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Cryptic Wants Your Feedback on The Foundry
spirals999
Member, NW_CrypticDev, Cryptic Developers Posts: 0Cryptic Developers › Arc User
Hello foundry community!
I am Spirals. I'm a sound designer for Cryptic studios. I am trying to do some research on The Foundry and gather data concerning the player community's thoughts on the design and implementation of The Foundry as a medium for user generated content (UGC). We are asking for your help in considering how we might improve UGC now and in future Cryptic projects.
Please take a few minutes to answer the following questions:
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Thank you so much for your time.
- Spirals
I am Spirals. I'm a sound designer for Cryptic studios. I am trying to do some research on The Foundry and gather data concerning the player community's thoughts on the design and implementation of The Foundry as a medium for user generated content (UGC). We are asking for your help in considering how we might improve UGC now and in future Cryptic projects.
Please take a few minutes to answer the following questions:
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Thank you so much for your time.
- Spirals
Post edited by spirals999 on
1
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
My advice would be to make absolutely nothing drop from enchants or mobs in Foundries, but create some sort of unique reward system, possibly just cosmetic based, that rewarded players for going through the missions. Maybe some sort of Foundry achievement system or even a Foundry campaign that rewards unique items and titles (similar to the rewards for creating foundries) to players.
Also let players make PvP maps.
The Foundry is a great creative outlet, probably the biggest asset this game has to offer, and its a very user friendly tool that allows players to create VERY unique and fun adventures. The MOST fun I had was exploring a dungeon with a few guys, just the scenery was honestly MUCH better and better put together than anything I had experienced before in NW. I am glad because I am HOPING that in the future this will be a more utilized tool.
Honestly, the foundry is what CAN separate NW from the rest of the games out there, its just not used very well right now.
[Q] How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
The biggest area that fell short, for me, was PVP. Back in Beta there was alot of talk about PVP maps in the foundry. The DEV team recently came out and said they scrapped that idea since it would "split the pvp community". The "PVP Community" came back with a response that it would NOT split the community if Foundry PVP were only offered at certain times during the day, much like Guantlegrym is. This is REALLY something I would like to see.
The second area this fell short is the lack or rewards. When I used to play T1/T2 dungeons, I would have GLADLY farmed some player made content instead but there were NO difficult bosses available and NO rewards for playing 1hr+ in the content.
What makes me wish it was never implemented because it makes us realize the tool exists TO create awesome dungeons and PVP maps, however its never implemented as far as real content for either PVE or PVP, which just hurts knowing the potential.
[Q] What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
I would like to see both a PVE and PVP 'contest'. A 1 month contest to create a PVE dungeon, the most popular - selected by both rating(players) and DEVs, gets a "pass over" by the DEVs for QC then implemented into the actual game as a real bonafide dungeon.
Same with PVP. Create a contest to create PVP maps, PVP Foundry would only be available during Foundry hour - thus NOT splitting the community. The most popular map after 1 month gets a QC pass and inserted into the Que system LIVE game.
I also think this would really attract ALOT of players who have the desire to create content as well as give players new content much faster than the DEV team can spit out. It solves both problems!
[Q] What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
The only one I have played is Halo which gave users the abilities to create their own maps and host games on them. Nothing PVE but PVP maps. This was HIGHLY praised and used to even make "racing" maps in an FPS GAME!!! You never know what will come from player content.
I think PVP maps would be the biggest addition that would really drive ALOT of new players to the game as well as bring older players back to the game.
First as someone who was drawn to Neverwinter by two things: 1) Forgotten Realms and 2) Foundry, thank you for this feedback thread!!! You just got me all happy again like a baby puppy with a new toy! Anywho... Here's my feedback. I know I've forgotten to mention some things, I am sure. It always happens. So if I do, I'll reply again in the same format with such pertinents.
What do you feel The Foundry does right?
What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing?
Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
How do you feel The Foundry fell short?
As for feature/mechanically, I feel that the foundry missing the ability to have multiple ways to accomplish an objective is severely limiting. As it is now, we have to have clear cut objectives that must be completed in order to advance. I'd like to see multiple objectives for a "forked" path style of story telling.
Also, Traps. I realize you probably made traps not be tied to XP for foundry exploitation reasons. However, traps are useless and only an annoyance, for authors and players, for the most part. Mind you, they can be used in awesome fashions how they are for the sense of fun and story, but there's little reason to pay them heed in game or foundry. I don't like comparing games, especially same franchise games but... I wish we had DDO's mechanics for traps in game and in foundry.
Also, Daily Foundry quests favoring quests with little or no substance, there are no incentives to do foundry quests that are longer than 15 minutes.
What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry?
What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation?
How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
With a dedicated Foundry Team vocal in the day-to-day activities, bug reports, and future development. I don't mean that the team we have isn't dedicated, just that if it were me who could dictate how many staff are positioned to work only on the foundry, it would probably be equal to half the entire work-force of the game. You see, I feel that the Foundry should be, and always should have been, the major feature of this game. It's potential as the perfect DM tool is endless.
Look at Neverwinter Nights series, for example. Their UGC fan-base is still reigning strong. You have a major source of revenue and income waiting for you here. All it needs is love (I.E. Serious Funding).
Also, I'd like to see it implemented as the backbone for a UGC Player Housing system, akin to Ultima Online mixed with TES Series.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right?
