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Is the foundry being phased out?
antonkyle
Member Posts: 776 Arc User
The search tab is still not working and there has been no spotlight since July. Any new author has zero chance of being seen and it seems that nothing has been introduced in module two to fix this.
I only ask because these are simple problems that take next to no time to put right. Authors are leaving in droves and it's like a desolate place actually being in the foundry these days.
The only logical reasoning is that the foundry is being Phased out. Or worse, being left to rot.
I only ask because these are simple problems that take next to no time to put right. Authors are leaving in droves and it's like a desolate place actually being in the foundry these days.
The only logical reasoning is that the foundry is being Phased out. Or worse, being left to rot.
Post edited by antonkyle on
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Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I think that is why everyone has gone. This forum was busy until that broke. The system before was bad and everyone complained. The 'fix' made it 100 times worse.
I was so lucky that I was featured before this happened. It gets me some plays. I really feel for people that don't have a feature.
I think three very simple things could renew the foundry.
A) Fix the new tab.
b) Introduce a Author tab. (A place where Authors can communicate with there subscribers via the search sub tab)
c) Lift the daily cap for AD and make it so you get so many for time spent running the foundry quests.
Another knock on effect would be happy players with another way to grind AD
If they then added your idea about advertising the Zen store items in quests then more money for PWE's pockets.
Right now all the foundry content is just trash mobs that are fairly weak, there is no real challenge to any of them, so foundry quests to me have become which quest can I zerg the quickest to get credit for the daily to get some ad.
More tools for you guys to ramp up some of the quests to make them more difficult and the foundry might get some more play time.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
I agree, have you tried my latest a Pirate's Plunder? I began with my final 'boss fights' and have tried to be inventive with these. You are right though. Having bosses would be great. I don't think it is a main reason why people have left. Just one of many small problems that have added to the really big ones.
When it's all "hack-n-slash trash" then everyone develops the same mindset as Charononus: find the quests you can rush through as quickly as possible and replay those every time the Daily is in effect.
This is really bad for those quests that focus on story/puzzles and the rest. People don't want to *waste time* playing them, and for those who actively look for these type of quests for there own enjoyment factor find it nearly impossible to find them because 99 of 100 are all "hack-n-slash trash" type quests.
But I digress.
If I were Robobo (or at least in charge of Foundry at Cryptic) - my first effort would be to find a way to make the rewards for playing Foundry Quests worthwhile outside the Daily time-frame AND that does't rely on the amount of combat inside a Quest instance.
Certainly the problems with Foundry have to do with search, exposure and a lot of things, but the primary problem is the return-on-investment of time to play them. The rewards need to be ramped-up exponentially.
I *really* feel deep down in my soul that if the rewards were improved for non-combat/non-daily time-framed Foundry Quest play that a helluvalot more people would be investigating Foundry Quests. Hell, *I* don't even bother playing Foundry Quests anymore because the reward factor just isn't worth my time. Even during the Daily time-frame. So the only link I'll maintain to the Foundry until something is done is the coveted forum title I've earned (which does't mean anything, really, but meh).
As for the daily - it should NOT be for a specific hour of the day - it should be like the Invoke daily... play four Foundry Quests within 24-hours and get your Daily reward - the timer is then reset at 3 AM every morning like they do with most other Dailies. This issue with Foundry Daily being at specific time-frames of the day and lasting only one hour only compounds the problem.
What they need is a decent search engine to find and sort and suggest missions. There are plenty of other issues, but all of the rest are tolerable so long as interested players and eager authors can be reliably hooked up. Without that, it doesn't matter how well the game works -- most authors aren't interested in spending weeks developing content nobody can ever find, or spending hours of every day using out-of-game resources to try to find people. Most players aren't interested in blindly stabbing at the system hoping to find content they'll enjoy, and will give up and go elsewhere.
Just now I was looking at all the cool ideas I had planned for my Fenwick Cycle, and it makes me very sad and utterly disinterested in NW.
