The Foundry

wizardlock · October 2012

I was wonder if we allow to build some Famous region and have them add to the Neverwinter online and then use some of the old music from those old games ? and are we alow to use some of the npc from those old games to? like Mekrath from BG 1 and 2 and others?

kamaliicious · October 2012

You should read the faq, or other threads on the Foundry. You are most certainly not going to be able to use music from BG1/2, as no custom music/art/anything etc is allowed. And you're not going to be able to recreate any external areas either, because you can't make external areas, only decorate prefab areas Cryptic makes.

zebular · October 2012

To elaborate just a little on the above reply, Neverwinter is set over 100 years after the events in Neverwinter Nights 2, which NWN2 itself takes place quite some time after Baldur's Gate. So, most humans that survived the Spellplague would have since died from old age.

Major NPCs like Elminster, Drizzt, and so on, that live for hundreds, if not thousands of years, may make an appearance. It has been stated that Drizzt will definitely be making an appearance, since Neverwinter is based off of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting and the Neverwinter Saga novels by R.A. Salvatore.

See my next reply for a correction to the above poster's reply.

zebular · October 2012

kamaliicious wrote: »

And you're not going to be able to recreate any external areas either, because you can't make external areas, only decorate prefab areas Cryptic makes.

This quoted part is incorrect. You most certainly can create external maps, as was shown and spoken about in the Foundry Videos from the prior conventions. As well, as was depicted and explained in those videos, you can also build from scratch or use a Cryptic Map as a base and edit from there.

kamaliicious · October 2012

zebular wrote: »

This quoted part is incorrect. You most certainly can create external maps, as was shown and spoken about in the Foundry Videos from the prior conventions. As well, as was depicted and explained in those videos, you can also build from scratch or use a Cryptic Map as a base and edit from there.

Not sure what you think I said, but please show the video where they say you can make an external area from scratch (not start with one of their prefabs). The dev posts I've seen say you can't make an area from scratch.

kamaliicious · October 2012

External area from scratch, you can make an internal area from scratch.

gillrmn · October 2012

kamaliicious wrote: »

Not sure what you think I said, but please show the video where they say you can make an external area from scratch (not start with one of their prefabs). The dev posts I've seen say you can't make an area from scratch.

They have said that you can make outdoor maps. The only thing not in editor is mesh deformation.

So what zeb said is correct.

wizardlock · October 2012

Well first of all timeline of Bladurs gate 1 and 2 is not far from Nwn 1 and 2 from many strong wizard liviing long then 500 years and one npc could have been in the new neverwinter game was Malchor Happell he is a close friend to Drizzt and he livi in the out side of Neverwinterwood then we have Eltoora Sarptyl a leader of the cloaktower mages she could have been out of that city when it's all happened and get the news in waterdeep and fore the same with Mekrath he could have been close to see what was ones a great city of North and so on

kamaliicious · October 2012

gillrmn wrote: »

They have said that you can make outdoor maps. The only thing not in editor is mesh deformation.

So what zeb said is correct.

You and Zebular are confusing making a map with using a prefab map from Cryptic. If I want a (for example) mountain pass, and cryptic doesn't provide one (naturally I expect they will provide a mountain pass of some sort, but this is purely for example), then I'm out of luck as a builder. I can't make a mountain pass (once again, only an example) for myself because the Foundry doesnt allow that per dev statements. There is no "blank sheet of paper" functionality. I can choose from what Cryptic provides, and drop in banners or houses or whatever, but a builder can't make an area.

So if you want to recreate an area from an older game, like the OP does, you're out of luck.

/ I have to repeatedly say it's an example because I've posted here before, saying x was only being used as an example, and then have people say "of course there's x!" because they repeatedly miss where I said it's an example.

gillrmn · October 2012

kamaliicious wrote: »

...
If I want a (for example) mountain pass, and cryptic doesn't provide one (naturally I expect they will provide a mountain pass of some sort, but this is purely for example), then I'm out of luck as a builder. I can't make a mountain pass
...

