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 the aspect of player created quests/stories/missions. It has great potential for much more!
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?
Not having a bug report right inside the foundry! No pvp maps and no incentives.
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 add pvp maps. I would also add bosses. I would allow the items section to be placed in map and not just into npc's. I would look into players requests and try to implement as much of them as possible. I would also give incentives to authors. An example would be if the author receives 5 stars out of 50 reviews or more they could receive 50 zen or 5,000 astral diamonds. I would also give incentives to players. I would give better items in the end based on the characters level. I would like to see more focus on the foundry! (ie. I would work on fixing bugs!)
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
There are to many to list!
The Foundry is a lot of fun to mess with, but it has some significant limitations that reduce it from a wonderful feature to merely an interesting one.
1. There's no 3D preview (that I can find...) This makes it very slow and agonizing to position scenery elements "just so" because I have to load the map in the game engine every time. For instance, in my map I've set down a table, stacked flat items on top of it, and placed another such item on its side leaning against the table. This took a really long time since I had to load and go look at it over and over; if I had a 3D preview in the editor (on minimum settings etc.) it would be much faster.
2. There is no option to resize scenery elements.
3. The number of Neverwinter Adventure Zone NPC's that may be used as contact points is very limited in comparison to the number of NPC's in the game. Just because we can't add voice acting doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to use them!
4. Foundry doesn't support customized encounters / enemy groups. The closest I can get is to find an existing encounter that matches the number of enemies, general difficulty, and attack type that I want, and then give the enemies custom costumes. It would be wonderful if I could define new encounter types outright (including enemy skill lists etc.) and Foundry would estimate "how difficult" and thus how rewarding the fight is.
5. Neverwinter is unable to path find to a "Reach an area" destination that requires a map change, despite being able to path find to a specific NPC or object which requires a map change. This poses a significant limitation to player direction because you can't tell them merely to enter the area, you have to tell them to talk to or fight someone.
6. Foundry has no timer delays for things such as enemy waves, special effects, bosses spawning, etc.
7. Foundry quests have no support for triggering things in any way other than by completing main mission objectives; this severely hampers mission flow, NPC dialogue flexibility, puzzle support, and general flavor and is all-around clumsy to use. In particular, there is a distinct lack of the levers, switches, buttons, etc. found in even very early canon quests. Foundry authors should be able to link a random object event (such as stepping on a pressure plate or entering a Volume) to a vital or non-vital (to objectives) response from pretty much any other object.
8. When returning to a Neverwinter Adventure Zone map, the author can't specify where the player warps in.
1. There's no 3D preview (that I can find...) This makes it very slow and agonizing to position scenery elements "just so" because I have to load the map in the game engine every time. For instance, in my map I've set down a table, stacked flat items on top of it, and placed another such item on its side leaning against the table. This took a really long time since I had to load and go look at it over and over; if I had a 3D preview in the editor (on minimum settings etc.) it would be much faster.
"Play Map" or right-click on a location and "Play Map from here"
Once in previewer -- upper left menu bar -- "Edit" checkbox
With Edit selected you can move mouse cursor over selection boxes (white boxes) and then move object in any x/y/z direction holding left mouse on it's arrow, or change to rotation mode and rotate around any axis.
7. Foundry quests have no support for triggering things in any way other than by completing main mission objectives; this severely hampers mission flow, NPC dialogue flexibility, puzzle support, and general flavor and is all-around clumsy to use. In particular, there is a distinct lack of the levers, switches, buttons, etc. found in even very early canon quests. Foundry authors should be able to link a random object event (such as stepping on a pressure plate or entering a Volume) to a vital or non-vital (to objectives) response from pretty much any other object.
Many "triggers" exist -- you can make detail assets/npcs/encounters "Appear When" Objective Complete, Component Complete (object interaction or encounter killed), Marker Reached (entering a volume), Dialog Reached, etc. But yes, extremely limited options and combinations unfortunately. Can't trigger on marker reached AND dialog reached, etc.
Some can be worked around but with much pain and difficulty and at expense of encounter budget.
Check Advanced Foundry Topics Wiki for some options.
I want to say that I have spent many hours as a player and as an author interacting with the foundry. I am in love with its unrealized potential.
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 believe that the process of creating maps and placing encounters is very user friendly. Having a lot of experience with the NWN games the foundry is what initially attracted me to the game and what keeps me coming back. I love having the chance to create something and share it with other players.The dev made quests are often too straight forward and lacking in character. The foundry gives as an alternative. Many of the quests I have played through have very gripping stories and excellent level design.
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?
