Foundry Editing Status - Back Online!

dezstravus · July 2013

Hey All,

Foundry Editing is currently offline due to an issue with the server that the team is currently troubleshooting.

Our engineers are looking into this around the clock so that we can enable it again ASAP. At this time we do not have an ETA regarding when it will be available, but plan to continue investigating until a reliable solution is found.

Thank you for your patience while we work on this issue. We will keep you in the loop regarding progress!

Update: we're still working on getting Foundry editing back up, and are making great progress! Thanks for your patience!

Update: Foundry editing is back online! Thanks again!

eldarth · July 2013

dezstravus wrote: »

...an issue with the server...

Could you be any more vague? Networking issue? Database issue? Somebody put a wedge of cheese on top and it melted into the system?

...and there is no fallback/backup/failsafe server that could be brought up?

Or maybe the Foundry server code itself could just write garbage all over peoples quests and destroy all their existing work? ...and even then -- no rollback to a prior version???

dezstravus wrote: »

We will keep you in the loop regarding progress!

So...once, every 24 hours we'll get a vague "it's still offline?"

sarkany69 · July 2013

It's about time we heard something about this, some of us have been waiting for nearly 24 hours for any sort of news. Even a little note once in a while would have gone a long way to easing some of our minds rather than leaving us completely in the dark...

Please see the following thread: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?395041-Foundry-down/page15

redneckronin · July 2013

dezstravus wrote: »

Hey All,

Foundry Editing is currently offline due to an issue with the server that the team is currently troubleshooting.

What issue?

Telling us half of nothing is almost worse than telling us nothing, its patronising.

It worked fine, for a few hours after Tuesday's "update".

So what broke?

Is it the same thing that breaks every other week when the Foundry goes down?

If so why hasn't a permanent fix been found?

No point thanking us for our patience - you exhausted that the last time there was a 4 day outage with no communication and no explanation.

The only thing keeping most of us Authors here is this is the "only game in town" if any other MMO had something akin to the Foundry we'd be there, not here.

You know that, and are taking advantage of it.

All The Best

zlainfurry · July 2013

3 Days now without the Foundry, 4 day downtime a couple weeks ago, Countless smaller outages between, and NEVER are we given any sort of information regarding it.

faxonlighthawk · July 2013

Once you guys realize it is us, the consumer, and not you, who are most important to the business it's doomed to fail to meet expectations. Poor communication is a classic example of bad business. Maybe it's your arrogance, or ignorance, that fuels your business philosophy, but you need to put that aside and keep your customers well informed. Or, once other games come out that provide similar content/ideas as Neverwinter but treat their customers better, we will jump ship. Also, with all the recurring problems and poor communication and lackluster answers, there should be some compensation.

nimmanu · July 2013

Hi Des,

I would like to point out that what you have posted feels to the Foundry Authoring community like very little, very late. I know that may not be your personal fault, so please don't take this as aimed at you. In point of fact, it's aimed at whomever is making the communication choice with regards to communication withe Foundry Authoring community.

Or perhaps there isn't a Foundry Authoring Liason. If this is the case, then someone needs to be appointed as such. Someone as simple as a clerk can do this.

In the gaming industry, you can't take your cues from other industries. Banks and the like have a different function and aren't as intimately linked to their customer base. There aren't forums for the bank that people run to en masse and ask about outages. Etc. and et. al.

My point here is that, we do appreciate an update. On the other hand, if you had someone willing to step up to the plate and say, "Hey, we know there's a problem. The guy who's in charge of figuring this out is on vacation. We've called him and he isn't answering the phone. Please stand by." Something more. Something that says, "We hear you, and we care." Then this would leave Foundry Authoring community feeling like it does matter to the company.

We are doing part of the work here. Many of us put in daily hours almost as long as a "real life" job that people get paid for. In return, we are asking that we be treated with the courtesy of acknowledgement. This may be work that we enjoy, but make no mistake. We are dealing with a system that is often frustrating, that is very, very slow, and that can be discouraging and difficult at times. So it's also work-work at times. We grind through it, yes.