What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
For example, some little things off the top of my head are things other UGC games have that NW could do even better with, given the time and resources:
[LIST=|INDENT=2]
[*]Rewarding end-loot. (In NWN, we could dictate our loot and make it as rewarding as we felt, as a DM. I understand that won't ever be possible here, rightly so as an MMO. However, our current loot table is just horrendous and we, the Foundry Authors get almost ALL of the blame.)
[*]Scaling of static objects (Mind you, I went ecstatic when you allowed us to rotate stuff, thanks for that!!!)
[*]Dungeon Master functionality for Authors for the hard-core role-players.
[/LIST]
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
I'd say that'd be the deathblow for the foundry. We need real rewards not stuff that makes it even worse. After some of the nerfing of the foundry in regards to the dragon hoard enchants, there is now no reason to run a foundry story or farming map. Having some kind of reward even from farming is the only thing that makes them worth running. Ever.
The core product is a lot of fun to play with, and while some will disagree, there's not much there that I would change. I'm talking the overall quest building process - the big picture. There's just a good "time/effort" to "tangible results" ratio for an MMO environment. And the 3d editor is a fantastic toy to play around in. So the core experience of making a quest - you have that down.
The character customization needs a lot of love - for player races, at least as many customization options as the player characters (we currently have no control over facial hair! The dwarves - will somebody please think of the dwarves?!) We also need more options for civilian/non combat characters - especially in the wardrobe department.
There is a huge missed opportunity in player character data selections. Right now, we can customize some things based on name and class. Great. What about Race? Gender? Diety? Background? Even just in the dialogue editor, this would be a massive improvement.
I know this last one is more complicated to implement than it is to execute but... you asked! Optional objectives/failable objectives that will advance the quest in a different direction. The ability to advance by doing "this" OR "that."
Step 1: Fix the bugs. You're going to hear this one a lot. Many are ridiculously easy fix
Step 2: Incentivize and promote content PLAYING. Authors are giving up because their effort feels unappreciated, their hours of work gathering dust in the pits of "review hell." The more reasons players have to explore the content, the more interest there will be to make content. If they come, we will build it. It's that simple.
Step 3: Overhaul the search tools (again, and better.) Either crack down on farm quest or (more realistic) acknowledge their role in this game and give them a seperate home. People only interested in farm quests hate wasting their time on elaborate stories, and those who love a good story despise how overrun we are with farm quests. Find a solution to this, because it's frustrating for all parties.
In the recent AMA Ryan (aka HeyRodgers) said this
I would STRONGLY discourage this and would even disagree with this logic.
WHY?
Currently as far as "content" goes, leveling to 60 is a VERY small portion of the game. You can get to lvl 60 within a matter of hours during double XP weekend (when most people level) or even with XP boosters it can be done in <12 hours.
When I first played this game, I remember hitting mid 20s in level merely playing a couple hours over just two days time.
If I were to put a timeline of a characters progression together, the time it takes to level a character to 60 is probably LESS than 10% of that characters lifespan. While it IS a great experience for first timers (I really enjoyed my time leveling) I am VERY adamant this is NOT the best area to spend resources.
Players are NOT currently craving new ways to level a character. Ontop of that, the current leveling system is actually quite good in Neverwinter as the leveling path is quite enjoyable. Substituting UGC for the normal "path" doesnt offer ANYTHING new to the game, and only offers a substitute for already GOOD content.
Lets look at it this way:
Lets say it only takes 100 hours of programming time to develop this "leveling path". The average NEW user may dip in and out of the foundry's new UGC level path and end up leveling a character to 60 within lets say 24 hours play time.
So you gave this player 12 hours of "new" content. On a "enjoyment" scale MAYBE increased their enjoyment leveling slightly by offering new environments (something the current level path already does well - given that you are only in an area for 2-3 levels which takes about 1 hour to get).
What else could be done with that 100 hours of programming time? New PVP maps perhaps? How many hours would 1 new pvp map create in content? Probably more than 12 hours. Or what about re-visiting some of the older dungeons? I cant imagine it would take too long to make a harder version of the older T1s by "scaling" mobs levels up to where its challenging for 20k GS players. Or what about enabling "Foundry Dungeons" with real rewards. Or enabling Foundry PVP?
ALL of those will generate more TIME spent on that new content.
Well what about players wanting to level an alt character?
Ok so this may be where some value is added, maybe the player already leveled through the current level system and wants to make an alternate character. They would get bored revisiting the SAME content right?
- Well when leveling an alt, it does take significantly less time than a new player. So I go back to quoting say even 15 hours to hit 60 on an alt (due to resources and knowledge difference). So your creating 15 hours of "new" content available for players who already have a character. Well guess what?! This game is VERY anti-alt friendly.
Why?
Prices of artifact equipment are INSANE! It costs currently around 9million AD per piece and around 5-6 million for Artifacts. So for an alternate character your looking to spend around 50 MILLION AD to get them geared.
Now if Artifact equipment were all bount to ACCOUNT, this would make it a much more alt friendly game and this leveling path via foundry would be more "visited".
Currently though players who have "main" characters realize that 90%+ of their characters life wil be spent grinding AT lvl 60 so they want to rush AFAP (as fast as possible) TO 60 and thus wont enjoy a UGC leveling path.
