0red out by Hasbro. That's life. Too bad that TSR was run into the ground by a crook. Nothing we can do about that now.
Anyways, I don't let it bother me. The smart@ss troll comments, nor the stupidity brought on by the greed of low cunning businessmen.
I just wait and hope they actually wake up and smell the coffee someday. If they ever deliver a powerful game editor, it will be worth the wait. There are a multitude of good storytelling GM's around the world.... and hopefully someday... someone will harness their creativity. Just hope i'm not too old when it happens.
It is tested and ready to go. Fits in very well with current campaign, and I believe its a fun adventure so feel free to feature it in first ten!
They have a "team."
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5