But the point I want to make to you is that we contribute to your game in a very real, very concrete way. As it stands now, as a community most of us feel like we are paying to play (time is money!!) and yet at the same time being treated as if we are without value. You put our quests up on a board for players and use them to maintain your paying customer base.

For that, all we ask in return (as we use a buggy system and put up with delays and blackouts), is that you communicate more with us. We appreciate Zebular very much for taking his time to speak to us. But we would ask that whomever is in charge over there take his or her time to speak with Zebular, or someone, and let them speak to us. Pick a voice.

This simple courtesy, so small and simple to implement, would make light-years of difference.

I know that sometimes, when you talk with your fans, you have to step back and say, "I'm sorry, this conversation must be over now." But pick someone with the courage to do that when it becomes necessary.

Even if there are closed posts only able to be posted to by the moderator, at least you'll be involved with us. UGC is the wave of the future. Your company stands on the precipice of leading the way... or standing up as a shining example of what never to do. One thing never to do is to be silent when the Foundry first goes down.

SAY you know. SAY you are looking into it. SAY it's a priority.

Only words? For you it may be so. But for a community of devoted fans, it's acknowledgement!!

mezrella · July 2013

I really don't want to get in the middle of this.... But... If you have a look at their ( PWE) job opening you would see they are hiring for .. well.... just about everything. So their lack of communication could very well be related to lack of personnel. It could also contribute to longer than normal outages. Just some food for thought.

PS. PWE I need a job

BFA in animation and visual effects, emphasis in game design, 5+ years of experience as a tester, but I live in Australia….

savaikun · July 2013

I'm sure they're just taking all the precautionary steps necessary to avoid data loss as Rob Overmeyer had already mentioned with MMORPGs latest interview. So take your time guys, do whats necessary to keep things from being lost and keep up the good work.

zaodun · July 2013

I would not expect them to give us details about the issue, no company does that.

As a software development manager myself, I don't want my customers proposing what they think are "solutions" to a problem they mostly can't even comprehend, and even those with experience can't know the cause of without having system-level access and knowledge of the code base and production environment set up.

Not that I am defending these long downtimes, but its just stupid to ask for details on the issue. What I will criticize them about, is that they have no ETA. Even if they don't know the ETA for when it will be back online completely, they could give an ETA on when they think they will have a solution formulated. Like, "We think we will have the problem diagnosed in another 3-4 hours of investigation." That doesn't mean the foundry will be online in 3-4 hrs, it just means you are time-framing how long until your team would have figured out the root cause. Or, if you already know the root cause and don't have a viable solution and are trying several things, then say that "We don't have a firm solution to the problem yet, and are trying several methods to solve it. This may take between 1/2 day to a full day to investigate, and even then, none of those may work." That gives something. Right now, you're giving nothing.

jadetora · July 2013

"Foundry is so great," everyone tells us. We really wouldn't seeing as IT'S NEVER F@#KING UP.

nimmanu · July 2013

I'm not asking for details, just some communication. Acknowledgement that they know there's a problem, and they're working on a solution.

As someone else said somewhere else, even so much as "The hampsters got out, and we need to round them up and stick them back in and figure out what they chewed through" is something that says, "we see you."

I like the Avatar (movie) line, "I see you". I think what we're looking for is just that... someone at the company to so much as say, "I see you" in some way, shape, or form. From the start, not a day later. That something is underway to fix the problem.

Again, just words? Sure. But important words.

faxonlighthawk · July 2013

They say they are working on it ASAP

Then, it's down for long periods of time.

We get no update (don't need to know details, just something to let us know they are working on it)

This leads us to believe they are not working on it. Where is the proof?

Then we criticize their conduct, with merit, and we get moderated.