In short: The leveling path via Foundry will NOT be appreicated by people with current characters at 60 as much as they would giving their lvl 60 characters more Foundry content. NEW users wont appreciate it either as they ALREADY have a GREAT leveling path and substituting the current path for a UGC one, wont be any real "value added".
Well, what about "the best way to get more users interacting with the Foundry"?
This seems to be the goal correct?
If so the BEST way to get more users interacting with Foundry is to offer INCENTIVE to do so.
In my post above I already detailed out that there is no REASON for players to participate in Foundry Content.
If I spend 1 hour in a Foundry map, what do I get out of it for my character? A few green and blue items that dropped to sell? I can spend 30 minutes in a dungeon, or even in PVP to grind glory for gear, have a much "harder" encounter with a REAL boss (or other players) and get some epics to drop (or earn via glory) which I can sell for AD.
What about PVP Foundry Maps?! I GUARANTEE if you enabled this, not only would you have a TON of pvpers FLOCK to foundry to create maps, youd also have that entire community TESTING those Foundry maps and playing them.
All in All, the TWO things you should do to "get more users interacting with the Foundry"
1) Let players run Foundry DUNGEONS with real BOSSES for real LOOT (I know this is a tall order) - because of the RP system this "loot" could even be RP
2) Let us use Foundry to create PVP MAPS!
Both of these let the PLAYERS create content FOR you. A leveling path is not "requested or asked for" by players. Players want new content for their MAIN character not new content for an alt they might play 12 hours on before hitting 60 and being forced into the SAME content they already on on their main characters...
If you implement the "contest" as I discussed above - both a PVE dungeon contest as well as a PVP cmap contest - which would in turn have a chance to become "official" content in the LIVE game, THIS would greatly increase the desire to make and play Foundry content in BOTH the PVE and PVP communities
To start with, I agree with the other posters. The only thing I don’t see as feasible are the PvP maps but who knows?
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
I love having the chance to tell my stories alongside the official content of the game. In a way it feels like we’ve been invited to be part of the team who creates the stories for Neverwinter and got a really nice backstage tour and got to touch all the fancy equipment. With that comes one of the best online communities I’ve had the good fortune to be part of.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
I agree that working on dialogue in teeny tiny boxes without even a browser-style spell check is a pain. Like many authors I type everything out in Word then cut and paste and have to reformat everything as I go.
Regardless of that, I find that even when I am doing very tedious work (lining up floors and walls in custom maps, anyone?) I never wish it wasn’t available. I don’t think it hurts the game in anyway as it is optional for all players.
With that said I feel at my lowest as an Author with something comes along that breaks a quest that took months of work. I am not alone among authors who have at least two quests broken and I can’t fix them (collision was removed from moving puzzle bridges and the large winter map is broken). When that happens to a featured quest that we can’t edit the result is that players come away thinking we are poor designers and won’t try our other quests.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
As others have said what Dungeon Masters want is for players who enjoy their games. This is just that on a large scale. We want people to play our quests. So if players were rewarded for playing our quests, we would be happy.
Please allow for OR logic in the quests! Fix the bugs….I know, one more voice in the chorus.
Also, Eldarth is tireless in his work, please please listen to him:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?675411-Most-desirable-quot-easy-quot-foundry-requests&highlight=easy
And many others posts!
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
This is the only system I’ve used so I couldn’t speak much to this. I have heard others ask for scripting. I may be a minority but please please don’t do this. I could not use the NWN toolset since I did not have the time to learn scripting. I can use this one and I love using it. I imagine others like me would be locked out if scripting was necessary to do advanced work.
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
Executive Summary
Fairly easy to start and use. Love the 3-d editing and being able to move/nudge/positions things just right. Glad it was implemented because I've been a DM since the earliest release of D&D and have always enjoyed creating adventures and stories. Foundry scratches that creativity itch.
Feels like it never had any real dedication to it. The UI could definitely use some care and feeding. Especially when something liked editing an x/y/z property by simply typing into the field that has been selected (ctrl-a) can instantly crash the Foundry, or "odd" things occur -- like a sound or visual effect suddenly triggers (and field remains unchanged).
Ease of Use in the UI could use a once-over as well -- detachable/scalable detail panel, re-use the Component Tree Dialog for other selection drop downs, as already mentioned SPELLING/correct asset tagging, and actual size dimensions for those that have eternally been "1x1x1."
NOTHING makes me wish it was never implemented. It may frustrate (ALOT) at times, but even then I'm glad it was implemented.
Gah! Don't we have enough authors? (Well, farm creating authors anyway).
I think just implementing alot of the above linked improvement requests would go a long, long way. Rewards equivalent to normal in-game content, allowing authors to add skill-nodes and scale traps would help immensely.
I would also really, really love to see three things as long as I'm dreaming:
Cryptic Animation Rig
Neverwinter Nights 2 -- Encounter/event scripting
Project Spark -- object scripting
City of Heroes -- *cough* Mission Architect (Unique Boss creation with set of powers)
Second Life -- *cough* scripting *cough*
(sensing a theme here?) :cool:
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
negative: you can not adjuste the difficult like in ddo.
possibilites: any forum suggestions about improvements to pve (mortal traps, resistance to damage "x", etc.) could be used first here.
item 4, no idea.
