Hey everyone, the guys at StarbaseUGC have created a new Foundry tutorial video. This one is about triggers and how to use them.
http://tavernugc.com/foundry-essentials-kirkfats-back-to-basics-vi/
If you want to watch the full PrimetimeUGC episode (the podcast that Foundry Essentials is part of) watch the link here:
http://starbaseugc.com/index.php/trailers/essential-viewing/primetimeugc-episode-19-with-guest-hippiejohn/
If you guys have any questions regarding the video or the Foundry in general post here and I'll be happy to answer.
Comments
Are there just a base set of tiles or will we be able to create and implement our own tilesets?
I thought I read somewhere that we will not be able to build custom items? If that is the case is there a reason why we can't?
Just a few things I was thinking of from being a builder/admin on NWN and seeing the massive and awesome content the community provided over the years. I absolutely think that because of that is why the game has had such successful longevity although it's slowly phasing out these days.
No custom content will be allowed to be uploaded.
The reason has not been clearly given by devs - though it is speculated that the reason is either of the two:-
- copyright violation, indecent material etc
- I forgot this one.
The D&D:Neverwinter is a seperate series in itself. It has nothing to do with NWN(1991), NWN series with 2 parts, BG series, PS:Torment etc. It is as seperate from each of these games as these games are from each other.
Foundry is based on the cryptic's experience of UGC with STO.
p.s. NWN will bite dust when compared to foundry for all I care YARRRRRR!!!! Its WARRRR!!!!
Oh no lol...I completely understand it's NOT NWN3 or even in the series. I only compared it because it also allows use of a toolset and I thought the Aurora engine and community content is what preserved NWN for so long. I also think if it garners such a large modding community as NWN did that with a limited set amount of base materials to build with it will get mundane rather quickly.
lol, was just kidding. NWN was a good game, however many people do come to this game thinking it to be NWN3. I just don't want them to be in false impressions and get hurt later when they find the truth.
There is no mesh editing ether. Foundry will be closer to Lego models - though you can make beautiful content with it.
However, custom content has been a no no from start through we tried to ask for it. They were pretty adamant about it - however they have promised us again and again thet "we will not feel the need to have custom content" due to their extensive libraries.
They say that in general, if you can play CO or STO you should be able to play Neverwinter. The minimum requirements will be lower than both these games and higher requirements will be higher - due to technological advances.
Means a 5 year old computer can play it on low settings, and a high end modern computer can play it at mouth-watering settings too.
I'm not familiar with CEP but here are some of the things from the STO Foundry
A lot also has to do with not using characters that are licensed properties, for example you won't be allowed to create Drizzt and add him as a character in your story. Note that mentioning him is OK
Basically this. gillrm is pretty accurate when saying lego. You get a bunch of pieces and you put them together how you wish.
I think right now they have quest items that you can acquire as part of the mission, so triggers are fired based on if you have the item or not. They have no use other than that.
For custom equipment, its a long term goal but it won't be implemented at launch. Also the stats will be auto-generated
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - [WIP] Commander Rihan
CEP is basically a user generated library of 3d models and stuff - custom content. Hence what he is actually asking is about uploading ccustom content in language of foundry.
i.e. mesh defoming and making cloaks, character models, chairs, tables, changing their dimentions etc.
Lets say we use skyrims creation kit as an example, sure there are plenty of mods that add content and can integrate so well you could see them as part of the original game, and then there is thousands of breast/sex mods that bethesda probably wants nothing to do with. They want to put power into the hands of the players but they cant just let people make whatever they want for a seamless online experience. Not to mention they would probably have to make it rated Adult if they did that I can see tiefling whorehouse "adventures" for miles and miles.
Would love to make them.... AHEM!!! I mean, yeah not good! Not good at all! Blasphemy!
*silently pockets a collection of "tails and horns"*
In STO no voice overs are added, but there will be an additional reward given at the end of the mission if you're playing a spotlight. Not sure if it's always given or if its a daily reward (it's not implemented yet)
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - [WIP] Commander Rihan
Short Answer: You are restricted to just building an "adventure"
Long Answer: Try not to think of the Foundry as a modding tool but as a mission authoring tool. Everyone will play on the same server (no mods to choose from) and everyone will have access to all the missions created by Foundry authors.
Don't forget that TavernUGC has a Q&A coming up with the Neverwinter devs. Just put your question(s) in the comment thread of this post: http://tavernugc.com/foundryqa/
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - [WIP] Commander Rihan
My best advice to you guys: Don't even try to compare the Foundry with previous NW tools. Don't even try to compare it to a 15 year old modding tool. There is nothing to modify.