Despite being one of the major features advertised on the game's homepage the foundry has received minimal attention from the developers since launch. Common requests for things such as bosses branching quest lines and a revamp of the current treasure system have gone unanswered. This ties in to the thing that almost makes me wish the foundry hadn't been implemented. At times it seems as though the foundry was slapped on as a feature just to draw in fans of the Neverwinter Nights franchise. It seems disingenuous to lure players in with the promise of a fully supported feature only to leave it in a lackluster and stagnant state.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
First I believe that playing through foundry quests needs to be made more attractive for players. Few authors want to put in the work to make a quest if nobody is going to play through it. Recognition in the for of an author spotlight might prove useful. Perhaps the addition of some sort of foundry currency that allows authors to purchase premium encounters and costumes for their creations.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I have little experience with UGC within MMOs. A feature I liked from City of Heroes though was the ablity to create new enemies from the ground up. You picked the class and the build for each enemy and it would scale up with the players.
I hope that the Foundry experience improves in the future. As of now it looks like I may have to go to Legends of the Sword Coast to get my quest building fix.
As a player, not an author, I think one of the biggest issues is the lack of incentive to play the foundries. There have been some great ideas already voiced in this thread. A foundry campaign peaked my interest the most. Being able to obtain some unique, foundry only rewards, such as special fashion items, would be a nice touch as well.
As it is now, foundries only seem to really benefit authors and not players. Not saying the authors shouldn't get the best rewards for their time and creativity, but the players are being thrown junk in comparison. Make foundries more rewarding to be played not just to be authored.
As a player, not an author, I think one of the biggest issues is the lack of incentive to play the foundries. ...
Sadly, as a "foundry hacker" and single-longtime-project author, i c this as an issue for both the foundry players and their authors. Its abandoned as The Part and The Adverts of this game development. Funny this very thread was not lost in the forum platform switch, considering how ...nvm.
A bit nosy NW-DKG7E99X6
"Hardcore" exploration journey and dungeon crawl. Read its description prior to trying it.
"Why do we want UGC for MMOs?" (1:36-3:30)
"...the good content" (33:05-34:08)
Most important, a quote from the overview: MMO players won't necessarily play UGC content just because it's fun, so the in-game reward structure for playing UGC needs to be as good as the rest of the game or all that content will be ignored.
Questions? Yeah, one: Why are you still ignoring what you already knew before you released this game?
at this point I'd settle for them to fix the party break bug and teleporter bug and give us the new assets from the new modules -_-
For the sake of a more radical approach, no more assets, with a very few very specific exceptions, we need fixes and mechanics improvements/additions!
I find it extemely hard to believe that releasing assets to be usable in the foundry is somehow difficult at all. The assets ALREADY exist in the game -- it can't be any more complex than updating a database or setting some flags. It's completely beyond belief that they can't release probably HUNDREDS of assets we've been begging for for two years. It's not like they have to be careful or anything - they've shown time and again they have absolutely no qualms about modifying existing assets and totally botching up any of them used by the foundry authors. cf. Vines with disappearing/reappearing flowers, picnic tables that suddenly have extra stuff on them, barns that mysteriously have giant hay bales suddenly appear, and on, and on, and on.
So, just update the databases or set a stupid flag and release the assets.
at this point I'd settle for them to fix the party break bug and teleporter bug and give us the new assets from the new modules -_-
For the sake of a more radical approach, no more assets, with a very few very specific exceptions, we need fixes and mechanics improvements/additions!
I find it extemely hard to believe that releasing assets to be usable in the foundry is somehow difficult at all. The assets ALREADY exist in the game -- it can't be any more complex than updating a database or setting some flags. It's completely beyond belief that they can't release probably HUNDREDS of assets we've been begging for for two years. It's not like they have to be careful or anything - they've shown time and again they have absolutely no qualms about modifying existing assets and totally botching up any of them used by the foundry authors. cf. Vines with disappearing/reappearing flowers, picnic tables that suddenly have extra stuff on them, barns that mysteriously have giant hay bales suddenly appear, and on, and on, and on.
So, just update the databases or set a stupid flag and release the assets.
No arguments here for that matter. Am just tryin to somehow express "here u have the pillar or whatever" is not a real foundry upgrade.
A bit nosy NW-DKG7E99X6
"Hardcore" exploration journey and dungeon crawl. Read its description prior to trying it.
The biggest problem I have with the foundry is the rating system. There is currently no way for new campaigns to break into the upper ranks. The same entries have been in the top slots for years. It has gotten stale.
There should be new categories and put them on the front of the catalog:
BEST story
BEST layout
BEST combat
BEST under 20 minutes
BEST over 20 minutes
BEST over 60 minutes
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
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?
