Anybody else not happy?

kaienkouken · July 2013

Anyone else besides me not happy with the amount of bugs included in the foundry editor? I have a npc that can't be deleted because it's not showing up in the editor, but it's shown in the game...And the drop down window for the visibility is behind the component property window....All these bugs are ruining the foundry experience

wuhsin · July 2013

The bugs haven't been much of a problem for me. The rating system stinks though.

zahinder · July 2013

I'm not happy, but it's mainly due to the people and overall review design.

My stuff is unpublished, I'm >< close to just deleting it all but leaving myself a little leeway in case a year down the road I feel like poking at this again.

wuhsin · July 2013

zahinder wrote: »

I'm not happy, but it's mainly due to the people and overall review design.

My stuff is unpublished, I'm >< close to just deleting it all but leaving myself a little leeway in case a year down the road I feel like poking at this again.

Sorry to hear you're also pretty discouraged Zahinder. I liked your quests, and recommended them to people.

jintortle · July 2013

I hate it when the mouse just disappears and have to close it down to get it back - really log of the PC.

Also I want Spell Check.

And my Chicken was in a room 5 rooms away from where he is suppose to be.

wuhsin · July 2013

jintortle wrote: »

I hate it when the mouse just disappears and have to close it down to get it back - really log of the PC.

Also I want Spell Check.

And my Chicken was in a room 5 rooms away from where he is suppose to be.

Try hitting CTRL + S to save when your mouse disappears.

boomba66 · July 2013

Given the amount they give you for free. I am actually pretty happy. I love telling stories, and was never quiet computer savvy enough in the first two never winter games to make the editor work. They have for the most part created a user friendly tool that you get to play with without paying a dime for the game. Sure the company gets endless content from this, but I have a ton more funs seeing my missions come together then I do actually playing.

They have some bugs to fix, but they have bugs to fix in main game and keep turning out content to make there paychecks.

Don't worry about bad reviews. Worry about what your guild mates and friends say about your missions. Even the greatest writers in the world have critics that hate their books. Sometimes it is petty people giving you a bad review on purpose other times its not.

As for the couple of glaring bugs.
1. Move your mouse slowly while moving things onto map.
2. Stuck npc? Cover them in a pillar! No one will notice they are there and you have a foundry version of Jimmy Hoffa.
3. Bad reviews. 95% of players that play will give an honest review. Worry about them not the spammers.

You can also ask other foundry authors to play your mods. It is a truly a great community that knows the hell you go through making a hour long mission for players.

kaienkouken · July 2013

boomba66 wrote: »

Given the amount they give you for free. I am actually pretty happy. I love telling stories, and was never quiet computer savvy enough in the first two never winter games to make the editor work. They have for the most part created a user friendly tool that you get to play with without paying a dime for the game. Sure the company gets endless content from this, but I have a ton more funs seeing my missions come together then I do actually playing.

They have some bugs to fix, but they have bugs to fix in main game and keep turning out content to make there paychecks.

Don't worry about bad reviews. Worry about what your guild mates and friends say about your missions. Even the greatest writers in the world have critics that hate their books. Sometimes it is petty people giving you a bad review on purpose other times its not.

As for the couple of glaring bugs.
1. Move your mouse slowly while moving things onto map.
2. Stuck npc? Cover them in a pillar! No one will notice they are there and you have a foundry version of Jimmy Hoffa.
3. Bad reviews. 95% of players that play will give an honest review. Worry about them not the spammers.

You can also ask other foundry authors to play your mods. It is a truly a great community that knows the hell you go through making a hour long mission for players.

Thanks for the idea. I'll definitely suffocate the npc with a pillar. This just helped brighten my mood a little, thanks.

zahinder · July 2013

The problem is that the system as set up starves anyone not engaged in high energy constant self-promotion.
I got one play a day, roughly, for my three missions. That is, one play of one of my three.

Missions that manage to get visibility, some of which required maybe 2 hours of work, get tens of thousands of plays.

That's... utterly disheartening.

harbingerdrum · July 2013

There is a lot to be desired to be sure, but I agree with Boomba, we got quite a bit to work with.

You can tell the inventive people when playing these quests. My first had a lot of cut and paste initially. As I gained experience I tried to make this go away and give people something NEW to look at.

