Is It Really Necessary to Restrict Us?

hiddenfate · January 2014

I can understand a few of the restrictions like not giving purple and blue drops. That's fair, it's way too easily exploitable. I can also understand not allowing us to put down unlimited skill nodes. Again, fair, way too easily exploitable. But not being able to give any level of drops or place even a chance for skill nodes? Or all those other ridiculous restrictions?

Foundry creators are effectively adding new, free content for Cryptic with every single publish. While they aren't all perfect they're a hell of a lot more varied and original than the main storyline (which in all honesty is the 2nd most boring thing to replay I've ever seen). The foundry is what Neverwinter's future is really going to be based off until they get all the bugs fixed (and the future bugs that will occur in the PvP updates).

So here's my suggestion, scrap the current foundry and just give us the same tools you have (minus the ability to drop purples and blues and limiting the number of skill node areas and item drops that can occur in a map). I haven't seen a good foundry quest yet where I didn't think "If this guy had all the tools I would be having even more fun right now... and I'm already having a lot!". Insert guy/girl in that quote for political correctness.

I'm not entirely sure how hard it would be to replace the foundry but module 4 should be all about this (not until you fix the current bugged game though). I'm sure a lot of the foundry developers would be willing to relearn some stuff if it meant they had access to a plethora of new tools.

orangefiree · January 2014

I think some more foundry features would be nice, completely redoing it is a bit much though. If we had to use everything they could do, that would probably be a lot more complicated then what we have now. If we had access to everything they had except loot, I would feel lucky if we were not having to just write code ourselves to use the foundry. I do agree they should do a foundry focused update, but I think they should just add several new features to the existing form. As far as I know, their "existing tools" involve writing code, I am guessing not everyone knows how to do that.

hiddenfate · January 2014

orangefiree wrote: »

I think some more foundry features would be nice, completely redoing it is a bit much though. If we had to use everything they could do, that would probably be a lot more complicated then what we have now. If we had access to everything they had except loot, I would feel lucky if we were not having to just write code ourselves to use the foundry. I do agree they should do a foundry focused update, but I think they should just add several new features to the existing form. As far as I know, their "existing tools" involve writing code, I am guessing not everyone knows how to do that.

True, though a lot of game engines tend to have a level builder built-in. Unity, Unreal, etc. all had that though I'm unsure if they use a special engine.

eldarth · January 2014

The existing foundry editor is pretty good truthfully. It's a little like LEGOs though, everything fits together nicely and it's pretty easy not to really break anything. We did just recently (thanks Crypticmapolis!) get some "advanced" LEGO assets - certain graphics that only have one-side to them for instance (an inside and no outside, or one-side looks like a dungeon wall, the other is completely transparent). So there is some new stuff trickling out.

There are some things I think that would really take foundry over the top:

More Assets -- there are a lot of "in-game" graphic objects that we don't have (yet).
More Music -- very little in the "upbeat/springtime/happy" genre
More sound effects -- there's a list they've got with lots of great ideas on it
More special effects -- can always use more (we recently got a few: speed/slippery/slow-fall)
Better foundry rewards and better end-chest rewards
Non-combat rewards
A few placeable skill-nodes
"TImers and boolean logic" event handlers: OR, AND (for differing types of events)

If they could just flesh out and address some of these, foundry authors would be very, very, very happy.

zahinder · January 2014

It needs a vastly more robust search engine.

Until that point, Foundry is almost useless.

angrysprite · January 2014

zahinder wrote: »

It needs a vastly more robust search engine.

Until that point, Foundry is almost useless.

^This.

There are two basic problems with Foundry Quests:

There is no genuine reason to play them other than Rhix Daily: No one wants to hunt-and-peck for interesting, quality work. It's too much effort and time to just "experiment" with new quests; hence they don't get played because there is no motivation or incentive to actually play new quests.

Finding quality Foundry Quests is a helluvalot more miss than hit: "Quality" is subjective, but suffice it to mean "my preferred style of quest", no matter which style the player enjoys most. There simply is no way to actually find what one is looking for by want. Rather it is a complete mish-mash of hit-or-miss; shoot from the hip. It is as though the city library used a dump-truck to populate their bookshelves; there is no rhyme or reason to what is in there.

I believe that 1) Genuine incentive other than stupid timed dailies will get more people to actually WANT to play Foundry and 2) When more people actually WANT to play new Foundry quests, the search system needs a genuine rethinking overhaul in its function and operability.

We need non-combat rewards, other incentive to get people to play new stuff.
We then need a reliable way to find the stuff we like.