The Foundry is an exceptionally great idea and can add immense value to the game. I am glad it was implemented because it offers the potential for continually evolving and interesting content. I think the tools in the foundry are decent and I have fun building maps and designing in it.
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 Foundry has fallen short due to many reasons:
There are significant limitations in what we can offer in Foundry quests: rewards, crafting nodes, control over creature ai and groupings as well as difficulty, the customization of npcs, while good, has some weird limitations. Positioning elements, npcs, etc. can be tricky and often result in npcs stuck in ground of "falling in" to place no ability to add customizations, sound, skins, whatever. no ability to really play test your creation without publishing it inability to create completely customized foundry player to test with - I can only get level 10's to work and can't increase their powers and feats and abilities pathing of npcs can be inaccurate and they can get stuck easily Follow for npcs is very rudimentary and ugly - groups of npcs following all walk withing eachother, they don't spread out map element joins between different tile sets should be smoother there is no easy ability to make different height levels in a building unless choosing a complete preset building - ie. stairs that go down(or up)
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
~Add the concept of kickstarter to foundry - so people can support great authors by adding zen or astral diamonds (only elgible to authors who get great ratings for their first 5 campaigns (or something) Don't limit the number of foundries for successful authors (or increase it). Success can be judged by number of votes and ratings. ~Add the ability to customize rewards with limitations (make it relevant to player class opening reward chest and not complete HAMSTER) ~Add the ability to create customized bosses, ai, damage, behavior ~Add the ability to place craft nodes with limitations (x number per size map with x-space required between (or ~something similar) ~Add the ability to create custom music ~Add the ability to use custom skins ~Add the ability to create unique encounter combinations with mixed ai ~Add boss level difficulty to ai ~Add the ability to customize npcs and encouter characters to change their soundtrack (no more lich lords dying with Ogre sounds) ~Add lots of graphical content to the tile sets ~Dedicate engineers to the Foundry FULL time and sprint your way to an incredible content builder ~Allow AI scripting!!! ~Fix pathing
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I asked the community manager that very question, and he said a couple days after the servers come up. That was a few hours ago....
The siege tutorial is broken, I think their new maps and new content are boring.... however I don't play this game for pvp... so I'm more than a little biased to the extent that I would prefer they cease all pvp development permanently and focus on improving the foundry so we can author decent content with actual rewards.
They removed the AD for doing Foundries as far as I can tell. I hope when the foundries come up.... playing one gives you 2000ad per play through up till 7800 cap like dungeons and skirmishes. Because I would much rather be rewarded for foundries than stomach through the same content we've had too since 2013.
There's no nice way to say this... but I assume more than half of the players are looking for other games to play right now. I know that my guild leader and 90% of friends have abandoned this game permanently due to this last patch.
> 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?
As others have said, the Foundry seems like a great creative outlet for those who have time and patience. Although the specifications and the amount of premade costumes and maps are a bit lacking, this tool is something that WRPG players have pined for even before the dawn of Baldur's Gate.
The one thing I enjoy the most about this so far (having only used it for several hours) is the dialog tree. There is a lot of polish there, and I really feel as though I can make good dialogue with pretty believable animations as long as I'm careful. I'm just bummed that once you start a tree, it can be difficult to "prune" it -- that is, the trunk of the conversation becomes harder and harder to break down into its component parts once you make too many branches. I imagine the same goes for the 'OR' workaround for quest lines.
I feel inspired by some of the high-rated Foundry quests that I've played so far, and I'm pretty confident that the other tools should mostly work pretty well too.
> 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've had a few crashes when trying to implement backdrop sounds and such so far, but thankfully the autosaver captured what little I've made so far. So I feel confident that future crashes won't destroy too much of my work, if any. On the other hand, my crash reports seem to get stuck with some kind of Crash Server error (can't remember exactly). Is that a problem on my side with port forwarding or something?
I also noticed that some maps might be a bit broken. I used a large, snowy mountain map with lots of boulders and trees on it ... but half the map looks like it's too low! The trees and rocks on the right side of the map are all a hundred feet in the air! The left side is fine, but ... going over to the other side makes it look like everything is levitating. (I guess I could get around it by putting huge boulders in the way, but where's the fun in that?) Even if you gave us the option to fix or remove pre-baked objects on a map, that would work wonders, really ... Then I could just remove all the trees and place new stuff, problem solved. That would also make other premade maps more reusable.