It could be easier, but then again, how many things that really interest you can (or should) be easy.
Save the easy for watching TV (I still own one but for the life of me I do not know why).

chili1179 · July 2013

The foundry is leaps and bounds better than it was several months ago. Imagine editing without the 3d editor. While I agree it still has its fair share of bugs and that it seems to be at the bottom of the priority list for fixes and content it could be worse.

Trust me, no one wants fixes and asset additions more than I do, but the only choice we have is to wait until they get around to it and since there is no monetary gains to be had as an incentive, its not going to be top of the todo list. (this is just my opinion of course /wink @ Zeb)

voxx75 · July 2013

boomba66 wrote: »

Given the amount they give you for free. I am actually pretty happy. I love telling stories, and was never quiet computer savvy enough in the first two never winter games to make the editor work. They have for the most part created a user friendly tool that you get to play with without paying a dime for the game. Sure the company gets endless content from this, but I have a ton more funs seeing my missions come together then I do actually playing.

They have some bugs to fix, but they have bugs to fix in main game and keep turning out content to make there paychecks.

Don't worry about bad reviews. Worry about what your guild mates and friends say about your missions. Even the greatest writers in the world have critics that hate their books. Sometimes it is petty people giving you a bad review on purpose other times its not.

As for the couple of glaring bugs.
1. Move your mouse slowly while moving things onto map.
2. Stuck npc? Cover them in a pillar! No one will notice they are there and you have a foundry version of Jimmy Hoffa.
3. Bad reviews. 95% of players that play will give an honest review. Worry about them not the spammers.

You can also ask other foundry authors to play your mods. It is a truly a great community that knows the hell you go through making a hour long mission for players.

Great attitude! And Gods forbid I ever try to make an hour-long quest. The little 15 minute dungeon spanks I've done so far have taken weeks of work!

wuhsin · July 2013

zahinder wrote: »

The problem is that the system as set up starves anyone not engaged in high energy constant self-promotion.
I got one play a day, roughly, for my three missions. That is, one play of one of my three.

Missions that manage to get visibility, some of which required maybe 2 hours of work, get tens of thousands of plays.

That's... utterly disheartening.

I was engaged in high energy constant self-promotion for a couple of months. But any progress I made on my adjusted rating got taken away by a very tiny minority of bad reviewers. Now I'm in the same boat as you, getting one or two plays a day if I don't beg on here. Sure, I got lots of plays, but no recognition. Never got featured or spotlighted, despite the fact I reviewed quests and answered questions for other authors so vigorously for so long on here. Never made the Best list thinks to the fact troll ratings count two or three times more against your rating than stellar ones. If a five star rating only had the same impact on your adjusted rating as a three star one, I would have made the Best list forever ago, and be blissfully working on my next project now.

crok2 · July 2013

Delete the NPC from the component tree.

dzogen · July 2013

I never had an issue with the editor

A few minor things but whatever

main issues for me are gelatinous cubes and decent endgame rewards

neverwinter1776 · July 2013

The Object inspector pop up bug (drop down menus) seem to be due to the number of details/patrol points you have. 2D editor crapped out on me at 1425.
It still works, you can use your keyboard to scroll through the choices, but agreed, a PITA.

It's far from perfect (<-- see the pun there), but hey it's something.

NW1776

I have still YET to publish a complete quest and dread that voyage ........

nyghoma · July 2013

zahinder wrote: »

I'm not happy, but it's mainly due to the people and overall review design.

My stuff is unpublished, I'm >< close to just deleting it all but leaving myself a little leeway in case a year down the road I feel like poking at this again.

^^ this.

I just took all my quests down too. In another week I'll probably delete them. The whole system is pointless.

boomba66 · July 2013

nyghoma wrote: »

^^ this.

I just took all my quests down too. In another week I'll probably delete them. The whole system is pointless.

The point is creating. If even three people play and love it and you entertained them that's the point. I know I was going to play your temple of Lloth because what other authors have said about it. If you create you don't do so based on what others say about it. Sorry if you delete your content before I have a chance to play it I was looking forward to seeing it.

Sloane Hardtower
Forever Paladin of Tyr

zahinder · July 2013

People have different drives. If I'm developing for my own amusement or for a few friends... I wouldn't bother publishing/showing my work (in whatever art we're talking about).

If I AM displaying it publicly, it's because, for whatever reason, I want an audience.

That doesn't mean I'm necessarily a popularity hound, or want nothing but self-aggrandizement, or so on. In my case? I want to share cool ideas with as many compatible people as possible, to make a bunch of people go 'oh hey, that's cool/neat/endearing,' and so on.