Handle these two things and the rest will fall in-line.

THEN we can focus on the author side of things. Until then, it's almost a waste of time putting in the effort of building a quality Foundry quest because the only reward is having plays, which the above two points more or less prevent.

beckylunatic · January 2014

Are Foundry author subscriptions account-wide yet?

antonkyle · January 2014

beckylunatic wrote: »

Are Foundry author subscriptions account-wide yet?

No!

Apparently I need to add more. So, why would you want it to be? It would be nice to have Author contact pages instead of just a list of quests.

beckylunatic · January 2014

Author contact page would be great. The amount of space allowed for reviews isn't sufficient for detailed feedback, and while I'm willing to provide that in game, in the moment, I'm not involved enough in Foundry to necessarily come back to the forums and go through the trouble of finding your feedback thread, etc.

Also, it would allow a much easier way of reporting problems that made a quest unfinishable.

I want author subscriptions to be account-wide (also the ability to bookmark favorite quests and have them be account-wide) because I have 11 characters (right now). If I like someone's work, I want to be able to find it easily with whoever I'm playing, without having to search up their stuff and subscribe multiple times. The more authors I find that I like, the more work it is for me to keep any kind of record of it. Also, the one time when Foundry subscriptions were wiped, I had fewer characters and still felt so dispirited by it that I never did go back in and fix their subscriptions. There's simply no good reason for this to be per-character.

antonkyle · January 2014

Maybe an account bound tick box would be good. That would give you the choice. I agree with the wipe comment, that should simply never happen. The quests are hard enough to find.

angrysprite · January 2014

One of the "ideas" the Devs put forth back during beta (and as far as I know is (*hopefully*) still on the roadmap) is to have an "Author's Micro Blog" to be attached to their quest descriptions/review page. This would allow the author to proffer information like change lists and whatnot.

No real details were ever given (and again - this is something Robobo stated was an idea and left the impression it's on the roadmap - but I could be mistaken here and it may not be at all). I had always presumed, cautiously, that if such a microblog were implemented it would allow player feedback much like many blogs allows comments, etc. I don't know.

Hell, Twitter is just a micro-blog.

ladykathleen55 · January 2014

"TImers and boolean logic" event handlers: OR, AND (for differing types of events)

I like this Idea the best. I always want to add options and you just can't right now.

adernath · January 2014

angrysprite wrote: »

I believe that 1) Genuine incentive other than stupid timed dailies will get more people to actually WANT to play Foundry and 2) When more people actually WANT to play new Foundry quests, the search system needs a genuine rethinking overhaul in its function and operability.

We need non-combat rewards, other incentive to get people to play new stuff.
We then need a reliable way to find the stuff we like.

Handle these two things and the rest will fall in-line.

THEN we can focus on the author side of things. Until then, it's almost a waste of time putting in the effort of building a quality Foundry quest because the only reward is having plays, which the above two points more or less prevent.

I totally agree (and i have suggested this months before). I am not an author, but as a causal player I must say that I never have much motivation to play foundry quests because there are no rewards besides a few ADs (and honestly these ADs are way too few to spend my time doing it). I like to plunge into a great story, but if there is always nothing left (gear/title/scratch..) to take with me to remember me on the adventure my toon was doing i really have no motivation.

mrgiggles651 · January 2014

Devs explained the reason to us Silverstars for the 1500 limit during Foundry beta. It's for performance reasons.

octopus76 · January 2014

And why not a "retrive your own stuff" feature? An option to permit a virtual "full game restart".
I explain better:
in the foundry quest option you can set this mode so you start with your character, but with no items at all.
At beginning a chest give you a basic item set pretty like the game story beginning and the foundry author can place rewards containing the player original stuff. So not a specific item but for example a chest with the "player belt item" or "player main weapon enchantment" etc.
This can give to the player the excitement of the epic reward and to the author a great extension to the quest line.
Obviously all stuff character modifications will be virtual and entering/exiting/abandoning the foundry give no change to it except for regular drop.
In the same way can be implemented a "people encounter" option with owned crafting workers or NPC based on the friend/guild list.
For example: the author set up a foundry called "Free the barracks" where the player will attack an occupied military spot and during the quest he can set free his own mercenaries. Or the NPC who give you the main foundry mission should be set tho your guild leader or other *real* guild member (maybe) choosed in the guild with a special tag (setted up by the player or the guild officiers). I know this mean change something also in the main game but should be cool.

Is It Really Necessary to Restrict Us?

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