There was also a costume pose that I was a little disappointed by; I think it's called Storm-Rider or something like that in the Costumes tab. The NPC's pose in Costumes looks a bit defensive, and occasionally checks their shoes or crosses their arms. They look like a normal person with a bit of an edge -- cool! However, in actual play, the character just stands there as if they're holding a bow (but really just holding empty air), and they don't cross their arms or anything. I don't know why. Are all the available poses just a little messed up in the Costumes tab? Can you add weapons to NPCs? And where are all the ranger/warlock/paladin costumes?
I've heard that encounters come pre-baked too, which is a little disappointing. But I'm sure I'll manage. I just hope that looking at the encounter table won't spoil too much late-game content for me (I already saw the werewolves -- cool but oh nao!!).
> 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 Campaigns idea was good -- more stuff like that. What about short pre-baked action scenes or fly-overs of an area to help give scope of a quest? What about unlockable boss and NPC content to avoid spoilers?
Perhaps a "Foundry Spotlight" could help? Rather than always focusing on PvP matches up next to the minimap, what if you highlighted some up-and-coming Foundry quests and offered some extra AD or a quirky item for playing one? That should increase exposure for intrepid players and the original creator of the well-received content.
It's good to see that the Dungeon Master Rank and its respective rewards are real; I thought they were a hoax at first. Merit-based rewards for creation and play would be great, but I see how that could be complicated by the "Check for Rust" quests that I've seen pop up on the quest list from time to time. Perhaps this could be thwarted by awarding goods for a combination of efforts that cannot be botted or cheated? My idea would be:
- Content creators are rewarded with AD or items based on the number of review stars they earn, multiplied by a coefficient and the number of kills that the quest players rack up over time. That way, the worst things you end up with are "skirmish" style quests, which frankly aren't bad compared to checking for rust or chatting up the Neverember. This could also help measure which rewards that a content creator can offer from his special mobs or the end chest. - Quest players are rewarded with a little AD and money, along with their randomly-rolled item, but based on the number of kills and meters walked rather than review stars. Maybe the item's rarity chance could increase based on how well the player did so that the chest doesn't look so empty. This would also help quash checking for rust but could lead to hallway simulator or conveyor belt quests...
> What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Couldn't tell you since Neverwinter is my first, but I wish you all the best! Feel free to PM me if you'd like any more ideas from a quirky game designer.
I would agree with a lot of the individuals here, Spirals, make it where you can get a foundry "Blue" set that levels up to level 60 with you and has a minor bonus to it.
Just like Foundry achieavements, you have to do certain things in order to accomplish this (Don't make it super hard to run people off like current "Bugged" achieavemnt requirements are.
Also, actually having the achieavements not bugged, and promotes an ever growing interest.
Also, if grinding the foundrys for refinement is an issue or for botting gear drops, just put a dynamic in them that causes the account to have a "RANSACKED" flag until next daily reset.
Thanks,
-Kymos
I may not be considered by most the BEST PVP Warlock on the server but, I am the most HATED amongst them.
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?
many foundry quests are entertaining. and a welcome relief from the monotony that is grinding the same 3 dungeons or EE quests,
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?
you gutted all the rewards from doing them. no ad, no loot, no nothing. this wasnt so bad when there were alternative methods of getting loot/ad but those have all be removed.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
ad per run for developers ( not the tip system). unique rewards ( mounts/pets),
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
stop intentionally blocking players from advancing.
My primary concern centers on the players being able to find the Foundry's.
I am uncertain of the logic behind allowing achievement based Foundry's to stay published. There is one with over 15000 reviews in the top 10 on the Best tab. There is also another with over 1000 in the top 20. If a quests average duration is less than 3-5 minutes, it should be automatically dropped.
I am also uncertain of the logic behind having older featured quests in the Best tab. This leads to too many instances of the same Foundry quest within the same tab. The top 20 under the Best tab is a perfect example of this. Spotlight quests are fine being at the top of the Best and Featured tabs. However, when the spotlight is over, featured quests should only be under the featured quests tab and in descending order of top rated down (with Spotlight always maintaining the top 1-3).
I would also go as far as to suggest adding another tab for Campaigns and allowing those to rank independently.
**When I say "spotlight" I am referring to newly featured quests.
Campaign: Lands of Mirent Tusk NWS-DITF6RXSK - All Daily Qualified
Q1 - Dungeons of Mirent Tusk - 16 minutes Featured
Q2 - The Legend of Prince Brightblade - 30+m
Q3 - The Legend of The Lady - 30m
Q4 - Finding the Way -20m
Q5 - King Mirent Tusk - 50m
I was reading through the comments and its sad to know that foundry is as popular as expected with players(???) But I would like to remind that UGC is never a replacement for actual content. It becomes popular when everyone has cleared the actual content with various classes and is bored of official campaigns. The tools in foundry as they were, were very versatile even during launch. So improving that should be in direction of clearing out the bugs.
