Foundry Still Boinked

avalean · January 2018

Well ater a 2 year vacation from NWOL I bring in a new grorp of folks with all of them excited about making content in the foundry and BAM it is still BOINKED. WTF People? For many the Foundry was a MAJOR reason we played the game, something that allowed us to get away from the HumDrum Run here do that run back wash rinse repeat never ending forced grind of instances and nerfed gear quest.

As I read over some of the post in here I see the company making such statements as "We are working on fixing it" and It will be repaired soon all the way back to 2015 "When foundry went titts up and one of the reasons my entire 500 man guild left" and some now saying "Hey we provide this as an incintive to create further game content BUT we will not support nor fix nor repair it"!

SO Before I tell my 800 Person guild that we will simply have to go back to WOW or Star Citizen, the question I would like answered FINALLY by someone in authority is.
Are you going to fix the Foundry system and support the programing or not?
A plain and simple Yes or No, either you are or are not, none of this beating around the bush politically correct, pacifism Krap.

If no, then we move on to a game that will at least support its content and promises to give them our cash, if Yes then WHEN and if not by then, AGIAN we simply move on and you get none of that nice monthly revenue from any of us that you seem to love so much but right now seems are unwilling to provide the promised support that drew so many to the game originally.

Avaleean

barthan · February 2018

THEY WON'T FIX ANYTHING. Everyone has left this game. Dev's and owners have no clue. All they care about is making there quota for new content every 3 months per their term agreement. It all about cash nothing more. The dedicated player base has left.

simplyshawn · February 2018

barthan said:
THEY WON'T FIX ANYTHING. Everyone has left this game. Dev's and owners have no clue. All they care about is making there quota for new content every 3 months per their term agreement. It all about cash nothing more. The dedicated player base has left.

While I understand where you're coming from, I disagree. They really did just bring The Foundry back online, it's fully functional right now, and they did also devote a section of the LiveStream Q&A to The Foundry, where they announced that they are going to be introducing new assets in the new Module. Also, since the big bug (affecting both STO and NWO) is squashed now, I think it's a safe bet to say that the usual Foundry down-time after a new module will be much shorter. They did mention it takes a few minutes per Foundry Quest to republish everything, which equals a huge amount of time since there are so many Foundry quests, but, that's something they've really looked into this time around.

In short: things are actually looking very good for The Foundry right now. We've had both Mods and Devs communicating right here in the forums, and new content is on the way. I think if you want to put blame somewhere for the issues with The Foundry, both current and in the past, it's a bit more nuanced: Judging by the attention to detail and outright artistry of Chult the devs still enjoy working on this game - so I can't agree that the devs don't care anymore. I think it's more that the player-base for The Foundry has lost it's motivation because of the issues in the past, which means that the analytics Cryptic is seeing shows low usage of The Foundry; despite there still being strong interest. With those low numbers of player engagement though, the money-people can't justify devoting resources to it: even if the devs hear us and want to.

IMHO, we need to use The Foundry and show our interest so that the financial people at Cryptic can justify putting time/money in the budget for the devs to improve and expand The Foundry. We've gotta share our Foundries with players who don't normally play foundries. We've gotta get our guilds involved too.

Then, when those meetings happen, the devs who want to work on The Foundry for us have the weight to say "hey, this chunk of our playerbase uses The Foundry, it's a big enough draw to warrant some more TLC - let's put that in the budget."

Or, something to that effect. Basically, the average NWO player either doesn't play foundries because they've already played the good ones (or because there aren't new Foundry Quests often enough to keep them engaged), or because they just don't know other players who play foundry quests: that's not on the devs - that's on those of us who use and enjoy this feature of this game. We've gotta try to grow The Foundry Community so it stands up against the other needs of the game.

Just my two cents though.

avalean said:
Well ater a 2 year vacation from NWOL I bring in a new grorp of folks with all of them excited about making content in the foundry and BAM it is still BOINKED. WTF People? For many the Foundry was a MAJOR reason we played the game, something that allowed us to get away from the HumDrum Run here do that run back wash rinse repeat never ending forced grind of instances and nerfed gear quest.