Sounds divine.

faxonlighthawk · July 2013

Also they don't allow their customers to voice their opinion and hide behind petty excuses like back talking gives off a very professional image.

I'm beginning to think "constructive criticism" to them is, "be nice to us". Whenever we say something meaningful, it gets moderated. Why I think this? Nothing has changed. They know best how to handle customer relations. They will continue to say meaningless stuff like, "We are working on it ASAP" and provide us proof of this by leaving us uninformed and in the dark.

I'm gonna say some stuff that will probably get moderated, but I don't care. This is the worst experience I had as a customer trying to seek answers/explanations through a customer service avenue. It will get moderated because it's back talking, but it is sincere.

Perhaps they would not receive so much venom if they would just listen and keep us up to date. We are not looking for detailed explanations (most of us can't solve the problem), just something to let us know you are "working on it ASAP". Because when you say you "are working on it ASAP" that could mean anything. Especially if you don't provide us with proof that you are "working on it ASAP." To us, based on what you have given us, "working on it ASAP" is just a facade.

faxonlighthawk · July 2013

Say something like...

"We are working on the foundry ASAP, but are priorities and resources are spent working on this or that. Once that is finished, we will work on the foundry. We expect to give our attention to the foundry by this date."

Don't make it by that date?

"We apologize for not getting to the foundry by this date. We are working as hard as we can. This or that has taken longer than expected. We should be able to work on the foundry by this date and the expected downtime is this."

Something like that.

redneckronin · July 2013

The reason I asked for details, is so in a week's time when the Foundry goes down again they can't use the same excuses, because "excuse A" was fixed this week.

It's called "eliminating the lies to get to the truth"; because even if they gave us details it wouldn't be the truth, but if they give details they'll soon get caught in their web of lies and have no option but to tell us the truth.

And if there is one thing I value more than anything else in someone providing me with a service, or even when I am at work on the other side of the customer service desk, it is honesty/truth.

Dishonesty and lies don't help fix things.

Only honesty and truth do that.

All The Best

lolsorhand · July 2013

Best of luck to you all.

casekuk · July 2013

And there it is...

More will follow.

narayansingh · July 2013

Anyone want to start a lottery... Will the foundry be back before Monday?

sarkany69 · July 2013

casekuk wrote: »

And there it is...

More will follow.

Who's to say how many have already left without announcing it. To be honest, I don't blame them. I'm only sticking around since I have a few other friends that play the game.

vrtesseract · July 2013

Maybe they are Improving the foundry or something crazy like that, fixing some bugs, adding things and they just need to remove editing to work on server side things. Maybe they are trying to make it less linier so you can visit maps out of order I could see how that could kind of screw up editing for a while.

Yes it would be nice to have more communication. but that is kind of the PWE weakness. Most the things they comment on ONLY when ready to release it in pre written press releases. Foundry is a semi unique entity among MMOs now that city of heroes is gone you don't have foundry in WOW or GW2 its a somewhat new and complicated system.

I am hoping it goes well here so Maybe just maybe they add a small foundry-like entity to Champions online. Champions have pretty much got lock boxes and temp missions in the last few months, and some vehicle aka mount and costume part re-skins.

hogriderbill · July 2013

so ive been getting the Foundry editing not allowed and i sent a message to pwe and this is what i got back

Hello

Thank you for contacting support, we apologize for the inconvenience. As the foundry may be closed at certain times we suggest that you check the times at which the foundry may be available to players. These times may be available on our forums. If you have any other questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us!