It's far closer to:
1. Pick your pre-designed sets/props. No scaling for you! You will never, ever see a button called "upload."
2. Build a 3d world with a 2d editor.
3. Fill in the boxes with what you want someone to say.
4. Create a linear chain of events for the player to go to A, kill B, interact with C, and travel to D.
That is the essence of STO's Foundry. Maybe you guys will get more options.
I disagree here. It is very possible to make non-linear - even completely open world quests using foundry. If you doubt this, I am ready to discuss this in PM on how.
Others are fine - the foundry is more like Lego where you put blocks there and not do mesh editing.
I'm pretty sure that I know every trick to give the illusion of a branching story or a choice on which way to travel to the same place.
But the way the thing is designed (for STO). There is a story board: kill trolls--->interact--->talk to guy--->kill trolls--->go to cave--->kill more trolls--->talk to guy.
It is linear, despite some workarounds.
Awwww, well that steals some of my momentum
I have a tabletop campaign in which adventurers land in some unknown place, it is nighttime. They have to reach a mountaintop. The way to the top however is blocked. there is a village nearby with an inn. However, most doors are closed due to trolls who patrol nearby, to talk to any NPC you have to eliminate all trolls. Doing that will cause boss troll to come out and challenge the PC near the nearby lake. You kill the troll boss and then you can talk to NPC and part A will happen. Part A can be anything blah blah and even quite long. We will come to it later.
OR you can decide to side with the trolls. For that, you pray to TROLL GOD outside the village which will cause lightning to appear and smite the homes. The people will come out running, troll patrols will dissappear and you can kill the people while their homes are on fire. After you kill all people, the troll boss will appear and youc an talk to him to bash the mountain of bloackade to clear the way to the top. -Quest done
Otherwise, back to Part A, you will meet a old man who will tell you to do any 6 of total 8 subquests in order to open the bloackade to the top. I can list 2-3 subquests as example here:-
- You go and talk to a ghost, as soon as you talk, ghost turns to a shade and attacks you.
- You go and talk to a ghost, who tells you to pray at an altar near monsters. You sneak past monsters (but if you kill any group, altar dissappears and you will fail this sub-quest). If you sneak th patrols properly, you will be able to succeed in freeing the ghost and thus the sub-quest.
- You go and talk to a vain npc to get a particular item(say TNT detonator) by cajoling her. It will be a long fight with words.
etc etc etc. Above three are much different than kill monsters and talk I suppose?
In this campaign, main quest is just to reach the mountain top, without any objective anywhere. All you have to do is reach an area which is inaccessible.
So above quest. I was going to write it here how, but you should have already guessed it by now, how to do it.
I say doing this this way is entirely possible using triggers component complete/component reached/objective complete etc. options in foundry without needing any "objective" but using pure logic. i.e. You don't even need the main quest line, it is entirely possible without using "Dialogs" and stuff.
And all this is possible in one map of one quest.
If you think it is not possible, let me prove it to you when it is possible to
And this is half the capability of foundry.
If a person as experienced as you thinks it is not possible, then I guess I will start working on a tutorial on how to do it and be famous like you
Answer is very simple kirk
The solution lies in parallel and series resistence circut problems we do in electrical science class(or thermodynamics problems). You can use that way to allow stuff like that.
EDIT: In case of doubt, check with crypticmapolis if this is possible or not. I am sure he can make one such foundry mission for you because he says he loves the NW foundry.
Watch this video and I suspect some of your momentum will return: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pn7iU4EwTc
Also I would like to say, though I will try to be polite - that you are undermining the foundry severely. If you say terms like "is a pain" or "requires etc etc" it means you are not authorized to be a spokesperson of foundry. Creating a mission itself is a "pain" but has a lot of hard work and motivation behind it. Dismissing it as something hard to do is not something a person answering questions on foundry should do.
Basically what I am saying is, you are only doing harm to game by misguiding and presenting half-truths to people. Do not assume, and do not think that people of NW UGC will be lazy.
You have to collect the reward from reward chest. Apart from that there is no other need for objective itself n any foundry mission.
Now I am starting to doubt it. With all due respect, it is impossible to be all-knowing on anything. If you think you are all-knowing you need to go back and look at what you missed. Things of creation are only limited by imagination. Even developers will hesitate making such a blatant statement of absolutism.
NO.
NO.
Well, somebody needs to make the tutorials, since I have no interest in this game.
Like I said, I understand all of the tricks. I made a 7 part tutorial series on the limits of branching paths.
It doesn't change the fact that there is still one objective that has to be done, regardless of all the little things you do with triggers, npcs, etc.