I feel like I have to address this. As it goes to the root of a lot of problems with the foundry from the perspective of a player not an author.
(Note what follows below does not apply to maps where the monsters can't reach you, just your basic throw a lot of mobs onto a map and slay maps)
There are two types of foundry authors. The first is the farming foundry author. They see a way to use the foundry to help them get xp, loot, rp, etc in a timely manner and create maps for themselves and their friends to play to do this. The second are people like Eldarth. They create story maps with combat, and try to make a good video game level for lack of a better term.
The second group of foundry authors do create a problem with their hatred of the farming maps. The problem is not that they don't like them, but that they feel that Cryptic should do something to stop people from running them. This is where we end up with nerfs to the foundry that hurt all foundry authors. Because of these nerfs we now barely get xp from the foundry, have a timer where if you kill too many mobs too fast they stop dropping loot, (extremely easy to do with how geared we are now.) and the changes to the dragons hoard enchantments.
What does this mean? It means that going and slaying world mobs in any zone (at appropriate level) is more rewarding to progression than playing the foundry. It means that world killing gives more xp, loot, and rp. Since so much of the game is set up around grind, playing something that has a worse rate of return than any other activity does not happen.
We need to make peace that there will be farming foundries and story foundries and that farming foundries don't need penalties because they just hurt everyone.
The general UI is intuitive, easy to get started with and the storyboards are simple to use. It doesn't take a lot of work to get a functional foundry mission implemented. The 3D editor is useful. I enjoy the opportunity to create something, and I like the idea that what I create can be used/seen by others (if I ever finish something to the level that I do publish it :-P ).
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
I hate developing characters in the Foundry. The costume editor is far too limited IMO. I would like to have the same ability to control the look of a foundry character that I have for my own game characters - otherwise you get a lot of Foundry content that has the same Human Male X with a different hat on them. Changing skin colour for the non-human races would be excellent. The clothing design is sooooo limited. The fact that we have the complete ability to dye the outfits is great, but the list is really limiting - especially if you want to create a civilian outfit. Having every piece/variant of basic adventurer gear is good, but including some of the existing fashion items that are available in game (Sunite Garb, Courtesan Outfit, Turmian Merchant gear, etc) would really give a lot more option for creating some believeable characters.
I also hate NPC limits being so low. Not sure what the reason is for the limit, but I always find that I am filling up NPCs. I feel that most of the environments that I am trying to make feel a lot better with people walking around and doing their thing. Which brings me on to my next point - wandering and patrols need to be repaired - the fact that wandering people don't wander (at least in the in Foundry preview) and that patrol points won't go up stairs (at least that I can see) means that this "life" of the environment is a bit more limited.
Biggest hate point though - please give the Author character a horse! Walking through a game repeatedly is quite frustrating on foot. The "Play Map From Here" is great, but doing a proper walkthrough is painful.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Make it/them feel loved. The rewards in the current system are good rewwards, but the work involved in making a really good Foundry mission means that people are only going to do it for the love - or find some way of getting the reward without the work, like creating a series of "achievement farms". Listening to the existing community feedback on Foundry improvements and wish-lists and working through some of the big ones will encourage more people.
Perhaps having some tutorials and the like available inside the game without just pointing people at a forum would be good. There is some great content out there for those willing to look, but it doesn't say a great deal for the tool when the only help is available from those who have gone before, and that is often mixed in with a number of negative posts about things that the Foundry got wrong. Pointing the new author at a forum community gives the message of a lack of care.
Allow multiple authors to work on a quest. My brother and I both play Neverwinter and both enjoy Dungeon Mastering. I would love to co-author things with him, because we are good at different elements of the game creation process.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Haven't played with any of the others.
Overall, I think there is more right than wrong with the Foundry. It doesn't require a Computer Science degree to get a basic game up, the community is helpful with questions, but after a little while the limitations make it feel like a Beta version of a much better product that is just around the corner, but never released.
And I second the vote for scaleable scenery. It's really frustrating to find that perfect looking detail piece, only to discover that it is 95 feet tall and doesn't look good next to the couch. Basic colour changing on details would be good too (obviously not feasible on all, but on things like banners it would add a nice touch).
The foundry is why I play Neverwinter. No other MMO provides the same level of tools with which to tell a story. Sure, there's PLENTY of features (timers) I would love to have (timers), but mostly what I want is the ability to find good stories to play, and to let other people know about the stories I write.
I play farm quests every so often. I think moving them to their own category would be a good start. In fact, I'd like quests to be auto-placed into certain categories based on the ratings details once they have accumulated enough plays to move off the New tab. Story, Combat, Adventure, and Farm quests, all separated.
Search functionality is fairly useless; searching by tag doesn't really help, as it's binary criteria, and eventually every quest gets all the boxes checked.
Are there really so few quests being submitted for featuring that make the grade that we have to be repeating featured quests this often? And, have we played the one about turning evil and fighting the power rangers enough, yet?
Any rewards for playing will be abused by quests written to abuse any given play mechanic. But given everything else to do is just grinding dailies all the time, I would enjoy having some kind of rewards that would be beneficial to my characters from doing foundries. Yeah, since I apparently need to farm every day for years now to upgrade my artifact gear, let's make foundries give refinement points. You do the dailies to get the gear. You do the foundries to upgrade it. The more time you spend in a foundry, the stronger your artifacts get -- no having to hope resonance stones drop, just a steady increase. I know PWE is in the business of selling blood rubies, but nobody has the cash to buy enough of those to raise something to orange.