I believe, from what I read, that the issue would be better resolved by: 1. Encouraging collaboration between authors to make longer campaigns (I don't know if the collaboration for UGC has been implemented like we talked in alpha/beta, but that would be something to work on for more interesting campaigns. Also foster the community groups and collaborative work on foundry) 2. Developers themselves making long and demonstrative UGC content (like side quests) with a few special features. For example, developers can demonstrate the capabilities of the foundry from a UGC campaign to demonstrate the power of foundry.
Sorry if my opinion is not useful, but I couldn't help share my opinion.
0
imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
Hey, devs... could you please either 1) actually do some of the things that have been suggested in this thread, or 2) admit that you don't care what we think, that this thread is only here to make us think there's hope when there isn't, and close the thread? Personally, I'd prefer option 1, but option 2 seems to be the reality of the situation.
This thread was started by one of the audio developers ... who no longer works for PWE.... hmmmm... and now we have a foundry sound bug. Truly, this company... from Beijing... does not care about the game or the fans... only the money.
they'll never upfront tell us they don't care about the foundry because they know that some people play the game because of it, and it would mean we would leave, they're not dumb. but we should be able to see their interests and priorities based on their actions and not their words. and their actions tell us plenty enough of how much they care for the foundry.
Yes... well I guess that the sound engineer (that no longer works for PWE) whom started this thread..... will not be responding to0 these questions. Nuff said. On top of all of our frustrations, they don't have a sound engineer anymore. *sigh*
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 think it is a good idea, and has some good points, the character creater is an excellent one.
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? In everything else, it is tiresome to design in. Poor instructions, and the system is not user friendly to work with. I have designed a good number of quests in other games, and even in the older RPG's had a few published. But here, it is a cumbersome system to use. The general layout is nice, but when you get into the actual manufacturing of the components, this is where it gets very tedious. Some things work easily, like the character developer, but others like the Dungeon builder, are clumsy to work with; especially when working on new areas.
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 more user friendly, so we can work more on the story, and less fighting with the system.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games? I've not see one to know. So I do not know.
I may not be the best player in the world, but at least I learn my Toon, and how to play them. b:laugh
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? - Foundry does right to give the freedom to do what ever goes to your mind any "quests". For me it is fun to create something i like that - if i can i try to do something like "game creating" and this thing gives freedom and tools to do what i can with them and in short Creativity is awesome.
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? - Foundry doesnt have "all" the items and things like furniture and plants but you try to do what you can with what you have. I do hate when placing teleporters you need to accurate and that coordinates things. Well i dont actualy can tell becouse i like all of it
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 is a good way to show what can you do with this tools to create something like "quests" and im not talking about Foundry where you come and talk with someone and go loot the chest thats not right.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games? - Dont know any other games that has Foundry (UGC)
Comments
I love the aspect of player created quests/stories/missions. It has great potential for much more!
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?
Not having a bug report right inside the foundry! No pvp maps and no incentives.
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 add pvp maps. I would also add bosses. I would allow the items section to be placed in map and not just into npc's. I would look into players requests and try to implement as much of them as possible. I would also give incentives to authors. An example would be if the author receives 5 stars out of 50 reviews or more they could receive 50 zen or 5,000 astral diamonds. I would also give incentives to players. I would give better items in the end based on the characters level. I would like to see more focus on the foundry! (ie. I would work on fixing bugs!)
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
There are to many to list!
1. There's no 3D preview (that I can find...) This makes it very slow and agonizing to position scenery elements "just so" because I have to load the map in the game engine every time. For instance, in my map I've set down a table, stacked flat items on top of it, and placed another such item on its side leaning against the table. This took a really long time since I had to load and go look at it over and over; if I had a 3D preview in the editor (on minimum settings etc.) it would be much faster.
2. There is no option to resize scenery elements.
3. The number of Neverwinter Adventure Zone NPC's that may be used as contact points is very limited in comparison to the number of NPC's in the game. Just because we can't add voice acting doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to use them!
4. Foundry doesn't support customized encounters / enemy groups. The closest I can get is to find an existing encounter that matches the number of enemies, general difficulty, and attack type that I want, and then give the enemies custom costumes. It would be wonderful if I could define new encounter types outright (including enemy skill lists etc.) and Foundry would estimate "how difficult" and thus how rewarding the fight is.
5. Neverwinter is unable to path find to a "Reach an area" destination that requires a map change, despite being able to path find to a specific NPC or object which requires a map change. This poses a significant limitation to player direction because you can't tell them merely to enter the area, you have to tell them to talk to or fight someone.