They can add all the fancy races, mounts, lockboxes, and classes they want -- the ONLY thing that stands out as truly novel about Neverwinter is Foundry, and they failed to deliver.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Its like the old NWN modules. people played them because they enjoyed them, but because of external gains. But it was easier to find the ones you wanted, because they had a database, reviews, listing search functions. A hall of fame.
Think of all the foundry quests there are in neverwinter online, but are just hidden away in the abyss (not on the best or featured list)
Things like top/list of standalone quests, campaigns, genre sorting, new.
Also the scoring system with the stars favors ones who get played the most, giving them a snowball effect. Which is worse because nowadays its impossible to get the same amount than in the past e.g. I Am Slayer has 75k reviews, vs the 3-5k of the newer ones.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
To be clear about it: reward re-invention most certainly is NOT the "whole" solution. I just think it's the FIRST STEP of many solutions. Since they (Devs) can only work on one thing at a time, I am hopeful they will work on the reward system FIRST. That, at least will get more players playing. Then move-on to search ability and so on.
In short: fixing search does nothing if people aren't in there searching to begin with. First, give more people a really good *quality reward* incentive to at least get into the Foundry, then let's fix search and all the rest for them.
I used to do the longer quest that had puzzles, jumping, lore, and such, only to spend close to an hour in a quest at level 60, open the chest at the end and get a Rank 2 Silvery Enchantment. Really? I think its sad that you authors, who spend alot of time on these quests, building, testing, revising, etc.. have to put disclaimers in your description saying "I do not control loot."
Branch Lead
Having a Foundry was a marketing point for the game, to capitalize on "Neverwinter". No matter how much people say "its not Neverwinter Nights!", people still refer to it on the main forums as nwn from time to time. Having some sort of toolset was expected from a Neverwinter game.
So they made the Foundry, it helped "sell" the game around launch time.
If they figure out how to monetize the Foundry, it will get resources spent on it to make that happen.
The beauty of MMOS is that they are not static and are always changing. After a year, it will be clear which direction the developers are taking the foundry and the game.
There have been several hundred valid suggestions as to what needs to be added etc - result nothing.
Lets take Timers for instance - asked for since alpha - acknowledged by cryptic as a good idea - easy to implement - were are they - not implemented - yes we get a few assets thrown our way - you know the ones that should have been there all along.
The only thing added was 3d mode - and we are grateful for that.
The foundry needs some love and soon - before we all give it up as a bad joke.
Bang! Already requested...
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Other than a "dmstudio" of zen content so all the zen stuff is available in one place any time I feel like looking, players can see zen content just by looking around at people's mounts and companions. People see zen content in the normal playing of the game.
If it was subtle it would not drive people away. What it could offer is an acceptance for the foundry from PWE, this could allow Cryptic more resources or time to add to the foundry something probably thought of as non profitable.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this. I'm very sorry about the delay in fixes for the Foundry; we're working on them and hope to get them to the live servers as soon as we can.
We've changed our methods for Foundry Spotlights and have had some issues with the new trailers that we've been creating for spotlighted quests, hence the delay. The most recent one was in September, not July. Moving forward, we won't be doing trailers for the time being, to make it easier to get Foundry Spotlights up more quickly and regularly.
We do still have bi-weekly in-game features, though. And rest assured, the Foundry isn't going anywhere! We're going to keep adding to it and make it more awesome!
Good to hear. It'd be nice if they could at least "nibble away" at some of the really, really, really low hanging fruit on a more frequent basis -- you know, the stuff even a Project Manager could fix -- effect dimensions, text descriptions (A bandstand is really a "Pile of black sludge" ?? ...or maybe that's the band?), upgrading Select Object dialog using Component Tree dialog, etc.
Oh, yeah -- and MOST IMPORTANT -- fix the dang New search tab, my gawd a beginning SQL intern could fix that!
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Except they didn't seem to even read the feedback from the STO foundry community, after they moved on to this game. This dev you guys have, you know the guy in charge of the Foundry who communicates with you all, never once communicated with us, beyond interviews that made it clear that STO was now an afterthought.