Featured quests, artifacts get stronger much faster. During foundry hour, even faster. Maybe the chest during foundry hour could have a good refinement point stone if the quest was eligible for daily foundry. People would be waiting in line to do foundries. They would be an important part of the game. Sure, most people would go into simple foundries, but as long as they have to do one anyway to level their artifacts, they might choose a fun one.
There really is nothing else to Neverwinter which makes it significantly different from dozens of other similar MMOs. The Foundry should be a front-of-the-box feature.
The foundry allows us to do what humans are best at... create! I created a map where people can race around and enjoy themselves.
Foundry allows characters/players a chance to take a break from the daily grind (which is needed).
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
Nothing.... This does not apply to me!
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
It would be nice if we could add bosses to our maps, dragons, and more. The rewards for winning are not worth it also. Allows the chest to drop purple items pls. Or at least RP items / Enchantments.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games? Ghost Recon, Raven shield, Wolfesntein, Elderscrolls, SIM CITY
We just need to be able to make a map that feels like it belongs in neverwinter... real bosses real rewards.. not just time fillers.
I think we're basically on the same page here -- I argued, (and pleaded, and pleaded, and pleaded) for a "farming" tag that authors could set for the quests. I do however think that foundry quests should have some kind of anti-exploit "throttling" much like the Professions event. You shouldn't be able to waltz in, slay 50 mobs with a rain of AOE spells and walk out with tons of experience and an avalanche of treasure.
I think tipadaknife is also right...
I believe that is one of the major issues (non-farming) authors have -- it's extremely difficult for those players that would like to play non-farming quests to actually FIND non-farming quests. It's like looking for a small yellow pebble in a 100 foot stretch of beach sand. Which is why players don't even bother much of the time. Seperating farm quests into their own tab I think would make both camps ecstatic.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I agree with this.
For the second question, once you add a lot of Dialogue to an item, or npc, the game starts to lag to the point the foundry is almost unusable when in the dialogue window, a pain in the rear. Teleports, all of them, tend to mess up and change locations randomly when placed and some of them are just straight out non functional. Along with the teleports are several objects, notably the "Mage Sun" which is a royal pain to place because of the design of it.
Third question, we need Boss Fights, actual honest to god boss fights. It tends to get really annoying to have to use fifteen encounters to make an effective boss fight that's tough, but doable. Also, sound files that can be used in separate areas to make multiple sounds within a given map would be nice.
And for the last one, I have played Skyrim and Oblivion and their construction sets tend to work really well for creating long drawn out quests that pull you in, the Foundry is pretty good, but it has some major limitations in terms of extensive quest creation. We need the maps and such that can be more customized, raising and lowering mountains as needed, and scaling the landscape to our desire. It is hard to create the proper things without the required materials. We also need the ability to scale objects that we place so we can make them bigger, or smaller, thinner, or wider. Aside from that, the Foundry does pretty good overall, though with a bit more focus and work in its design, it could become the best user generated content creator accessible on any MMORPG.
With respect, Clarissa Wyntersong, Archmage of the Wyntersong Academy.
P.S. We need a way higher detail limit than 1700, it is really hard to create the right kind of maps with so little detail cap.
It's great to have a tool like the foundry. Building maps and create own storys is a great thing.
Unless it's taking lots of time if you understood the foundry it's a nice tool to work with.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
I'd like to have some more inovative options on storytelling, I like storys that are not linear, here comes foundry to limits that are hard to overcome. We need timers and options to build bosses, there is nothing more threatening then a timer running or a big boss.
As well i'd like to have better gain for foundry players, no more green ****. For real noone need that!
NW curently suffers because of the massive gap between low geard new players and high end players, so does the foundry.
It is simply impossible to offer content fitting for everyone.
Short story on that: A friend was testing my foundry, 4min and he finished a quest thats averange time got 45min!
NW got to work that out, no other game suffers so hard from such a needless problem.
Still it should be easyer to generate dificultys in foundrys. It shouldn't take hours to do so.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
I'd put quality over quantity. Imo it's most important to make foundry worth playing again, then think about have more authors.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Warcraft 3 UGC might be the most noticable. They created whole new genres out of it.
Creative minds are those who create the future, do not limit them.
1. Enable all tools and pvp in Foundry.
2. Create separate Rewards that can be used only in Foundry Content with no impact on the normal game, maybe special cosmetics, titles similar to pvp campaign (i had the most fun with that campaign and did it only for the pirate costume).
3. I think you can add drop rewards on timer, lets say 1 blue mark for every 1 hours of foundry play time and 1 purple mark at every 4 hours (or something around those lines, thinking as a %).
4. Make a kick system if the player is not engaging different monster types or if no dmg is taken, lets say 10 min and no rewards given if the map ends in less than 20.
5. Every map should have a boss type monster that should be killed for receiving loot, loot can also be scaled by a system like Dragon Hoard Reclamation, but based on map kills/quests solving timer.
6. Scaling system should be kept and added for multi-maps campaigns so those authors receive more rewards for their work.
