My main problem with this 15 minute restriction is that it is impossible to figure out how long the quests are going to be when you're creating them.
I decided to try and make a 15 minute dungeon crawl. I made it - I hit my budget cap! Which is mostly monsters, as my goal was a 15 minute hack and slash. It takes me 30-40 minutes to run it in the editor tester, so I thought, whew, safe. I did it.
I published, and my live character ran through it in 6 minutes because of the vast difference in live gear vs. quest editor character gear. I struggled in the editor, having to use many many health pots - once it went live I just sailed through it.
What do I learn from this? Testing my adventures before publishing is nearly pointless. I should just speed run through it in the tester to make sure everything visually looks ok and there are no environment holes, using GM mode to kill all the monsters, because there's no way for me to accurately assess difficulty. I can't balance difficulty and time before I publish it and have people play it on real characters. That is a serious problem.
Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what constitutes a length of time. What contributes to the length appraisals. What or who is dictating the lengths of doing various actions or steps in a quest? etc etc.
For my quest I know it takes longer than 15 mins to run through it, only because I have run through it myself many times. But in the foundry it is saying that it is only 3 mins...
Ridiculous calculations!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Website Dedicated to Foundry Tutorials: www.NWUGC.com Twitter: @NWUGC
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xphilerMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, SilverstarsPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
This issue is very tricky. I understand the need for it but I think its locking out a lot of good content. I mean the same few quests that apply for the daily got 1000s of plays while there is a ton of quests that have 0 play throughs. Technically you just need 5 plays to qualify provided your quest is long enough but getting those 5 plays is not that easy. My quests for example have been online since first day of head start both my 2 quests only have 2 plays each.
And forgetting my stuff cause well I am biased there I guess, I have been specifically playing quests that have 0 plays by other authors to try to help out those authors get into the daily reward zone and I played a couple of quests that are very very good. They had 0 plays. On the other hand some quests that qualify for the reward and have 1000s of play troughs are kinda bad. People are missing out on some good content just because it doesnt have the little green tag. Its a pity in my opinion.
Maybe there can be a middle road. How about something like keeping the current system but put in place a review system where if approved reviewers play your quest and find out its a genuine quest not something to cheat your way to XP, loot or easy daily you get the tag even without the 5 plays? that might solve the issue.
I am aware there is a review tab already, perhaps this is the idea behind that and its just been working on. I hope so cause that would help imho.
One simple step that should be taken is to add another series of achievements under Foundry Community that you get for being among the first 5 players to review a quest. This would help tremendously, particularly since Foundry authors have to get as many of these achievements as possible to increase their Foundry Author rank.
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zovyaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
One simple step that should be taken is to add another series of achievements under Foundry Community that you get for being among the first 5 players to review a quest. This would help tremendously, particularly since Foundry authors have to get as many of these achievements as possible to increase their Foundry Author rank.
Agreed! Maybe even bump that to the first 20 reviews.
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borysthenisMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 1Arc User
One simple step that should be taken is to add another series of achievements under Foundry Community that you get for being among the first 5 players to review a quest. This would help tremendously, particularly since Foundry authors have to get as many of these achievements as possible to increase their Foundry Author rank.
That is a brilliant, brilliant idea.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"I had the ambition to not only go farther than man had gone before,
but to go as far as it was possible to go"
--Captain James Cook
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salimusMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 7Arc User
edited May 2013
This was the same issue in City of Heroes (rest in peace). At the end (8 years), there was a rediculous amount of content you couldn't weigh through. It came down to litterally a top 10 list for grinding alts. Some players followed new content but like any "game marketing concept", you need a means and method to get your game out through sponsorship (through AD Zen etc for premier posting). Otherwise, you build content for the masses and like it or not, they are fickle. I was the Senior Editor for Everlore.com an EverQuest community, one of the first gaming websites for MMORPGs. Sifting through the thousands of critical, short sighted, trolling was a part of the job description and will never change when it comes to UGC feedback. Content creation is an art and theres always skeptics.
I accidentally discovered yesterday that there actually IS a series of achievements for playing new Foundry quests. They are called Beta Quests in the interface, so it can be confusing. Just go to the Need Review tab in the quest browser and play quests from there, and you'll gain the first step of this achievement. You won't be able to see it until that.
This is part of the Foundry Community category, which I desperately needed more achievements in. This makes it very welcome indeed.
I haven't looked at the interface too much in the game, but can you search for specific Foundry Quests? (by name or author or whatever)
Yes, by title, summary, author, and shortcode. Also by duration and language. However it isnt working properly for quests that have been published or republished within the last few days. Only searching by shortcode works for those.
Comments
I decided to try and make a 15 minute dungeon crawl. I made it - I hit my budget cap! Which is mostly monsters, as my goal was a 15 minute hack and slash. It takes me 30-40 minutes to run it in the editor tester, so I thought, whew, safe. I did it.
I published, and my live character ran through it in 6 minutes because of the vast difference in live gear vs. quest editor character gear. I struggled in the editor, having to use many many health pots - once it went live I just sailed through it.
What do I learn from this? Testing my adventures before publishing is nearly pointless. I should just speed run through it in the tester to make sure everything visually looks ok and there are no environment holes, using GM mode to kill all the monsters, because there's no way for me to accurately assess difficulty. I can't balance difficulty and time before I publish it and have people play it on real characters. That is a serious problem.
For my quest I know it takes longer than 15 mins to run through it, only because I have run through it myself many times. But in the foundry it is saying that it is only 3 mins...
Ridiculous calculations!
Website Dedicated to Foundry Tutorials: www.NWUGC.com Twitter: @NWUGC
Gold or Bones!!
And forgetting my stuff cause well I am biased there I guess, I have been specifically playing quests that have 0 plays by other authors to try to help out those authors get into the daily reward zone and I played a couple of quests that are very very good. They had 0 plays. On the other hand some quests that qualify for the reward and have 1000s of play troughs are kinda bad. People are missing out on some good content just because it doesnt have the little green tag. Its a pity in my opinion.
Maybe there can be a middle road. How about something like keeping the current system but put in place a review system where if approved reviewers play your quest and find out its a genuine quest not something to cheat your way to XP, loot or easy daily you get the tag even without the 5 plays? that might solve the issue.
I am aware there is a review tab already, perhaps this is the idea behind that and its just been working on. I hope so cause that would help imho.
Agreed! Maybe even bump that to the first 20 reviews.
That is a brilliant, brilliant idea.
"I had the ambition to not only go farther than man had gone before,
but to go as far as it was possible to go"
--Captain James Cook
60 Control Wizard
<EXILE>
Dragon Server
This is part of the Foundry Community category, which I desperately needed more achievements in. This makes it very welcome indeed.
First 20 for sure and perhaps a token amount of AD as well.
Dreamscapes Campaign
I. Darkly Dreaming / NW-DPSH505XY +Daily Foundry!!
II. Shattered Dreams / NW-DGARDHDR7
Yes, by title, summary, author, and shortcode. Also by duration and language. However it isnt working properly for quests that have been published or republished within the last few days. Only searching by shortcode works for those.