And the thing is, doing Foundry quests well requires a HUGE amount of work. Work I could be spending doing... anything else, like writing, painting, music... etc.

At this point, I keep going 'you know, I really should put this energy into writing something.'

(Granted, publishing requires as much or more hunting down, but once it's published, _I_ don't have to run around trying to keep putting copies in people's hands)

wuhsin · July 2013

zahinder wrote: »

And the thing is, doing Foundry quests well requires a HUGE amount of work. Work I could be spending doing... anything else, like writing, painting, music... etc.

This. People as a whole aren't appreciating the personal sacrifices we've made to produce their content. They come into our quests with this entitled attitude. They down-vote us because they're too cheap to afford potions, or because the quest description didn't say they'd have to use potions.. Or because the loot wasn't good. Stupid HAMSTER like that. Then they justify it as "helping other players" somehow, and berate us when we get upset about it. I reckon all artists are supposed to just beg in the streets and get spit on by society until they die, so that people can swoop in, steal all their work like vultures, and sell it for outrageous amounts of money that the poor artist never got to see.

wuhsin · July 2013

nyghoma wrote: »

I just took all my quests down too. In another week I'll probably delete them. The whole system is pointless.

I'm seriously tempted to follow your and Zahinder's example.

voxx75 · July 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

This. People as a whole aren't appreciating the personal sacrifices we've made to produce their content. They come into our quests with this entitled attitude. They down-vote us because they're too cheap to afford potions, or because the quest description didn't say they'd have to use potions.. Or because the loot wasn't good. Stupid HAMSTER like that. Then they justify it as "helping other players" somehow, and berate us when we get upset about it. I reckon all artists are supposed to just beg in the streets and get spit on by society until they die, so that people can swoop in, steal all their work like vultures, and sell it for outrageous amounts of money that the poor artist never got to see.

Wow, seriously? My advice is go audition for American Idol or something, because making quests in a F2P video game is never going to give you the constant adulation that you apparently require.

zahinder · July 2013

You know, it may seem strange, but... I think some of us unhappy folks should read:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/10-things-most-americans-dont-know-about-america/

You might not be from the US, but...

I think I'm going to republish my quests. Maybe it's finally getting enough sleep (I have kids, and, thus, chronically fatigued).

redneckronin · July 2013

I genuinely hope no one takes down their content. If you are wanting plays the one way to guarantee you won't get any is to withdraw your content - which in effect turns your concerns in to a self-fulfilling prophecy (which, of course, may be the point in withdrawing them).

Yes, the review system is somewhat broken, as is the search function.

Zah has mentioned, numerous times, that s/he feels aggrieved that "2 hours worth of work hack-n-slash" quests have more plays than the Fenwick Cycle. Well, yes they do - but so do things like Bonderleaf's, and that was hours and hour and hours of work.

The real issue here is not the review/rating/search system at all.

The real issue is how we choose to react to that system.

As authors we have a choice - let it beat us, or suck it up and beat it back.

It is also about our expectations as Authors.

How many plays is a "good" number of plays?

What's the return on hours invested?

We need to look at what is realistic.

The one thing I do need to address though is this:

wuhsin wrote: »

I was engaged in high energy constant self-promotion for a couple of months. But any progress I made on my adjusted rating got taken away by a very tiny minority of bad reviewers.

They weren't necessarily "bad reviewers".

They may have been, form your narrow point of view, bad reviews, that is not the same as bad reviewers.

Bad reviews can be a result of "bad content" as much as of "bad reviewers".

And "bad content" is a purely subjective thing - just because you or I may think it is good that doesn't mean someone else can't think it is bad.

As Authors we really need to get over this idea that we entitled to glowing 4+ Star reviews; we aren't, ever.

A 3 Star review isn't really a negative review, its the "meh it was OK but not brilliant, could be improved" mark.

This part is aimed towards PWE/Cryptic.

Now Troll-reviews are a very different thing, and PWE/Cryptic you really, really need to get a handle on dealing with this ASAP.

Many of the game-review sites state quite unequivocally that it is the Foundry that will be the driving force for the long-term prospects of this game. Well, it won't if all the Authors quit because PWE/Cryptic do nothing to support them. Barely 3 months in to the game and we are already at the point where some of the most gifted Authors in the Foundry system are talking about pulling their content, maybe even deleting it.