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
Feedback: The foundry does several things very well. It is very easy to tell or play a story within it. The editor is powerful enough to make amazing zones and complex dungeons. One of my favorite neverwinter memories is doing foundry dungeon delves with my guild. The virtually unlimited amount of new content to see and interesting stories to read is amazing to me.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
Feedback: The Foundry massively fails in terms of rewards. Other than the rewards for foundry authors, there is little to no incentive for players to play authored content. The foundry daily quest is best done on a barely 15 minute farming map that most people simply repeat ad nauseam. I don't ever wish it was _never_ implemented, but I do wish there was a "reason" to do it beyond simple exploration solo or with friends. I feel that the lack of incentives directly correlates with lack of meaningful content. If no one plays an authors map, why would they spend time making it in the first place?
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Feedback: I'm glad you asked!
First and foremost, rewards! There are very good reasons not to let foundry authors place loot chests and resource nodes willy nilly, however, that doesn't mean that they should NOT be able to do so. The foundry _already_ has a method of rewarding authoring tiers with achievements and pets. I feel that system could easily be extended to a more complex "author trust" system. Only letting unlocked authors submit foundry zones with nodes and boss loot, combined with a highly enforced foundry review system could permit the foundry to become far more used and appreciated.
The foundry review system should have different "accepted quest" levels. If people flag a quest as exploitable, it should not drop anything and be like current live foundry loot. Rating a quest as "loot-worthy," preferably by other foundry authors with trusted status, would allow loot. Alternatively, only the "featured" quests every week, which I presume a cryptic employee has played through, would drop loot.
Tipping: giving a tip at the end of a map is nice, but what would be nicer is if the first time an account/character tips for a foundry quest, that tip is mirrored not just as gold to the author, but as "points." Then these points could be spent in future quests to buy things like resource nodes and loot chest placement unlocks.
Boss loot: if a map has an average playtime of over 40 minutes of standard dungoens, authors should be able to pick a normal dungeon mini boss to morph and drop it's normal world loot. Leave final boss' loot off the table, as it would be very hard to synchronize with non-foundry end boss difficulty due to the scripting.
Scripting: obviously it is impractical to allow true javascript style scripting, but a more powerful visual scripting that avoids the ability to make logic loops, but allows for more randomization of levels would be helpful in making more fascinating and repeatable UGC.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
The Elder Scrolls series does UGC amazingly well. It's not feasible to imitate it in a MMO environment, but if there was enough sandboxing server-side, I could see the foundry allowing maximum trust authors to upload voice overs (the game is already able to stream voice to clients with the ingame voice chat), and perhaps allow some of form of offline modding that allows for local modifications, and run foundry contests where the winner is allowed to have their UGC uploaded to the live server.
The Foundry is one of the most important aspects of Neverwinter that drew me to this game. Even in open beta, before we had the amazing 3D editor and free camera mode, the Foundry was very impressive and powerful.
The most profound thing the Foundry got right is that it exists at all. The foundry could be one of the most amazing and important elements in the game. It offers potentially unlimited content brought to the game via the players themselves! Adding playable content is one of the most time intensive activities for developers, and the Foundry offers an entirely player driven avenue for adding virtually limitless content.
My favorite aspect of the Foundry is how easy it is to build maps and environments using the plethora of assets that we already have. I spent months just playing around in the Foundry, figuring out its limitations, and testing out various concepts so that I had a firm idea of what I could accomplish within the toolset. The addition of the 3D editor and free camera was icing on the cake for me. The 3D editor allows authors to create amazing and complicated environments—it’s almost as easy as building with legos.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
Though the Foundry is amazing, there are several areas where I feel the Foundry fell short:
Paltry Player Rewards – While it can be said that playing an outstanding quest is a reward in itself, the low worth of the end chest loot is practically insulting to both the players and the authors. The AD rewards for playing a Daily Eligible quest do not scale with the average length of the quest, which makes quests that are beyond the 15 minute mark very undesirable or not worth the player's time investment. A relatively easy solution is to make every 15 minutes of average quest time count for 1 of the 4 quest completions required for the daily reward at level 60.
No Zen Store Integration – The Zen store is the bread and butter for the developers of this game. Why does the foundry have virtually no relationship with the zen store? It is almost impossible for the developers to justify expenditure on Foundry development if there is almost zero direct metrics to establish the Foundry’s impact on zen sales. You could easily improve the terrible player rewards in the end chests by offering temporary (X hour use) zen store items, which also act as X% off of said item in the zen store. This would also give developers a fairly good metric for measuring Foundry impact on zen store revenue.
No Timers – Seriously? I was astounded when I read a comment from a dev that it hadn’t occurred to them that authors might want or need timers… I loathe the amount of time I’ve wasted implementing massively complex encounter based timers. I test them until they work in the foundry preview, then I have to test and fix them repeatedly upon publish, because they are almost guaranteed to break on the live server. Additionally, these makeshift timers eat heavily into our encounter budget.
No Encounter Builder – We have a ton of predefined encounters, which is great. But having the ability to customize encounters to create our own encounter templates is something the foundry should have offered from the start. Currently, authors must piece together non-standard encounters, by using several encounters at once, and hiding the extra mobs off in a kill room somewhere. But it comes with too high of a price, especially now since the “hidden” mobs can teleport to the player even from 200 units away… Ensuring that it is working correctly on the live server is another painful time sink. If an encounter template builder had been in place from the beginning, adding Boss mechanics might have been easier to achieve as well.
