test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Foundry Tools Content
providentt
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
So to preface: the Foundry is great. It will add a huge amount of content to the game in perpetuity, while providing a medium for the creative players to do what they do.
However, my main concern with the system is actually its lack of monetisation.
According to this presentation regarding UGC (thanks to gillrmn for the link), the philosophy behind this is that UGC makers are adding content to the game and adding a barrier to that is a hindrance to the author, the players, and the game itself.
Now this is all well and good, but the problem I see is lack of support over the long-term. Without monetisation, what motivation do the devs have to develop more content for the Foundry? Like tilesets, objects, NPCs, trigger types and other features. I can see them making premium adventure packs and monetising those, but leaving the Foundry without any (or little) new content.
The whole point of adding the donate function to the Foundry is to reward authors for good content and motivate them to use the Foundry system. Monetisation for new content does exactly the same thing, but between the authors and devs instead of between the players and authors.
This lack of monetisation doesn't mean no content, but it means we have to trust the devs to add content for free. Am I being overly cynical in being skeptical about that? Or am I on to something and there's a possibility of the Foundry being neglected?
However, my main concern with the system is actually its lack of monetisation.
According to this presentation regarding UGC (thanks to gillrmn for the link), the philosophy behind this is that UGC makers are adding content to the game and adding a barrier to that is a hindrance to the author, the players, and the game itself.
Now this is all well and good, but the problem I see is lack of support over the long-term. Without monetisation, what motivation do the devs have to develop more content for the Foundry? Like tilesets, objects, NPCs, trigger types and other features. I can see them making premium adventure packs and monetising those, but leaving the Foundry without any (or little) new content.
The whole point of adding the donate function to the Foundry is to reward authors for good content and motivate them to use the Foundry system. Monetisation for new content does exactly the same thing, but between the authors and devs instead of between the players and authors.
This lack of monetisation doesn't mean no content, but it means we have to trust the devs to add content for free. Am I being overly cynical in being skeptical about that? Or am I on to something and there's a possibility of the Foundry being neglected?
Post edited by providentt on
0
Comments
That said, the experience of authors with foundry comes from STO. The question first of all is - why have foundry in the first place? Is it just for content?
The answer is - longevity. If you want a game to go on for more than a few years - like 10 years or so, you will need foundry content.
If you put any barrier towards creation of quests, the longevity will suffer. That makes developing a toolset a useless exercise in the first place itself. The benefits come not from toolset but from its ability to enhance longevity of the game.
I didn't play STO a whole lot. I only have 50 or so hours logged. Did they keep adding Foundry content to that? If they did, then I'd be satisfied that they'd do the same in Neverwinter.
However, from playing STO it seems the Foundry is a very fickle kind of beast that potentially needs to be set the way it is developed in order to stop massive bugs from destroying it. There were times in STO when the Foundry was offline for months due a patch updating files which changed the dynamics of what the Foundry had in place, thereby causing it to be in-accessible until it was modified by the Devs.
So the SONY model may not work here and it could be a massive load of work to keep adding content to the Foundry and keep it running smoothly at the same time.
You clearly did not watch the whole presentation. He specifically states in the presentation that players do not like to pay for extra content and infers monetizing it is a mistake. He basically states that if you monetize content people won't use it. So now you have this great resource (the Foundry) for gaining free (to Cryptic. They don't have to pay people to add more content there by saving money and therefore making money) content to the game. He also states that making money through other types of micro-transactions and using that cash generated to fund improving things is best.
The question about charging people to play UGC was brought up for a second time in the question and answer section and he shoots it down a second time.
Why exactly does them not monetizing the UGC system mean that Cryptic will need to add more content? I think Cryptic will need to keep adding content or the game will fail, but I fail to see how not monetizing the UGC system will have anything to do with that.
Now as for the "Without monetisation, what motivation do the devs have to develop more content for the Foundry? Like tilesets, objects, NPCs, trigger types and other features. I can see them making premium adventure packs and monetising those, but leaving the Foundry without any (or little) new content. ":
The motivations is that adding new things to the foundry gives DMs/Creators new options to create new adventures adding new UGC to the game there by adding new content to the game they Cyrptic doesn't have to pay someone to create and add.
He covered ALL of this in the video, please go back and watch the whole video and pay attention. I know it is a very long presentation and all, but You wouldn't have had to create this thread and reference that video if you had listened to the whole thing.
Listen to the very last question asked in the video just before it ends.
Watch the video it is not about that is it about Cryptics philosophy on UGC. It is an exceptional presentation.
None of what you said addressed my OP except for the "it adds new content" argument, which is legitimate, but doesn't address the question of whether they will continue to add content after the base feature.