Look through this thread, and others like it. Nyghoma, Wuhsin, Zahinder, Mrthebozer - all mentioned they have considered or have actually pulled their content, some even indicating they are ready to delete it.

PWE/Cryptic you really do need to wake up and smell the coffee. Look at the four names I have just mentioned. Look long and hard.

The Foundry Community simply can not afford to lose Authors of this calibre.

And the Game isn't good enough to stand without a strong, productive, committed and - above all - respected Foundry Community.

You need to offer us some safeguards, some protection, because without it there won't be enough of us here to help keep this game interesting for players in the "end-game stalls" between your released content.

All The Best

zahinder · July 2013

I'd happily have 1000 1 star reviews if they were honest. Because people would be playing.

boomba66 · July 2013

zahinder wrote: »

I'd happily have 1000 1 star reviews if they were honest. Because people would be playing.

True True.

We would all get more plays if PW supported our content with the same methods they support there own. Good loot. You do realize roughly half the reviews that where bad in the beginning for foundry was because the loot. If they would add Foundry Coins. Ways for people to acquire top quality gear, say what you will but character strength progression is part of all game play in the RPG Universe.

If you got two foundry coins per 15 minute average foundry played per day.(those with no hidden short cuts) allowed for only one run a day or a cycle(week) to receive coins you would then encourage people playing all the content.

cipher9nemo · July 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

This. People as a whole aren't appreciating the personal sacrifices we've made to produce their content. They come into our quests with this entitled attitude.

Welcome to knowing what it's like to be a game developer.

Or any software developer for that matter (I'm a web and Windows app developer at my workplace).

wuhsin wrote: »

They down-vote us because they're too cheap to afford potions, or because the quest description didn't say they'd have to use potions.. Or because the loot wasn't good. Stupid HAMSTER like that. Then they justify it as "helping other players" somehow, and berate us when we get upset about it. I reckon all artists are supposed to just beg in the streets and get spit on by society until they die, so that people can swoop in, steal all their work like vultures, and sell it for outrageous amounts of money that the poor artist never got to see.

I wouldn't go that far. True, some reviewers are completely naive (ie: complaining about poor chest drops, complaining of no other chests of resource nodes, etc.). But we've seen the majority of one star votes as anonymous by most likely other jealous authors. So the blame is not all to place upon the gamer, but partially upon ourselves too as an authoring community.

As for me, my quest will take forever to progress with ratings and reviews, regardless of what those reviews are. Partly because it's a niche market (jumping puzzle), but mostly because it's a 3-4 hour quest. The other blade of that double edged sword is that it scares away the 1-star anonymous trolling. They'd have to really have some sort of personal vendetta with me to endure my quest just for a 1-star troll rating.

So our options with the current rating system range from quick, popular quest with 1-star trolling when it gets "too popular" to long, difficult quests that gets reviews slower than molasses in winter. And I'm trying the molasses route.

chili1179 · July 2013

redneckronin wrote: »

I genuinely hope no one takes down their content. If you are wanting plays the one way to guarantee you won't get any is to withdraw your content - which in effect turns your concerns in to a self-fulfilling prophecy (which, of course, may be the point in withdrawing them).

Yes, the review system is somewhat broken, as is the search function.

Zah has mentioned, numerous times, that s/he feels aggrieved that "2 hours worth of work hack-n-slash" quests have more plays than the Fenwick Cycle. Well, yes they do - but so do things like Bonderleaf's, and that was hours and hour and hours of work.

The real issue here is not the review/rating/search system at all.

The real issue is how we choose to react to that system.

As authors we have a choice - let it beat us, or suck it up and beat it back.

It is also about our expectations as Authors.

How many plays is a "good" number of plays?

What's the return on hours invested?

We need to look at what is realistic.

The one thing I do need to address though is this:

They weren't necessarily "bad reviewers".

They may have been, form your narrow point of view, bad reviews, that is not the same as bad reviewers.

Bad reviews can be a result of "bad content" as much as of "bad reviewers".

And "bad content" is a purely subjective thing - just because you or I may think it is good that doesn't mean someone else can't think it is bad.

As Authors we really need to get over this idea that we entitled to glowing 4+ Star reviews; we aren't, ever.

A 3 Star review isn't really a negative review, its the "meh it was OK but not brilliant, could be improved" mark.

This part is aimed towards PWE/Cryptic.