You are wrong here. I believe you have not made worlds using non-mesh deformation editors. I don't want to go into details as how it can be done and all, specially all this is speculation for now - but I want put it across that it can easily be done even without mesh deformation depending on diversity in the library.
A good reference would be Lego builders.

zebular · October 2012

wizardlock wrote: »

Well first of all timeline of Bladurs gate 1 and 2 is not far from Nwn 1 and 2 from many strong wizard liviing long then 500 years and one npc could have been in the new neverwinter game was Malchor Happell he is a close friend to Drizzt and he livi in the out side of Neverwinterwood then we have Eltoora Sarptyl a leader of the cloaktower mages she could have been out of that city when it's all happened and get the news in waterdeep and fore the same with Mekrath he could have been close to see what was ones a great city of North and so on

I didn't say that they wouldn't be, in fact my reply clearly states that it is quite possible that many Major NPCs could make an appearance as I basically said, in different words, what you stated about some NPCs living quite a long time. I was just trying to elaborate, it wasn't a disagreement or statement saying they won't be around. I do know that the lore is canon, so if the NPCs are alive in Canon in the current 4e timeline, then they are alive in the current 4e NWO timeline.

zebular · October 2012

kamaliicious wrote: »

You and Zebular are confusing making a map with using a prefab map from Cryptic. If I want a (for example) mountain pass, and cryptic doesn't provide one (naturally I expect they will provide a mountain pass of some sort, but this is purely for example), then I'm out of luck as a builder. I can't make a mountain pass (once again, only an example) for myself because the Foundry doesnt allow that per dev statements. There is no "blank sheet of paper" functionality. I can choose from what Cryptic provides, and drop in banners or houses or whatever, but a builder can't make an area.

So if you want to recreate an area from an older game, like the OP does, you're out of luck.

/ I have to repeatedly say it's an example because I've posted here before, saying x was only being used as an example, and then have people say "of course there's x!" because they repeatedly miss where I said it's an example.

Nothing I said is incorrect. You stated or portrayed nothing about mesh formation until after the fact. You just flat out stated that there are no external map making abilities.

I suggest looking for videos on Foundry Presentations, google's video search can often prove to be handy in this regard. There's info around and I'm sure someone would be happy to dig around and search for you. Right now though, I simply do not have the time as I should have been asleep hours ago. :-(

zorbane · October 2012

Depending on what terrain objects Cryptic provides in the foundry you could definitely become creative and and try to replicate famous locations.

Also regarding you guys and talking about major/famous people..

It's quite likely that you won't be able have them in your foundry missions. I explicitly asked this question at PAX and the response I got was that we wouldn't be able to use licensed characters (drizzt for example). This is all licensing stuff and will depend on what Cryptic and WoTC negotiate.

Until the NW Foundry EULA is posted we won't know the details. For now you can check out the STO Foundry EULA to give an idea for what to expect

Foundry EULA - http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=209216
Foundry EULA FAQ - http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=271084

kamaliicious · October 2012

zebular wrote: »

Nothing I said is incorrect. You stated or portrayed nothing about mesh formation until after the fact. You just flat out stated that there are no external map making abilities.

That's not what I said, well I guess that is what I said, if you stopped reading at the comma. What I said was "you can't make external areas, only decorate prefab areas Cryptic makes", which, according to all released Foundry videos, is true.

Unless you'd like to point me to some videos where they make an external area.

bitterwinter · October 2012

Thought I'd post this here its an older article however it does have some relevant information there.

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/18/3251244/neverwinter-foundry-lets-you-build-anything-from-pvp-to-text

Neverwinter's user-generated content crafting toolset, The Foundry, has come a long way since first being introduced during E3 2011.

The tools allow its users to meticulously craft dungeons and quests using pre-made assets which snap together effortlessly in a visual editor. Rooms can be connected, filled with objects, enemies and a treasure chest, the contents of which are pulled from an exploit-proof Cryptic-generated loot table. Though players can't upload their own assets to the engine, there's tons of room for customization thanks to the multitude of decorations that can be dragged and dropped into the world. Enemies can even be renamed, or dressed up in new outfits.

Or, if they're not feeling artistic, players can auto-populate a room with decorations, making it look like something Cryptic designers had built.

Quests are composed in a similar way, by connecting objectives of various kinds to build a chain from start to finish. A standard quest might entail the player meeting up with an NPC contact, finding the entrance to the dungeon (which can be built into a door in the public world), killing a boss monster and activating a special item; all of which are designated by the player. Of course, that's a standard quest; there's tons of room to get far more creative than that.

The Dialog editor might be the most impressive feature of all. It allows players to build incredibly complex loops and trees of conversation with NPC contacts. Creators can gate off certain options until the player has acquired a particular item, fulfilled an objective, or ? take note, classic D&D players ? make accessible secret options if a player is proficient enough in a certain skill. Just imagine having a conversation with an NPC contact, and then being given the option to call out his hidden entourage because your Perception was high enough.