No PVP Integration – The Foundry could and should be a source for expanding PVP content. PVP content is currently purely limited to developer driven content creation. With additional of Foundry created PVP maps, the content potential for PVP is boundless… This is an aspect of the Foundry that the developers definitely failed to capitalize upon.
Too Linear – The lack of OR logic in the storyboard makes it very difficult to implement side quests and optional content. It is possible to work around the system, but it relies on the makeshift timers and encounter tricks I listed above with the giant time sink that comes with them.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
The Foundry will naturally attract more authors, if more players actually want to play through the content that authors create.
Better Final Chest Rewards - The final chest for daily eligible quests should drop rare or epic gear, with a chance to drop Temporary Zen store assets as well. Additionally, the Foundry needs its own "coin" system which are earned alongside the daily AD quest (thus limited to 4 coins per day at level 60). The Foundry coins (Harper Coins, maybe?) can be traded for other campaign coins, RP, and/or cosmetic equipment.
Foundry-Zen Store Integration - The Foundry would retain more authors if the Foundry was more obviously getting the development attention it deserves. The Foundry needs a means for measurable impact on Zen Store revenue, so that continuous development of the Foundry can be monetarily justified. Several great ideas about how to achieve this have been proposed in the foundry forums. The idea that I find most striking is to create Temporary Zen store items that have a chance to drop from the final chest in daily eligible Foundry quests. These are actual zen store mounts/companions, but they are on a timer, like the Halloween Masquerade Masks. These temporary zen store assets could also come with a %X off discount, for buying the real thing, while the temporary asset is still in the player's possession.
Timers - The foundry needs timer assets so that authors can easily implement complex triggered events/encounters. Many of the things that are difficult and impractical to implement in the foundry, such as boss-like battles and timed events, would be trivial even for new authors if the Foundry had timer assets.
Encounter Builder - I don't know how many times I have seen a new author asking in Foundry chat about how to create a boss, getting fed up pretty quickly when you explain the difficulty of simulating boss-like battles, and vanishing fairly soon after (possibly never to return). Sometimes an author just wants one particular type of mob, and the standard encounter templates have a very select few of those. The ability to mix and match mobs in a custom encounter template would greatly alleviate high turnover of authors that can't be bothered to utilize the complex and time consuming tricks required to make custom encounters in the current Foundry. Implementing custom encounters may also make it easier for the developers to introduce Boss building mechanics into the Foundry in the future.
Foundry PVP Maps - I would love to see how many PVP enthusiasts the Foundry could draw if these potential authors could use the Foundry to create custom PVP maps. Currently, much of Neverwinter's PVP community have absolutely no use for the Foundry. However, many among that community would also LOVE to have more PVP content. It would require a lot of dev tweaking to allow for PVP map creation with the Foundry to prevent exploitation, but I think the end results could be astonishing!
Non-Linear Storyboard - Adding logical OR based branching in the storyboard is another Foundry development that could help prevent potential new authors from quickly walking away from the Foundry. I've tried to explain how to create makeshift OR handling for optional side quests to new authors, and this is an area where I believe the Foundry loses a lot of potential authors. Creating OR situations in the foundry, without support in the storyboard, can consume a ridiculous amount of time and author sanity.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
This is a very difficult question to answer, since very few other UGC are striving to offer fair and balanced rewards in conjunction with content creation as powerful as the Foundry. Although I'm sure there is much to be learned from the multitude of other UGC implementations, virtually none of those that I've worked with operated within an MMO platform. Though I've outline several shortcomings I've found in the foundry, overall, the Foundry is a very powerful and outstanding toolset. I've worked with no other toolset that is quite like the foundry.
It's great that foundry exists, it could be Neverwinter's stongest point, but unfortunately it's terribly neglected by devs, and by players too as result.
Things that we need:
1. Better rewards.
2. Bug fixes.
3. Non-linear quest path.
4. More assets, fixing existing assets, removing duplicates.
5. More costume customization options.
6. Real bosses or other possibility to make fights challenging without using armies of mobs.
7. Less limits. Recent mobs&traps limit didn't even had any impact on farm quests quantity*
That's not a full list of things I'd like to see, but those I find most important.
*I don't mean devs should try harder to fight them, just pointing out that the measures were ineffective.
foundries to allow players to spend some time doing not repetive quests which is something 100% of MMORPG is full.
I do love to spend an hour or two reading the story someone wrote and that actually makes sense most of the time ( in game content lacks a true story line or at least i cant catch it by doing dailies and dailies).
I do like the possibility to use the tool to take full advantage of dropping rates, different from other MMORPG here you cant aggro a great number of monsters during normal questing so finding a peridot with hoard enchants do take 10 minutes. "Arena" foundry do help bringing up artifact gears even tho the hard enchant nerf.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
the absolute lack of any kind of reward for it kinda kills the fun.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
foundry pvp! allow authors to design the maps that other developers dont want to give us after 1 year and half.
allow to create their own monsters with their own moves, taken from other monsters and classes too
allow to create a real end foundry boss
allow to modify difficulty at your own taste without limit
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
first time i play a game with something like this....sorry cant help
- Boolean AND/OR/NOT logic in the story tree
- Timer objects that can be triggered by and can trigger other assets
- Flexibility in building encounters (choose how many critters in an encounter, their positioning, and each individual type of critter). This would eliminate having to mix different encounters and/or use hacks to discard critters we don't want.