Now Troll-reviews are a very different thing, and PWE/Cryptic you really, really need to get a handle on dealing with this ASAP.

Many of the game-review sites state quite unequivocally that it is the Foundry that will be the driving force for the long-term prospects of this game. Well, it won't if all the Authors quit because PWE/Cryptic do nothing to support them. Barely 3 months in to the game and we are already at the point where some of the most gifted Authors in the Foundry system are talking about pulling their content, maybe even deleting it.

Look through this thread, and others like it. Nyghoma, Wuhsin, Zahinder, Mrthebozer - all mentioned they have considered or have actually pulled their content, some even indicating they are ready to delete it.

PWE/Cryptic you really do need to wake up and smell the coffee. Look at the four names I have just mentioned. Look long and hard.

The Foundry Community simply can not afford to lose Authors of this calibre.

And the Game isn't good enough to stand without a strong, productive, committed and - above all - respected Foundry Community.

You need to offer us some safeguards, some protection, because without it there won't be enough of us here to help keep this game interesting for players in the "end-game stalls" between your released content.

All The Best

This is the best post in this thread. The only thing I sort of disagree with is the 3 star comment, 3 stars is average and anything above it is above average and anything below is of course below average. I have had plenty of 3 stars where the review raves about how much they enjoyed the quest and that is acceptable to me.

5 stars that I get I feel just as inclined to feel they are trolling as much as a 1 star, because not all 5 stars are not a thought out response to how the player felt about the quest or their enjoyment of it. Some people hit the 5 stars just as one would the 1 star rating with 0 thought put into it IMO. Naturally these aren't trolls, they're just people hurrying through the review page so they can move on.

I personally feel my quests are 4 star average at best, with exception of one which I feel is my best work to date and one which I feel was not that great (3 stars at best).

Keeping myself within these realms of reality makes me very happy to have a quest average above 4 stars. I'll take it!

I'm not trying to make the best quests out there, I'm just trying to tell a story that I hope people enjoy and can get into and I feel like I have accomplished that so far.

belladan · July 2013

I used to play a number of the longer Foundries, but I no longer have as much time to do it, in addition to having classes I don't want to play, the re-play value of making more GWF's is less then appealing.

Currently, when I do grab a foundry, I choose based on story/uniqueness in addition to having lots of mobs to kill. Not for the xp, but for the scroll/enchantment drops.

One of the flaws with foundries is that it's a waste of time to do them when you are queuing up for dungeons. Most of them reset automatically, unlike other zones/quests. So a 30+ minute foundry, I could try to do 10 times and never end up completing it.

The other one is obvious. There are no tiered versions of foundry, which allow you to truly promote a dungeon experience. Even with a crappy queue, that would be most awesome, having approved stories with meh to reasonable gear that could have a selection of custom gear via the weaponsmithing system. Hopefully, having the abitity to make a loot list. (say.. t0.9 gear for lvl 60 foundries.)

And the scaling for adding additional members to your party to do a foundry together can suck horribly. ^_^

beckylunatic · July 2013

One thing that I wouldn't mind seeing as a player would be the ability to see more reviews than just the most recent 3 or whatever it caps at. Because if I see several 1-star reviews that just say "lolz" or whatever, I certainly know not to take them seriously, but it cuts into my ability to form an educated guess as to whether I'm going to enjoy the quest or not. I don't really go by star rating all that much, and put enormous weight on the polish and detail of your overview page, so those are things to pay attention to in order to attract players like me. A thoughtful review may tip me one way or the other, depending what it says.

karitr · July 2013

beckylunatic wrote: »

One thing that I wouldn't mind seeing as a player would be the ability to see more reviews than just the most recent 3 or whatever it caps at. Because if I see several 1-star reviews that just say "lolz" or whatever, I certainly know not to take them seriously, but it cuts into my ability to form an educated guess as to whether I'm going to enjoy the quest or not. I don't really go by star rating all that much, and put enormous weight on the polish and detail of your overview page, so those are things to pay attention to in order to attract players like me. A thoughtful review may tip me one way or the other, depending what it says.

I'm sure you probably know this but I will mention it just in case. If you use the vertical scroll bar in combo with the 'More reviews' button you can scroll through every review page attached to that quest and read every reviewer comment it has ever received.

*wishful thinking mode on*...now, if they would only apply that same function to the actual catalogue of quests.

Anybody else not happy?

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