Your quest could be entirely composed of a single dialog tree. There's no limit to what you'll be able to do with it; Cryptic chief creative officer Craig Zinkievich said that wordy Dungeon Masters could ostensibly make their own full-length text adventures, with enough time and patience.

Creators can tag their levels with various classifications for potential players to locate them; "German" to indicate that it's written in German, or "Non-Combat" to show that it's entirely composed of puzzles and dialog. They can even link their levels together into entire campaigns and quest chains; even if all of the links in that chain haven't been built yet. That alone could be huge: Neverwinter will basically introduce the episodic model to user-generated content.

Zinkievich also confirmed that Cryptic was working to add Player-vs-Player functionality in Foundry, giving players access to the entire range of tools therein. That means they won't just make arenas for players to fight in; they can create objectives, or put every player on a race to finish the same quest.

Cryptic won't shackle creators with excessive barriers designed to prevent exploits. Enemies, when killed, give the same amount of XP as they would in the real world, and drop from the same loot tables. Quests award XP based on how long the players spent playing them ? a five-minute quest only gives a fraction of how much an hour-long quest will award.

The only real restriction is the treasure chest which players can drop once into their levels, which also scales based on how long the quest takes to complete. However, creators will be able to pick specific types of items (swords, helmets, etc.), which will then automatically be fitted to the class of the player which found it. Best of all, after picking the archetype for the item, the creator can name it, and then that name will stay with the item even after the player has left the dungeon.

Neverwinter doesn't try to nullify exploits altogether, because doing so would hogtie the options afforded to creators. Rather, players can only earn four hours worth of XP and loot from UGC missions in a day. It's not exploit prevention, it's exploit limitation ? and with such a large cap, it won't affect the playing habits of players who aren't trying to cheat the system.

Once a level is published, it must be peer-moderated by five community volunteers. After they've signed off, it's released to the rest of the player base who can review the level after playing it, ensuring that good levels get promoted, and bad levels get buried. Cryptic, too, can highlight its favorite levels on the game's landing page, which loads every time the player enters the game. They can even apply temporary bonuses to that quest's XP and loot to drive players to the game's UGC components. There are other ways to find quests, too, like searching a nearby job board, or picking up intel from one of the many, many Harper Agents placed throughout the city's bars and taverns.

Foundry is still a few steps away from fully imitating the live, interactive theater of being an actual Dungeons and Dragons DM (though Zinkievich said Cryptic is trying to figure out how to make that work for the future). But with its completely open-ended systems for gameplay and narrative design, and seamless integration into the rest of Neverwinter, it's getting awfully damn close.

jadescimitar · October 2012

For a casual player like I intend to be, compared to the 5-7 hrs a day 4-5 days a week I used to play EQ1, 4 hours a day will be plenty for me.

I look forward to more of the social experience as much as the questing and leveling. Back in the days of EQ1 after reaching a certain level of accomplishment, I enjoyed helping people more like either shuttling guildies around as I was a druid (taxi service) or taking out a bunch of lower level guildies and "mother hen" them as they took on level appropriate mobs. Leveling became a pain after a while...

Having the Foundry also seems like a perfect place to spend when I don't feel like running around. I like to tell stories (if you haven't noticed...) and it sounds like the perfect place to share my vision with others...

START THE GAME ALREADY!!! b:victory

hehe

JS

wraithling · February 2013

Come on already with your stupid picking at words. If you was a game programmer then you wouldn't need to worry about the foundry you would be out creating someone elses game or a game of your own. Some of you people just wish to pick something a part. If it's not the game for you and you think everything is wrong, don't play it.

shaudius · February 2013

wraithling wrote: »

Come on already with your stupid picking at words. If you was a game programmer then you wouldn't need to worry about the foundry you would be out creating someone elses game or a game of your own. Some of you people just wish to pick something a part. If it's not the game for you and you think everything is wrong, don't play it.

Why are you necroing a thread from 4 months ago to yell at people?

zebular · February 2013

Necromancy is a forbidden art within the halls of these forums, indeed.

Rules of Conduct wrote:

Necromancy:
Any thread over one month (30 days) old is considered to be a dead thread. Posting in a dead (necro) thread will cause it to be locked. Repeated posting of dead threads can result in a ban from forums/game. Instead of necro-ing a thread, please make a new thread.

The Foundry

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