6. Foundry has no timer delays for things such as enemy waves, special effects, bosses spawning, etc.
7. Foundry quests have no support for triggering things in any way other than by completing main mission objectives; this severely hampers mission flow, NPC dialogue flexibility, puzzle support, and general flavor and is all-around clumsy to use. In particular, there is a distinct lack of the levers, switches, buttons, etc. found in even very early canon quests. Foundry authors should be able to link a random object event (such as stepping on a pressure plate or entering a Volume) to a vital or non-vital (to objectives) response from pretty much any other object.
8. When returning to a Neverwinter Adventure Zone map, the author can't specify where the player warps in.
"Play Map" or right-click on a location and "Play Map from here"
Once in previewer -- upper left menu bar -- "Edit" checkbox
With Edit selected you can move mouse cursor over selection boxes (white boxes) and then move object in any x/y/z direction holding left mouse on it's arrow, or change to rotation mode and rotate around any axis.
Many "triggers" exist -- you can make detail assets/npcs/encounters "Appear When" Objective Complete, Component Complete (object interaction or encounter killed), Marker Reached (entering a volume), Dialog Reached, etc. But yes, extremely limited options and combinations unfortunately. Can't trigger on marker reached AND dialog reached, etc.
Some can be worked around but with much pain and difficulty and at expense of encounter budget.
Check Advanced Foundry Topics Wiki for some options.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
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 believe that the process of creating maps and placing encounters is very user friendly. Having a lot of experience with the NWN games the foundry is what initially attracted me to the game and what keeps me coming back. I love having the chance to create something and share it with other players.The dev made quests are often too straight forward and lacking in character. The foundry gives as an alternative. Many of the quests I have played through have very gripping stories and excellent level design.
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?
Despite being one of the major features advertised on the game's homepage the foundry has received minimal attention from the developers since launch. Common requests for things such as bosses branching quest lines and a revamp of the current treasure system have gone unanswered. This ties in to the thing that almost makes me wish the foundry hadn't been implemented. At times it seems as though the foundry was slapped on as a feature just to draw in fans of the Neverwinter Nights franchise. It seems disingenuous to lure players in with the promise of a fully supported feature only to leave it in a lackluster and stagnant state.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
First I believe that playing through foundry quests needs to be made more attractive for players. Few authors want to put in the work to make a quest if nobody is going to play through it. Recognition in the for of an author spotlight might prove useful. Perhaps the addition of some sort of foundry currency that allows authors to purchase premium encounters and costumes for their creations.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I have little experience with UGC within MMOs. A feature I liked from City of Heroes though was the ablity to create new enemies from the ground up. You picked the class and the build for each enemy and it would scale up with the players.
I hope that the Foundry experience improves in the future. As of now it looks like I may have to go to Legends of the Sword Coast to get my quest building fix.
As it is now, foundries only seem to really benefit authors and not players. Not saying the authors shouldn't get the best rewards for their time and creativity, but the players are being thrown junk in comparison. Make foundries more rewarding to be played not just to be authored.
Sadly, as a "foundry hacker" and single-longtime-project author, i c this as an issue for both the foundry players and their authors. Its abandoned as The Part and The Adverts of this game development. Funny this very thread was not lost in the forum platform switch, considering how ...nvm.
So here it is, my feedback:
STOP NEGLECTING THE FOUNDRY!
There are a bunch of bugs reportet. FIX THEM!
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016471/User-Generated-Content-In-MMOs
especially:
"Why do we want UGC for MMOs?" (1:36-3:30)
"...the good content" (33:05-34:08)
Most important, a quote from the overview: MMO players won't necessarily play UGC content just because it's fun, so the in-game reward structure for playing UGC needs to be as good as the rest of the game or all that content will be ignored.
Questions? Yeah, one: Why are you still ignoring what you already knew before you released this game?
For the sake of a more radical approach, no more assets, with a very few very specific exceptions, we need fixes and mechanics improvements/additions!
edit: cant believe am still participating in such threads, even that i gave up a year ago )
I find it extemely hard to believe that releasing assets to be usable in the foundry is somehow difficult at all. The assets ALREADY exist in the game -- it can't be any more complex than updating a database or setting some flags. It's completely beyond belief that they can't release probably HUNDREDS of assets we've been begging for for two years. It's not like they have to be careful or anything - they've shown time and again they have absolutely no qualms about modifying existing assets and totally botching up any of them used by the foundry authors. cf. Vines with disappearing/reappearing flowers, picnic tables that suddenly have extra stuff on them, barns that mysteriously have giant hay bales suddenly appear, and on, and on, and on.