Please don't accuse people of not knowing the facts when you don't understand the issue. Even if I didn't, your response was not civil and barely constructive.
I said nothing about author motivation to use the Foundry, nor anything about the effect of monetisation on the authors or playerbase. That's a whole different issue. I'm talking about developer motivation to continue to add content, which was not acknowledged in the presentation at all. That presentation was purely focused outward from the company, on to the playerbase. I'm asking about something that would make them look inwards at their own actions during the life of the game - something that was not the focus of that presentation, nor even touched on.
They also update the foundry regularly. It is like adding any other content in game. In f2p games people dont like paying for content. But they still have to add content regularly to keep their game floating. Same is with foundry.
Monetizing content -in foundry or in game- does more harm than good for any f2p game.
You said "Without monetisation, what motivation do the devs have to develop more content for the Foundry? Like tilesets, objects, NPCs, trigger types and other features. I can see them making premium adventure packs and monetising those, but leaving the Foundry without any (or little) new content." Now if you are not taking about either monetizing things in the foundry or content that comes out of the foundry what type of monetization exactly were you talking about? Monetizing what?
The Foundry.
Where do you think users can show developers new things they haven't thought of themselves?
The Foundry.
Where do we get modules tha are spotlightedand assigned unique treasures every week?
The Foundry.
Where can authors be rewarded unique costumes, additional creation slots, and even sometimes character items for quality rated missions?
The Foundry.
I'm talking about exactly what you think - monetising authors for premium Foundry content. Monetising new content beyond the base feature. Because I can easily imagine a developer just creating the Foundry with basic content and capabilities, launching it at release then never touching it again. You'd still get all the benefits from UGC (at least for a while).
Basically the points you named were why we shouldn't have monetisation, but my point was that there might be a reason why not having monetisation is bad and both points exist simultaneously. One point doesn't cancel out the other.
Since it turns out STO adds content to the Foundry my concerns are alleviated now anyway.
I think none of these things because we haven't seen the game yet. It all sounds pretty good but I'm not sure what your point is in the context of this thread.
Seriously, if you don't realize what sort of resources it takes to generate content, you would ask a question like this. The Foundry is a godsend for the devs - they can focus on improving core gameplay features, while premium content is developed by the players. It may be only 200 hours for every 50000 submissions to Foundry, but 200 hours is... let's see... 8 months worth of dev time?
They don't want to monetize Foundry, because it's saving the devs hundreds of thousands of dollars in dev time. Look at WOW and end game content. Now imagine if they had the players generating that themselves.
You mean the video I linked in the OP.
I'm well aware there is a plethora of reasons why the Foundry should be free - and it should. But I'm saying there's a reason why it shouldn't - a disadvantage of not monetising it. All the reasons why it should be free doesn't eliminate this disadvantage. I'm asking specifically about this disadvantage and what mechanic, if any, there is to fix it.
Also: I'm a game developer myself. I understand more than most the work that goes into development. That is precisely the reason of my skepticism of a company creating content for free.
That's why.
Actually it does and that exact point is made in the video several times. There are very very few people (2%) that us the foundry system. If you charge them money you will drive them away because people don't want to pay for content (also said in the video many times). If you reduce the number of people using the foundry you reduce the amount of "free" content being added to your game their by need to hired more people for money to make content costing you even more money. Listen at 45:05 on. It make the company more money to have more people creating content in the foundry. The more people driven away by having to pay money for content cost them more money than they would make by not charging and have those people creating more content.
I will go back to your original post and note from there. He doesn't say specifically say that they are going to add tilessets and what not be he infers it in several places. One place is when he talks about STO and listing to what authors want, and adding it.
This is adressed directly in the video he answered this in the the section entited "How do you Monetize Authors" He says flat out you don't and goes into detail as to why.
This is addressed in "How do you monetize UGC Players" He says you do it through the normal monetizations of normal minco-transactions you do not monetize the UGC system.
Now you are free to disagree with him, but unless you have some real world experience in monetising a MMO and UGE system I am not sure how your experience is even as informed as his is.
The main point you were trying to make (at least from how you wrote it) was about monitizing some aspect of the foundry so more foundy content (tilesets, objects, NPCs, trigger types and other features) would be made, that is what I was responding to. He says over and over that you don't di it in the video. Yet you bring up monetizing the foundry many times in your post, when in the video he says over and over again that you don't. That is how I came to the conclusion that you did not listen. Seems like a pretty logical conclusion to me.
He says in answer to the very last question "So in the F2P market one of the things we found that is really kinda weird and doesn't make sense initially is that users do not what to pay for content."
Like I said in my original post everything you talked about is in the video if you pay attention.