We've been screaming about these issues for over 2 years. Our Foundry is still BETA at the 3 year mark. Nobody can find our missions due to a horribly designed UI and the lack of the most obvious feature that isn't there: a "next" button that allows folks to browse more than the top rated missions. I don't know if your situation is comparable.
At least maybe you guys still have a Foundry dev team working on NW. We had one until our first big Foundry update, before they all moved to a different game and seemed to just ignore the old.
Anyhow, welcome to the club, everyone. Your initial launch was very similar to ours, before a long period of realization set in. Now, the only way we get plays is through a spotlight. If your team isn't even spotlighting the lucky few, well I don't know what to tell you.
So how long till we get:
Better search results.
Bug Fixes.
Timers.
Boss encounters.
A reason to play the foundry's,
and a whole host of things desperately needed.
While I am grateful for an answer, remember actions speak much louder than the same old words.
I don't know if our suggestions are comparable to your own. Our most immediate request is an overhaul to the UI that makes it possible for players to find our missions. Otherwise, what is the point of being a Foundry author, if pressing the button to publish sends your mission down the toilet?
Focusing on UI improvements??? The Search New tab returning same results as Search Best? That major problem? That's just one little teeny tiny bug.
How about all these others: (Something close to 90+ bugs)
Current Verified Foundry Bugs
I think there is only a handful of UI issues in there.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Our bug list is bigger that yours! Take this! Yours will probably grow bigger than ours after very few of these bugs have been fixed in 3 years.
Also, each new content "season" or "module" will either add new bugs or entirely break your foundry. We just went through a relatively peaceful "season 8" of STO. It only broke about 5 or 6 things with the foundry. Our downtime only lasted one month.
Party Scaling: Make it reasonable for people t go into the foundry in groups. when A player que's factor in the number of players and up the monster strength accordingly.
Boss Encounters: Important along with Cut Scenes to add to the "feel" of a quest. players want to know when they are upping the challenge and reaching the climax of a story. Works in your single player events well why not allow it in ours?
FIX New: Truthfully lot of people are getting better at the foundry and the new content is better then the old. I am really lucky to get 10 or so plays a day....every time I get bad ratings its....boy your gear sucks 1 star.
REWARDS: Please give a reason to have players play. A foundry coin system would be truly awesome. I can think of ten ways you can make money off of it to if you want to send me a private message. Here is just a small list.
A. Campaign Foundry: Once per day the player receives 3 foundry keys for a special chest at the end of the foundry. In these foundry chests are harper coins. Just like in Dread Ring add small boons. You then sell the Foundry keys for Zen. Have the foundry keys tied to the length of the mission to add a chance for longer missions to get played.
B. Unique Foundry Companions: Create a contest in which the players design a foundry NPC that stays with them threw the story line. At the end of that line perhaps have a version of the "SKIN" purchasable to be placed over the base model of Cleric, Wizard, Sell Sword, or Tank. Have players pay ZEN for the Skin Switch.
C. Unique Foundry Titles: Allow Authors to purchase
either "Lore" entries into journal or TITLES for beating there foundry. I would pay 20 bucks so people who complte my mission series to add the title "Champion of Justice." I am sure other authors might as well. In addition this type of small thing might get the achievement player to try new titles to earn that special title!
Sloane Hardtower
Thanks for the update. It's good the hear that the foundry is still in your thoughts. September you say, sorry, my bad.
There is also a new crop of Authors I talk to in the Foundry Zone quite frequently but they don't come to the forums much if at all. They are always surprised to hear the forum is active when I tell them to post their quests here. I imagine they are coming up with new and original work that we don't know about.
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
Im a roleplayer, I like other kinds of foundry types of play. But realisitically, whose really going to play foundries besides the ones I mentioned before?
There needs to be incentives to play different types of foundries and a more rewarding system. I like the idea of tokens.
Such as doing a different foundry that you havent played before or recently grants more of said tokens than if you just spammed the same ones over and over.
That way people who just spam the same foundries for dailies can. Where those that want to play foundries for the tokens, can do that with any foundry they wish.