So, just update the databases or set a stupid flag and release the assets.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
No arguments here for that matter. Am just tryin to somehow express "here u have the pillar or whatever" is not a real foundry upgrade.
There should be new categories and put them on the front of the catalog:
BEST story
BEST layout
BEST combat
BEST under 20 minutes
BEST over 20 minutes
BEST over 60 minutes
Sequel: The Return to Sloping Street NW-DACVPHGHW
Part 3: The Merchant's Tower NW-DC3LB6TZ9
This thread makes me sad whenever I see it bumped. =/ Spirals999 who started it, no longer works for Cryptic.
Will the new foundry manager please stand up? @badbotlimit maybe? @yetweallfalldown might know.
Will you ever love the foundry like we do? ;D
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Tired of Dailies/Tyranny of Dailies/Timers of Doom/Tricked Or Duped/Tremendously Obnoxious Dailies/Try Otherwise, Devs
The siege tutorial is broken, I think their new maps and new content are boring.... however I don't play this game for pvp... so I'm more than a little biased to the extent that I would prefer they cease all pvp development permanently and focus on improving the foundry so we can author decent content with actual rewards.
They removed the AD for doing Foundries as far as I can tell. I hope when the foundries come up.... playing one gives you 2000ad per play through up till 7800 cap like dungeons and skirmishes. Because I would much rather be rewarded for foundries than stomach through the same content we've had too since 2013.
There's no nice way to say this... but I assume more than half of the players are looking for other games to play right now. I know that my guild leader and 90% of friends have abandoned this game permanently due to this last patch.
As others have said, the Foundry seems like a great creative outlet for those who have time and patience. Although the specifications and the amount of premade costumes and maps are a bit lacking, this tool is something that WRPG players have pined for even before the dawn of Baldur's Gate.
The one thing I enjoy the most about this so far (having only used it for several hours) is the dialog tree. There is a lot of polish there, and I really feel as though I can make good dialogue with pretty believable animations as long as I'm careful. I'm just bummed that once you start a tree, it can be difficult to "prune" it -- that is, the trunk of the conversation becomes harder and harder to break down into its component parts once you make too many branches. I imagine the same goes for the 'OR' workaround for quest lines.
I feel inspired by some of the high-rated Foundry quests that I've played so far, and I'm pretty confident that the other tools should mostly work pretty well too.
> 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've had a few crashes when trying to implement backdrop sounds and such so far, but thankfully the autosaver captured what little I've made so far. So I feel confident that future crashes won't destroy too much of my work, if any. On the other hand, my crash reports seem to get stuck with some kind of Crash Server error (can't remember exactly). Is that a problem on my side with port forwarding or something?
I also noticed that some maps might be a bit broken. I used a large, snowy mountain map with lots of boulders and trees on it ... but half the map looks like it's too low! The trees and rocks on the right side of the map are all a hundred feet in the air! The left side is fine, but ... going over to the other side makes it look like everything is levitating. (I guess I could get around it by putting huge boulders in the way, but where's the fun in that?) Even if you gave us the option to fix or remove pre-baked objects on a map, that would work wonders, really ... Then I could just remove all the trees and place new stuff, problem solved. That would also make other premade maps more reusable.
There was also a costume pose that I was a little disappointed by; I think it's called Storm-Rider or something like that in the Costumes tab. The NPC's pose in Costumes looks a bit defensive, and occasionally checks their shoes or crosses their arms. They look like a normal person with a bit of an edge -- cool! However, in actual play, the character just stands there as if they're holding a bow (but really just holding empty air), and they don't cross their arms or anything. I don't know why. Are all the available poses just a little messed up in the Costumes tab? Can you add weapons to NPCs? And where are all the ranger/warlock/paladin costumes?
I've heard that encounters come pre-baked too, which is a little disappointing. But I'm sure I'll manage. I just hope that looking at the encounter table won't spoil too much late-game content for me (I already saw the werewolves -- cool but oh nao!!).
> 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 Campaigns idea was good -- more stuff like that. What about short pre-baked action scenes or fly-overs of an area to help give scope of a quest? What about unlockable boss and NPC content to avoid spoilers?
Perhaps a "Foundry Spotlight" could help? Rather than always focusing on PvP matches up next to the minimap, what if you highlighted some up-and-coming Foundry quests and offered some extra AD or a quirky item for playing one? That should increase exposure for intrepid players and the original creator of the well-received content.