Oh and "All the reasons why it should be free doesn't eliminate this disadvantage. I'm asking specifically about this disadvantage and what mechanic, if any, there is to fix it." The answer is NONE. You don't want to monetize a UGE System period in any way shape or form, it works out poorly in the end. That is what the video says over and over. And your point is we have to find a way to monetize the UGC to make up for some perceived disadvantage. Have you heard the saying cutting off your nose to spite your face? that applies here in a sense.
That all sounds good to me!!!
You're still only reading what you want to read for the most part, although your first point is very true.
I do mention monetisation a lot, but not because it's a good thing, but because the lack of it causes the problem I'm talking about. Please stop talking about why monetisation of the Foundry is bad - I get it and absolutely agree with every single reason.
All those points you quote and say "he said this in the video" - no he didn't. He didn't address what I'm talking about. He addressed why monetisation is bad. He does not say anything about continuing to add content to UGC tools throughout the life of a game at any point in that video. Or not that I saw. I don't disagree with a single thing he said in that video - not one.
I don't know how to say this more clearly... A free Foundry lets say has 5000 positive benefits, but I'm talking about 1 single disadvantage. I'm not saying it should be monetised. I'm talking about this disadvantage that is there regardless.
Your first point is true, that a free Foundry brings in new players which brings in new MT purchases. My concern is that Cryptic might not consider continued additions to the Foundry to be worth whatever number of new players and their purchases the new content brings in. They might just think the base Foundry at launch is enough to last 3-5 years. Maybe it costs them $5000 to add a new piece of content to the Foundry but they estimate that it would only bring in $3000 worth of new players.
I don't know why we're still arguing this. My question was answered satisfactorily halfway down the first page.
The Foundry!
In fact, he does specifically mention continuing to add additional tools for development of UGC throughout the lifecycle of the game. He says that Neverwinter will in fact have staff who will be adding new materials to the foundry for use by developers of UGC(additional tilesets, monsters, etc.) He basically says, as new monsters and things are added to the game those things will end up in the foundry. IIRC he says its because any content that winds up in dev developed content should be able to be used by people creating UGC. I don't have specific timestamps handy, and I'm going to work in a few minutes, but if you'd like I can find the actual timestamps of these statements, but I encourage you to rewatch the video.
Neverwinter Official Wiki - http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/
MMO players live to be paid in epeen.
Neverwinter Official Wiki - http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/
Doesn't matter anyway since it turns out they update the STO Foundry so I'm confident they'll do it in Neverwinter. This is what I get for not being a Star Trek fan - I get behind on information about a D&D game.
I for one wouldn't mind paying for spike traps, poison pits, gas clouds, flame vents, %hp based event triggers, elaborate things that would take time and add a whole new element to it.
Given the fact that players can donate AD to DMs that provide quality content, this shouldnt even be an issue.
I am reading and understanding what you are talking about I am only writing what I disagree with or what is in direct contractdiction to what was in the video. Absolutely the foundry will needs more content over time, new tilesets and what not and I don't disagree with that. While you have changed your stance in this last post your original post was for specifically monetizing UGE and that is what I was pointing out (in my first post) that in the video over and over was said to be a bad thing and that you clearly must not have listened to.
Also everything I said he said in the the video he did I went through the video and listened to it section by section. If you look at each quote I made there is something about monetization in it and monetization is addressed in each section I pointed out.
Now that you no longer are advocating monetization of UGE to fund the foundry everything else I have no problem with. It has otten far away from my original point which was you were advocating monetization of the UGE system to fund the UGE system and in the video it said it was a bad bad thing.
Looking back at my OP, I'd agree that I worded it particularly badly if that's what you took from it. But it should be obvious from everything else I've said that my problem was not with lack of monetisation as such, but the issue it causes. I used the line "However, my main concern with the system is actually its lack of monetisation", which I assume is where the confusion arose from. But I then went on in the same post to say "...the problem I see is lack of support over the long-term. Without monetisation, what motivation do the devs have to develop more content for the Foundry?" which was what my OP was actually about. What that line was intended to do was contextualise that first confusing line to make it clear that no monetisation is bad for that reason only.
Edit: The thread name is 'Foundry Tools Content' not 'Foundry Monetisation'.
I had a bit of time to look it up. It starts a little after -39:00 in the video, and really gets into the meat of the Neverwinter approach slightly before and after -38:30, its under the heading, "Support the Authors:the Neverwinter Approach." The subheadings on the slide are:
-Commit dedicated Live Team resources
-Add more editor features
-Add more assets to the libraries
Neverwinter Official Wiki - http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/
I might pay for things depending on the cost. I don't care how much money I spend, but I dislike being taken advantage of. As far as the AD thing I will have to see how it works out. I don't have much faith in people. Most people tip their waitresses like <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, I will have to see if tipping in a virtual cash source is any better