There can be lots of different ways to get to the top of that mountain. The player can choose the path, the enemies, the difficulty, the doors, etc. Still your mission is "Go to top of the mountain."
Optional side quests can be fun. They often confuse the HAMSTER out of players though, since it can be unclear what they're meant to do, when the objective text tells them "Go to the mountain" when all the triggers and optional things don't... the player is lucky if their scanner takes them to the optional components.
Wait, you guys won't have scanners, will you? Might be tough to find those invisible objects.
It is possible to make a non linear adventure, HOWEVER, it must have a linear ending (for the mission to complete I mean).
There have been many many "non linear" missions where you can branch out and disguise objectives etc, giving the illusion of a non-linear experience, however it is still linear in that to complete it, there can only be 1 ending (as far as the engine/objective is concerned). That doesn't mean you can't make a non linear appearing mission and even make the ending appear to be base on choices, you still have to have a fixed ending when you make it...
Here is 'the thing' though. Everything you say should be within the realm of possibility using triggers and such (assuming you dont run into issues with them, like have occurred in STO) But all of this will occur off the storyboard. Speaking from experience, when players start dealing with things that are off the storyboard, they start getting confused, annoyed and so on. What you are proposing is a complex chain of dependencies though, and bearing in mind objects can only have one dependency, you would have to provide then multiple paths based on what set of conditions you complete to open the pass, using your example.
Just to say, I see where you're coming from, KF (or KS as his name is here) steered the Foundry Community into a Community very early on in its life cycle. I think what he was trying to do was to dispel some of the misconceptions people have about it being like NWN, perhaps a little too much but still :P[
Neither are we in STO. However the Foundry was NOT designed to be non linear
The whole foundry is based on Objectives. Sure you could have a grand total of 2 things on your storyboard, you'll still have to have objectives Also such missions may not actually qualify for a reward.. if it follows STO's new rewards qualifcations.
You should play some of his missions in STO, it's simply crazy what he manages to make the engine do..
There is a storyboard. There always HAS to be a storyboard.
Yes.. the engine is LINEAR, you can give the illusion of non linearity, but it is still LINEAR
Actually this is not true. If you use only one "objective" which is collect reward, you can make a quest which is completely non linear. We can take and talk about this elsewhere cerberus more clearly (you know where) but whatever I said ... there is not even 0.00001% of lie in it. That campaign I talk about, I can prove it to you that it is possible. Needs a lot of work yes, but possible without even using "advanced" tools like pop-up dialogs. Only using object triggers.
And the objective can be a chest at the starting area which you can't open until a rock blocking your path to it is removed.
Let us discuss it in detail later elsewhere, for now I need to cool off a bit.
EDIT:-
I will be very short and terse here:-
Non-linearilty is not illusion, it is a design. If you cannot skip a sub-quest, it is not non-linear.
You are exactly right in that you can have just one objective, that still makes it Linear. It always has the same ending. (even if it's different text), the physical location and actions of the player will always be the same
That would also mean you could only have 1 map, unless you make custom maps (as in change the map environment around the player with objects), even then you would face the issue of item budgets and limits.
I've made a 'non-linear' mission before, it's a lot of fun, a lot of work, looks great, but it still has to have general objectives to advance through to another map and/or to finish the mission.
It isn't my intention to spread half-truths, but the way you're talking about the Foundry is pretty unrealistic, I fear. Also, some of the questions from previous NW modders are really unrealistic.
Granted, I haven't messed around with NW's tool, since nobody invited me to do so.
I'm just telling you what I know based on my experience with STO. The history of STO's Foundry isn't a story of fans unleashing their creative imagination with amazing tools at their disposal. It's more a story of a constant fight to do one of the following:
A. Work around the limitations of a linear storyboard by pushing triggers to extremes (if they actually work as intended).
B. Working with a limited library of assets. If you know anything about Star Trek, you might not recognize our transporter pads, since we have to build them out of buckets and other junk. The STO team is about to give us a zone of our own, for which we have no props to use for places like Ferenginar.
C. Fighting with the Foundry to get it to do what it's supposed to do. Our bugs are out of control. Multi-select is buggy. Patrols are buggy. Some of that maps don't even have basic AI pathing.
D. Dealing with things you can't control, like players falling through floors, npcs not pathing or getting stuck, players getting kicked out of the mission entirely.
Those are many of our experiences on good days. On bad days, a season update can break the missions entirely.
I really hope that your experience with this toolset is unlike our experience with it. After all, you guys have a team working on it. And they've been working on it for a long time.
We can't make PVP maps. We must have an objective in the storyboard to publish the mission. All players must complete that same objective.