Perfect World Support
Check out our latest game, Neverwinter!

so when is the foundry up and running then? cause the last 3 days have been like this and i havent edited in 2 weeks so was it down that whole time?

threston · July 2013

i've never seen a reply have the word 'may' in it so many times.

hogriderbill · July 2013

threston wrote: »

i've never seen a reply have the word 'may' in it so many times.

lol its not the end of the world for me if i cant use it TBH i was gonna start another account to see if it wasnt just my account

essenti · July 2013

Edit: mild rant withdrawn... Moderators can be funny people too... Thank you, Zebular.

vrtesseract · July 2013

My hopes is the reason the foundry is down is that they are making some interface improvements, or fixing bugs with it.so instead of this becoming yet another thread complaining about foundry being down how would like foundry improved and why and watch as soon as we start having fun with this the foundry will be up and no one will see our ideas..

Id love to see the foundry editable in game, or from gateway(at least the drag n drop parts)

Id like to be able to decorate a room in 3d mode. rather than just move/rotate things.

id love if theyd make foundry quests less linier so if you say have 4 rooms and the quest goes Entrance -> main house -> basement ->main house->garden-> house->end and say the quest is finding some things

it be nice if the player can go from house to basement at will looking for the items without it being a brand new spawn of house and basement each and every time they have to take out all the monsters... or possibly not be able to get back into basement if they find they forgot to click a optional glowy. this way you can go from entrance to House to garden OR basement to house multiple times in the order that the player prefers. this sort of location based questing would allow a much greater option for those of us who like multiple ending or less lead by the nose questing.

Id like Guild/Home foundries that allow more than 5 people in at once so that people can make guildhalls. and homes.(maybe limit the numbers of rooms/monster spawns ect. for these as they would be more meeting areas than questing hubs. and also not count as daily foundry.

antonkyle · July 2013

'In 20 minutes @grakulen is interviewing Lead Producer Andy Velasquez @NeverwinterGame on http://mmorpg.com/streams.cfm'

from twitter

So, I thought I'd catch a bit of this and there was a question about when the foundry will be back. He said, they will be testing the fix this afternoon and if things go well they will try and get it up as soon as possible after that.

It's not much but I thought I'd share it with you.

Edit: and have since posted:

Update: we're still working on getting Foundry editing back up, and are making great progress! Thanks for your patience!

zebular · July 2013

Well met everyone,

. . . . . I just would like to echo the recent update so it isn't unnoticed following a thread merger. Also, thanks everyone for your continued patience and constructive feedback and constructive criticisms. They are valued - as is the civility in which they are given!

Safe Travels,
~Zeb

Sominator's Update wrote:

Update: we're still working on getting Foundry editing back up, and are making great progress! Thanks for your patience!

Mod Note: Thanks essenti! I'll place a redirect link there. This thread will become unavailable for a moment while I do this.
Mod Note: The Foundry now has a redirect link stickied, thread available again. Thanks again!

fallensbane · July 2013

I am guesstimating that the foundry has been down for what... 9-13 days or so of unscheduled down time since 'oft launch'. I am honestly at the point where I assume your foundry people really have no idea what happens each time and you just keep throwing different things at it till it works.

What I do know is if a dungeon or end game instance went down you would have that back up super fast and be updating us every 30 minutes. Nothing against Cryptic specifically, but in general if the vast majority of the community are not using a feature it tends to sit broken for a lot longer, which is a really horrid way to run a game.

I really just hope more MMO's start adding in a UGC system into their design plans, one that is actually stable and gets proper support and additions to it.

Once the foundry is back up we should start an AD pool on when the foundry will go down again, could be fun.

eldarth · July 2013

I would just be really happy if they said something like Rob mentioned in the Foundry interview, that apparently the last 4(?) day downtime was a tough choice because they didn't want to lose any content created. This sounds like there is some sort of fundamental problem within the Foundry server that precludes them from "rolling back" to the previous version. When you have something that is online, you have a fallback or rollback plan when an update fails. If it fails, you rollback and restart. Downtime 30 minutes. THIS multi-day fiasco with ZERO information is ridiculous. We don't want gory details so we can back-seat debug - but at least SOME idea of area and scope would soothe a LOT of people I think.

dzogen · July 2013

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Foundry Editing Status - Back Online!

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