It's good to see that the Dungeon Master Rank and its respective rewards are real; I thought they were a hoax at first. Merit-based rewards for creation and play would be great, but I see how that could be complicated by the "Check for Rust" quests that I've seen pop up on the quest list from time to time. Perhaps this could be thwarted by awarding goods for a combination of efforts that cannot be botted or cheated? My idea would be:
- Content creators are rewarded with AD or items based on the number of review stars they earn, multiplied by a coefficient and the number of kills that the quest players rack up over time. That way, the worst things you end up with are "skirmish" style quests, which frankly aren't bad compared to checking for rust or chatting up the Neverember. This could also help measure which rewards that a content creator can offer from his special mobs or the end chest.
- Quest players are rewarded with a little AD and money, along with their randomly-rolled item, but based on the number of kills and meters walked rather than review stars. Maybe the item's rarity chance could increase based on how well the player did so that the chest doesn't look so empty. This would also help quash checking for rust but could lead to hallway simulator or conveyor belt quests...
> What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Couldn't tell you since Neverwinter is my first, but I wish you all the best! Feel free to PM me if you'd like any more ideas from a quirky game designer.
Just like Foundry achieavements, you have to do certain things in order to accomplish this (Don't make it super hard to run people off like current "Bugged" achieavemnt requirements are.
Also, actually having the achieavements not bugged, and promotes an ever growing interest.
Also, if grinding the foundrys for refinement is an issue or for botting gear drops, just put a dynamic in them that causes the account to have a "RANSACKED" flag until next daily reset.
Thanks,
-Kymos
-Kymos
I am uncertain of the logic behind allowing achievement based Foundry's to stay published. There is one with over 15000 reviews in the top 10 on the Best tab. There is also another with over 1000 in the top 20. If a quests average duration is less than 3-5 minutes, it should be automatically dropped.
I am also uncertain of the logic behind having older featured quests in the Best tab. This leads to too many instances of the same Foundry quest within the same tab. The top 20 under the Best tab is a perfect example of this. Spotlight quests are fine being at the top of the Best and Featured tabs. However, when the spotlight is over, featured quests should only be under the featured quests tab and in descending order of top rated down (with Spotlight always maintaining the top 1-3).
I would also go as far as to suggest adding another tab for Campaigns and allowing those to rank independently.
**When I say "spotlight" I am referring to newly featured quests.
NWS-DITF6RXSK - All Daily Qualified
Q1 - Dungeons of Mirent Tusk - 16 minutes Featured
Q2 - The Legend of Prince Brightblade - 30+m
Q3 - The Legend of The Lady - 30m
Q4 - Finding the Way -20m
Q5 - King Mirent Tusk - 50m
I was reading through the comments and its sad to know that foundry is as popular as expected with players(???) But I would like to remind that UGC is never a replacement for actual content. It becomes popular when everyone has cleared the actual content with various classes and is bored of official campaigns. The tools in foundry as they were, were very versatile even during launch. So improving that should be in direction of clearing out the bugs.
I believe, from what I read, that the issue would be better resolved by:
1. Encouraging collaboration between authors to make longer campaigns (I don't know if the collaboration for UGC has been implemented like we talked in alpha/beta, but that would be something to work on for more interesting campaigns. Also foster the community groups and collaborative work on foundry)
2. Developers themselves making long and demonstrative UGC content (like side quests) with a few special features. For example, developers can demonstrate the capabilities of the foundry from a UGC campaign to demonstrate the power of foundry.
Sorry if my opinion is not useful, but I couldn't help share my opinion.
Personally, I'd prefer option 1, but option 2 seems to be the reality of the situation.
but we should be able to see their interests and priorities based on their actions and not their words. and their actions tell us plenty enough of how much they care for the foundry.
I think it is a good idea, and has some good points, the character creater is an excellent one.
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?
In everything else, it is tiresome to design in. Poor instructions, and the system is not user friendly to work with. I have designed a good number of quests in other games, and even in the older RPG's had a few published. But here, it is a cumbersome system to use.
The general layout is nice, but when you get into the actual manufacturing of the components, this is where it gets very tedious. Some things work easily, like the character developer, but others like the Dungeon builder, are clumsy to work with; especially when working on new areas.
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 more user friendly, so we can work more on the story, and less fighting with the system.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
I've not see one to know. So I do not know.
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? - Foundry doesnt have "all" the items and things like furniture and plants but you try to do what you can with what you have. I do hate when placing teleporters you need to accurate and that coordinates things. Well i dont actualy can tell becouse i like all of it
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 is a good way to show what can you do with this tools to create something like "quests" and im not talking about Foundry where you come and talk with someone and go loot the chest thats not right.
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games? - Dont know any other games that has Foundry (UGC)