As I read over some of the post in here I see the company making such statements as "We are working on fixing it" and It will be repaired soon all the way back to 2015 "When foundry went titts up and one of the reasons my entire 500 man guild left" and some now saying "Hey we provide this as an incintive to create further game content BUT we will not support nor fix nor repair it"!

SO Before I tell my 800 Person guild that we will simply have to go back to WOW or Star Citizen, the question I would like answered FINALLY by someone in authority is.
Are you going to fix the Foundry system and support the programing or not?
A plain and simple Yes or No, either you are or are not, none of this beating around the bush politically correct, pacifism Krap.

If no, then we move on to a game that will at least support its content and promises to give them our cash, if Yes then WHEN and if not by then, AGIAN we simply move on and you get none of that nice monthly revenue from any of us that you seem to love so much but right now seems are unwilling to provide the promised support that drew so many to the game originally.

Avaleean

The Foundry actually is up and running right now. It can be expected to go down for a short while when the new module releases next month (to republish all the existing quests) but then come back with new assets for us to use.

I've been pretty upset about The Foundry for the past few months as well, as it was down for a long time. This has since been explained multiple times by the devs: there was a big bug affecting both the STO and NWO Foundries that has now been fixed. So, it turns out that yes, they were "working on fixing it," and they did.

I think it's also important to remember there is a lot of new staff at Cryptic and it's a new year with a new budget - so we've gotta give them the chance and stay engaged. I don't have the authority with which you're looking to hear the answer to your question, but, the answer is yes, from multiple devs: they have fixed Foundry bugs, they are fixing more, and they are introducing new assets in the next module. That's all officially confirmed.

Now, on to the question of your guild: if you have 800 people with a strong interest in UGC, then you might actually be able to help keep The Foundry a high priority budget-wise.

My suggestion: do a test run with some of your guild-mates who are interested. There is at least one full month before the next Foundry Maintenance. Have a competition in your guild to build a short but polished Foundry Quest within that time, with the winner getting something fancy. Invite people from the forums here and from other guilds to vote.

Not only would this be fun, it would get your following into The Foundry to really see if they enjoy it, it would push them to make good content, it would grow The Foundry community, it would get more quality content in the catalogue, and hopefully, increase average player engagement with The Foundry - leading to more support for it in future modules.

Again, just my two cents though.

Personally I'm really glad that The Foundry is back, and I'm finishing up the last zone in my first quest right now. I should have it all finished and published by the end of this month. Then, I'm going to switch gears and do what I suggested to you, but without the big guild or the friendly competition lol. Just shorter, high-quality quests.

Anyway, I hope you two don't give up on The Foundry, but of course I do understand not wanting to fight for something you feel should just be handed to you. I'm just trying to see the bigger picture, and I think it's that we need more quality and more community engagement - then the devs will be able to devote more resources to The Foundry.

dafrca · February 2018

simplyshawn said:
They really did just bring The Foundry back online, it's fully functional right now....

[snip]

The Foundry actually is up and running right now.

While I wish these were true, I can tell you it is not "fully functional" right now and from where I sit, I can't accept any quest I attempted.

So far, every time I try to go into some foundry content it is down for some reason or another. I so want this part of the game world to work like it should but it isn't.

simplyshawn · February 2018

Alright, I concede on the issue of being able to accept quests, and you're right - that's an issue that breaks the whole thing... if no one can play what we build, then... what's the point?

However, I'm sure it's temporary, and I've heard that republishing quests sometimes fixes it.

I'm still gonna be patient. I know Cryptic didn't break it on purpose, and this is another unexpected bug. Since they've worked out the last few, I'm sure they'll work this one out soon too.

It does, however, suck for right now. That's true.

demonmonger · February 2018

I also cannot accept quests

hustin1 · February 2018

The patch from Thursday seems to have fixed the problem with not being able to accept quests.

Foundry Still Boinked

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