- Per-critter chat text instead of per-encounter chat text (see bullet point above). This would eliminate another cause for mixing encounters with discard-critter hacks
- X, Y, Z scale parameters for assets in addition to positioning. This would not only allow for more creative flexibility but also allow us to use a lot less assets (e.g. my foundry goes right up to the asset limit mainly because I only have a 20' wall section to work with). The ability to stretch assets would be a huge help.
- Not just more costume choices (e.g. we don't even have HR costumes!) but the ability to set the costume to "none". Right now, Fomorian Armor is used as a hack to approximate it.
- R, G, B settings for certain assets like light sources
- An "expert" mode for setting costume colors instead of just using the palette
- And, of course, assets that have been in the game for ages but aren't available in the Foundry. There are tons and tons and tons of these, and some of them are surprisingly simple, yet missing (Nasher banners, quicklings, exhaust pipes from distilling barrels, etc.)
- Ability to apply a vertical "skew" to a room, coupled with the ability to actually change the Y position of a room to something nonzero. This would be HUGE.
As far as UGC implementation in other games, please, please, PLEASE take a look at Legend of Grimrock. I've even done a mod for it using its editor. The flexibility it gives you is nothing short of incredible.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Hello, Spirals! (I like your handle better than my own ~cough~)
You say you're a sound designer, yet your questions are more general as though for RoBoBo - Foundry lead Dev, etc. But I digress, here goes...
I've been a Foundry author since it first arrived in Star Trek Online, the Neverwinter version is definitely superior.
What is does right: The ability to start anywhere: you can build your quest through the Storyboard, then tweak the rest, you can start with Maps and Objects, then finish with the Storyboard, basically the complete fluid nature of the system. Since there is no real detailed documentation it is designed to make a very steep learning curve as painless as possible. From this aspect I would call it excellent.
Most responses to this question will be about the Authoring side of it. My response is about the front-end player side of it:
It falls short as there is no incentive whatsoever to play other than the daily; there is no compelling reward to play Foundry Quests and there is no way to find really good ones. Tags and ratings are good ideas on paper, but they fail in practice (tags need to be AUTHOR-ASSIGNED, not player-assigned, for example.)
FAILURE: Unable to create good Story/Exploration/Discovery/Puzzle quests without including hoards of mobs and combat. Without the zerg-fest mobs there is no decent reward whatsoever in playing a Foundry Quest - only the Reward Chest which often gives only junk (and often for the wrong class of the player).
FAILURE: Only "fight-fest" quests are viable. Creating "old-school true D&D-style" quests is "epic fail" as a rule of thumb.
It was mentioned that the IDEA of creating a leveling path through Foundry is being kicked-around. Allow me input: YES. Do I get more than one vote? YES. YES. YES. YES. Need I go on?
There are some good threads created that list things Authors want and bugs to be fixed. So I will use this space to reiterate my comment to the above question:
Create awesome incentive for players to play Foundry Quests, make it easier to find the right kind of Foundry Quests and more authors will author Foundry Quests. We don;t get paid, we don;t get any rewards except for the accolades, which are near impossible unless your quest is featured. The only reward authors get is to have their quests PLAYED. This isn;t happening near as much as it could be.
Second Life (though there is no comparison, unfortunately)
It's really old - but any of the Unreal games (or Unreal engine games)
Here something, and I'm serious: StoryMill, Scrivener, FinalDraft, Scriptwriter.com and so on. These tools make it easy to create timeline-based stories, adventures, whatnot. I use these tools to outline my quest ideas, then implement what I've created in those tools into my Foundry tools.
In short: the 3D aspect of creation is good to go as it is (save for bugs) - what needs work is the storyboard aspect and logic (if this, then that, if, then, else, whatever, etc.)
Actually: Thank you for your time. Yes. really.
This is one of the best suggestions so far. I really like the "tip" system or a Foundry author has the ability to "earn" the ability to put valued items into his content.
I think the Gold system could work really well. If you get players that are willing to "tip" enough gold, this turns into "points" that can be spent IN foundry to offer real rewards.
Not just with chests but also actual "tier" armor and bosses. Obviously these rewards have to be policed a bit, just like you dont get anything for a foundry under 15 minutes. Maybe if the average run time is over 35 minutes or something, the bosses have an ability to drop real tier gear. Or it could even be in the form of RP!
There are alot of options.
I (again) think Cryptic is REALLY missing the boat here.
"Design a Dungeon" CONTEST Should be implemented where Foundry Authors (maybe only authors who have authored Foundry maps in the past are eligible) create a real dungeon layout and users RATE this dungeon. The winner gets their dungeon actually inserted into the game after the contest.
"Design a PVP Map" Contest as well Foundry Authors create pvp maps, for 1 month allow players to PLAY pvp in those maps (with NO rewards - to avoid exploits) and the most popular one gets added into the Domination Que.
You could literally do this contest EVERY MONTH and have players create REAL good content FOR YOU!
Forget designing and creating your own pvp maps or Dungeons, the PLAYERS will do it for you!!!!!!!!!! !
There is an XP cap in foundry..
You cannot walk in slay 10230120310 monsters and get all that xp
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics