At least tell me that they are featuring you regularly, with community contests and such. About the only way we can get plays is with a spotlight, but at least our STO community manager has been very active with contests where winners get a spotlight. And on most weeks when the Foundry isn't broken, there is a chosen spotlight for that week.
So there are community events that bring us together, and there is at least some dev recognition of the good, along with the incentives to go out and play the good and get our diamonds.
Are there similar Foundry challenges here, as well as Foundry rewards weekends, etc.?
Let's see...
"Featured" Foundry Quests seem to be for a 2-week run in which they are at the top of the Featured tab. Last time there were 3 quests featured - that seems to be fairly consistent. Featured authors receive....nothing. (Although you do get a drastic increase in "tips" from the players that play your featured quest).
"Foundry Screenshot" is usually a weekly callout in a forum post for a "winning" screenshot. Winner receives...wait for it...the joy of "winning" the recognition of being posted to the forum.
I think I recall TWO, posssssibly three "Foundry Contests" based on a very broadly interpretable "theme." If I recall authors won....a forum posting, AND "Featured" status for a couple weeks.
Community Events? Foundry, no. "Adventure Hour" - streamed questing through typically Cryptic content, with occasional foundry quests thrown in. Adventure hour usually has a couple or three "prizes" (in-game companions, items, etc.) that people actively watching the stream get a chance at winning.
"Featured" Foundry Quests seem to be for a 2-week run in which they are at the top of the Featured tab. Last time there were 3 quests featured - that seems to be fairly consistent. Featured authors receive....nothing. (Although you do get a drastic increase in "tips" from the players that play your featured quest).
"Foundry Screenshot" is usually a weekly callout in a forum post for a "winning" screenshot. Winner receives...wait for it...the joy of "winning" the recognition of being posted to the forum.
I think I recall TWO, posssssibly three "Foundry Contests" based on a very broadly interpretable "theme." If I recall authors won....a forum posting, AND "Featured" status for a couple weeks.
Community Events? Foundry, no. "Adventure Hour" - streamed questing through typically Cryptic content, with occasional foundry quests thrown in. Adventure hour usually has a couple or three "prizes" (in-game companions, items, etc.) that people actively watching the stream get a chance at winning.
You guys do have a community manager, yes? Even if he or she is new? This level of disregard is astonishing to me.
Why have you not organized? This is crazy.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
Eldarth is highly exaggerating the situation.
We have just recently got a new CM. We had not had one for a couple of months previously and some people are understandably bitter but still not explaining the system as it works when there is actually a CM who is around to support the Foundry.
Now let me clear up your confusion, what you call a spotlight is more akin to what we call a featured quest. Spotlights come and go and are truthfully probably ignored by the majority of the player base. A spotlight is more or less a Featured Quest which also gets a news article (Not a Forum Post) on the front page as well.
Featured Quests are actually advertized in game. Typically there is one new featurered quest and two old featured quests which is updated every week or two which show up as soon as you open up the Foundry Listings. Think of them like Stickied Threads in the Forums but in the actual in game Quest Catalog. Furthermore Featured Quests have their own tab so you can always look through ALL of the past featured quests at any time.
This is actually a huge advantage as an author as it is more or less like it's own "best" tab.
This is why it was stated earlier that featured quests, even those featured months ago, get a lot more plays than any other quests.
No there's no handouts when getting featured or spotlighted. That doesn't equate to getting nothing, though. And as I said earlier we just had a big discussion last week about the Foundry. There will be more contests and some other bigger changes coming if Akromatik can get the go ahead.
EDIT - Featured Quests are also not subject to the same rules as normal quests. A featured quest will always have something in the end chest even if it is less than 15 minutes long and is not subject to the XP limits which were put in place to limit farms. Unfortunately it still needs to be at least 15 minutes long in order to you t for dailies, though.
We have just recently got a new CM. We had not had one for a couple of months previously and some people are understandably bitter but still not explaining the system as it works when there is actually a CM who is around to support the Foundry.
Now let me clear up your confusion, what you call a spotlight is more akin to what we call a featured quest. Spotlights come and go and are truthfully probably ignored by the majority of the player base. A spotlight is more or less a Featured Quest which also gets a news article (Not a Forum Post) on the front page as well.
Featured Quests are actually advertized in game. Typically there is one new featurered quest and two old featured quests which is updated every week or two which show up as soon as you open up the Foundry Listings. Think of them like Stickied Threads in the Forums but in the actual in game Quest Catalog. Furthermore Featured Quests have their own tab so you can always look through ALL of the past featured quests at any time.
Highly exaggerating? ...so, I missed the news article? ...but they are ALSO getting a forum post (cf akromatic#1 and akromatic#2) that were...2 weeks apart and featured 3 new quests, not one new and two old. Maybe one new, two old was prior modus operandi? (I like 3 new per 2 weeks better if that continues forward!)
No there's no handouts when getting featured or spotlighted. That doesn't equate to getting nothing, though.
Doesn't equate to nothing?
...other than the "state/side-effect" of being "featured" or "spotlighted" could you reference any of these "not nothings" ?
(...and I don't think an achievement point qualifies )
But, in fairness -- I do tend toward (hopefully just slightly) the harsher side of foundry related things.
Currently The Foundry is pretty unique among RPG MMOs and has such enormous, awesome potential one hopes by having open, honest discussions about it's wrinkles and growing pains will get them the attention they deserve. If I had my wishes, I'd add 10 more developers to the foundry team.
I'm definitely glad to have you and akromatic in there pulling for us and look forward to some changes in the future.
Community changes are good -- implementation of some Foundry Improvement Requests would be even better.
A featured quest will always have something in the end chest even if it is less than 15 minutes long and is not subject to the XP limits which were put in place to limit farms.
Um, not quite. Do you have a reference to this?
If so... apparently this is bugged:
Perhaps that is only "currently" featured (i.e. during the two-week period)?
...and maybe "money" (which people don't "see") "counts" as being "in the end chest?"
You guys do have a community manager, yes? Even if he or she is new? This level of disregard is astonishing to me.
Why have you not organized? This is crazy.
Some authors did try to organize to get the things we wanted back in beta and after launch. If you wish to read them Cryptic maintains those forums in an archive state. You can see what happened.
It's definitely WAY too often -- and yes, many, many, many (the majority) of 1-star reviews are because of no-treasure (or total junk).
A single mob most often drops MORE loot than is in the final chest. Been that way for probably close to a year.
Once your gearscore hits about 6k you are outfitted better than any loot you might get from Foundry. 6k happens pretty much your first trip to the level 60 areas. Foundries drop the occaisional blue quality loot, and blue quality loot is a regular mob drop in level 60 areas (I dont even bother to pick it up). Gearscore goes up to roughly 15k depending on class, with some classes able to get over 20k.
So if you want to take that 6k/15k, Foundry provides useful loot to less than half a characters gear progression lifetime. And when you consider how quickly you level to 60 and get that 6k, the Foundry provides useful loot for a much smaller period of your characters lifetime than the 6/15 fraction would lead you to believe.
Except its even worse, because the main campaign that takes you to that 6k gearscore provides unique lower level loot as well. So Foundry is never actually loot competetive, its just that for a fraction of the beginning of your character life it doesnt fall far enough behind that its not prohibitive.
We have just recently got a new CM. We had not had one for a couple of months previously
While as a mod you are in a position to know more about the CM's, the Foundry community did not get any featured quests etc for longer than the time between official CM's. It's a sticky subject because of the ToS, but since I'm quoting a mod on CM's I feel I can say the above minimal statement.
I find the Foundry the biggest letdown in the game so far, slightly ahead of the game's meek character creation/leveling varieties. The Foundry has boundless potential, was given plenty of marketing time (huge 6+ month push before game launch) yet post launch has been treated like the red-headed stepchild of Neverwinter.
Cryptic needed the Foundry to be strong, and it's neglect caused some I knew to stop creating and/or playing Neverwinter. Worse, it's position in the game reeks of insignificance, and until that frivolous identity is lost, so to will be the Foundry.
As an old school D&D guy, I have long been on-board with a MAJOR upgrade to the current Foundry, with better tools for designers, better reward for better designers (both for themselves as well as letting them construct custom gear they can offer in their quests, monitored by a select committee of foundry creators), rescaled loot tables with upgraded/new loot for all missions, and a shift in the importance of running Foundry missions in order to level characters into the higher levels.
Lets hope that more suits get on board as well and give us one HELL of a big update, because there's some AWESOME content that's been created in the past year, and even better content coming if Cryptic gives the Foundry some much needed TLC!!!
I would say a failure more than a Success. I no longer bother signing in anymore, but while I did I was forced to watch author after author come, complain about the same things and then eventually leave.
I would expect people to come and go with a tool like the foundry. For many people once they have done a couple of quests then that is it. However the set of tools added to this significantly, people always quit prematurely and always for the same reasons. No Bosses, lots of bugs and no reason for people to play authors work. That is why there is so many unfinished campaigns.
The fact that the foundry is attached to a game that is just a market store for zen is the biggest reason I would consider it a failure from my own perspective. When I look at an MMO I want to do two things mainly which is PVP and Professions. Neverwinter is designed to force you to do a bit of everything, a constant grind for AD. Because I never dipped my hand in my pocket I always felt poor in this game. Any time spent in the foundry would be wasted time in terms of AD. Towards the end of my time I gave up on the game and just stuck with the foundry and in the end even that was not enough.
Every now and then I check back on these forums to see if changes have been made and I will continue to do so, but until Bosses, a more even reward system and many fixes to bugs have been added then I am really not interested in picking up where I left off. I have no doubt that when I am feeling artistic I will come and have a look, build some maps, design costumes etc but I currently have zero interest in releasing any content.
One thing I will add though is despite the coming and goings of authors the foundry community has always been great. Probably better than all other mmo's I have been involved with.
Anyone I see " looking for group" for 4/4 Foundries for the daily I know that person doesnt know how to make AD. Level 20 leadership nets each on of my characters 15-20k AD per day depending on the rare missions. The daily dungeon is faster on a time/AD basis than the Foundry daily. It offers a bit less AD than Foundry, but runs much faster and offers better loot rewards With the Dungeon and the prayer AD hitting the daily max for refining is easy.
At lower levels the loot is at least not that far behind official questline that the Rhix daily is useful if you intend your character to be self supporting for AD, allowing a fresh 60 to purchase a bit of T1 loot.
I would say a failure more than a Success. I no longer bother signing in anymore, but while I did I was forced to watch author after author come, complain about the same things ....
The fact that the foundry is attached to a game that is just a market store for zen is the biggest reason I would consider it a failure from my own perspective.
My first post in this thread implied it but I'll post it directly. The measure of the Foundry being a "success" or "failure" is in all likelihood different for players, authors, and PWE/Cryptic. Since only one of those three controls the game, only one of those measures matter when it comes to getting dev love for Foundry. People can decide for themselves what those measures of success are.
No there's no handouts when getting featured or spotlighted. That doesn't equate to getting nothing, though.
Winning authors of community contests don't get zen prizes? Granted, it's only like $10 worth of zen, but it's a nice prize after 6 weeks of a contest and voting period for a Foundry challenge. Here is the latest one for STO. Perhaps your new community manager could do something similar.
The morale around here seems much lower than ours, and our Foundry is abandoned, it seems. You folks really need somebody who cares. Even the mods are bitter about the Foundry, for good reasons.
<looks blankly> Zen prizes? Contests? These things are surely projections from your holosuite.</looks blankly>
The last contest was a looong time ago. There were never any prizes.
The contests are about the only thing keeping us going, since winning a contest is a guaranteed featured spot. Without a contest, I'm not really sure if I'd have the motivation to even make a ninth or tenth mission, since it's like 60 hours of work for 60 reviews in a year.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
I poked Akromatik last night about getting another Foundry Contest going. He agreed wholeheartedly so as soon as he can get the go ahead we will have another one going. Can't say if there will be any rewards other than the usual Spotlight, though.
They do give Zen rewards out for much less though so it really never made sense to me that the reward was only being spotlighted...
But there's really not much I more I can say on that...
However I can say with 100% certainty that it doesn't matter what is done to make the Foundry Authors happy. The cold hard truth is that until the rewards are looked into the player base will not want to play the content no matter how good the content is.
So that is where I am pushing. While I would love more tools it wouldn't matter one bit if the players don't want to play the content anyway.
I poked Akromatik last night about getting another Foundry Contest going. He agreed wholeheartedly so as soon as he can get the go ahead we will have another one going. Can't say if there will be any rewards other than the usual Spotlight, though.
They do give Zen rewards out for much less though so it really never made sense to me that the reward was only being spotlighted...
But there's really not much I more I can say on that...
However I can say with 100% certainty that it doesn't matter what is done to make the Foundry Authors happy. The cold hard truth is that until the rewards are looked into the player base will not want to play the content no matter how good the content is.
So that is where I am pushing. While I would love more tools it wouldn't matter one bit if the players don't want to play the content anyway.
I am an outsider to your community, so please forgive the assumptions.
I have seen first-hand what a dedicated community manager can do (along with his team of mods), in spite of our game not seeming to have a single programmer who knows about the Foundry. Please don't point to the system, as if that excuses what appears to be a real lack of community management, coordination, and encouragement through things like live streams, contests, prizes, etc. There doesn't seem to be much community rallying over here at all.
I don't really understand the circumstances or the history, so I'm not blaming anyone in this thread. But, our STO community has been sustained by mods and managers who think outside of the box and don't just point fingers at the lack of a programmer's solution. Community events work. Community support works. Community encouragement works. Some rewards are nice, but it also helps to have a few folks really brainstorming the question of "What can I actually do to improve morale around here, when I have no control over programmers and schedules?" Well our community managers and our mods did a lot, in spite of the odds.
Again, I don't mean any offense. I have no knowledge of you as a moderator or supporter of the Foundry. It's just my knee jerk reactions to that post. Mostly, I am thinking that "these people had all the programmers and the shinies and we had very little, yet there is a passing of the buck from the only part of our community that kept anything going for us." I do agree with your points about the rewards system. It sounds really lousy over here. But, I wonder what a dedicated and active community manager could do about it, since I saw what one can do, despite the odds of nobody on his dev team having training in the Foundry.
Hopefully, this is read as an encouraging post to the mods and CM to feel somewhat empowered by past examples.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
Let me give you a bit of a history lesson, then.
I first got introduced to UGC with Neverwinter Nights' Aurora Toolset. I spent many years playing Neverwinter Nights religiously because of the UGC. My mantra while Neverwinter was being released was that developer content sucks, UGC is far superior more often than not. And that has held true. No offense devs but players can make better storylines than any developers.
I worked on a Persistent World Server called Moonlight and Shadows which is in the NWVault Hall of Fame. In other words I have a long history of UGC myself. I came to Neverwinter hoping to be a content developer long before the game was ever released.
As a player the only thing that separates me from the standard elitists is attitude towards other players. I play to win. That is how I have fun when playing games. However I am elitist on myself rather than expecting others to be elitist. I am not a person that says a person can't play if they are blank class or are not a skilled player. I will play with any one with any group composition at any pace because to me every second that I spend helping other players get better at the game is a reward.
What I will not do is be on my own and choose not to play to win. Which was the brick wall I hit with the Foundry.
You have no idea how much it pains me that I almost never play Foundry Content. I absolutely detest the fifteen minute comedy skits that infest the "best" tab. There are so many great missions created with great storylines but you simply can not deliver a worthwhile storyline in 15 minutes. However as the elitist pig I am every time I do a mission which is 30+ minutes long with true effort put into making quality content I get to the end and feel like I get punched in my stomach by the horrible waste of time feeling.
If you can play a good story and feel a good story is a reward of its own kudos to you. I can not. It sucks every bit of the enjoyment of the experience from me. So it's a rare day when I actually play Foundry Content.
So you are talking to a content developer who is here because of UGC...
Who can not bring himself to do UGC missions...
I am a player first, mod second. The sad truth is as a player I can't play UGC.
So I am sorry but you are not going to have me rallying the troops. I can't lead a parade when I can't walk the walk.
Hence why I keep pushing for the rewards to be looked at over and over and over again. Until those rewards are improved many players who are like me and want to enjoy UGC will keep ignoring it and you have a fat chance in hell to get those who really have no interest in UGC ever doing it. There will be no audience until the rewards are looked at.
So please take a minute to look past the mod title and look at who you are speaking to.
If I am not playing and enjoying UGC there is a huge problem.
So sorry but this is not STO. There is no amount of positive community rallying which will make me enjoy foundry content. You get more rewards by going anywhere in the game and killing the random mobs. You probably get more rewards from a single loot node in the main world than you get from an entire Foundry Quest.
In STO you have decent incentives to play UGC whether you enjoy UGC or not. There are no incentives to do UGC in Neverwinter other than the Rhix daily which as I said earlier really pushes people to do farm quests rather than quality content. There's nothing the community team can do to change the cold hard reality of the situation: there are no incentives to play quality Foundry Content as a player.
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
I am a content developer so it really goes without saying that I do care about the Foundry and I do push to improve the situation every chance I get.
I will not treat you all like children. I am going to tell you the truth as I see it. I am telling you that the biggest problem with UGC at this time is not the tools. You could have all the tools in the world and make the most amazing content ever and still not have an audience to enjoy it.
As the system stands my best chance to get more players to play UGC is by telling them that every time they play a Foundry Quest a kitten purrs because I can't tell them that they will get rewarded by the game.
The number one complaint from Content Developers is players do not play their content. The best way to get more content played is to get more players playing Foundry Content in general. In order to get more players playing Foundry Content in general it has to be more appealing for them to spend their time doing Foundry Content. The number one reason why players do not play Foundry Content is because it is not rewarding enough.
In order to make the content developers happy the players have to be made happy first.
I first got introduced to UGC with Neverwinter Nights' Aurora Toolset. I spent many years playing Neverwinter Nights religiously because of the UGC. My mantra while Neverwinter was being released was that developer content sucks, UGC is far superior more often than not. And that has held true. No offense devs but players can make better storylines than any developers.
I worked on a Persistent World Server called Moonlight and Shadows which is in the NWVault Hall of Fame. In other words I have a long history of UGC myself. I came to Neverwinter hoping to be a content developer long before the game was ever released.
NWVault. Wow. That brings back memories. I wrote some of the first NWScript examples and probably the first NWScript Reference Manual. Good times. If they were to integrate LUA into NWO...I'd probably never leave the house.
...
You have no idea how much it pains me that I almost never play Foundry Content. I absolutely detest the fifteen minute comedy skits that infest the "best" tab. There are so many great missions created with great storylines but you simply can not deliver a worthwhile storyline in 15 minutes. However as the elitist pig I am every time I do a mission which is 30+ minutes long with true effort put into making quality content I get to the end and feel like I get punched in my stomach by the horrible waste of time feeling.
...
Agree 1,000%
I can't even fathom why they don't even implement the incredibly simple adjustment of simply "shifting" a single mob-loot-rainbow-explosion item (just ONE) from every 5th kill and save/deposit it into the final chest -- the PERCEPTION alone of this incredible "bounty" of a dozen or more items would do wonders. With ZERO change in the actual existing loot/treasure calculations. They would STILL be nearly worthless and really, really, REALLY do need to be adjusted - but a simple solution that any beginning developer could code in probably less than a couple of hours - including testing. Boggles the mind they can't even do that. Just the mere perception of a "big haul" in the end chest would be an enormous win. I'd even be willing to sign an NDA and code the dang changes for them!
I poked Akromatik last night about getting another Foundry Contest going. He agreed wholeheartedly so as soon as he can get the go ahead we will have another one going. Can't say if there will be any rewards other than the usual Spotlight, though.
They do give Zen rewards out for much less though so it really never made sense to me that the reward was only being spotlighted...
But there's really not much I more I can say on that...
However I can say with 100% certainty that it doesn't matter what is done to make the Foundry Authors happy. The cold hard truth is that until the rewards are looked into the player base will not want to play the content no matter how good the content is.
So that is where I am pushing. While I would love more tools it wouldn't matter one bit if the players don't want to play the content anyway.
I hope they email me to let me know.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
I wouldn't think that something like that would be emailed.
Authors, both past and present, are the vast minority of the player base.
It will definitely be advertised on the front page and have a dedicated thread here but not likely to be advertised via e-mail.
I wouldn't think that something like that would be emailed.
Authors, both past and present, are the vast minority of the player base.
It will definitely be advertised on the front page and have a dedicated thread here but not likely to be advertised via e-mail.
I'll try and keep my eye on it, but the thing with authors is that they won't always be playing and keeping tabs on the forum. It is very much an on/off thing for many. They may be in the minority but they should be considered an important minority as they develop free content. But then this is all part of the problem. If you sent out emails you would no doubt have many old authors return even if just for a while which would create a buzz.
In regards to the competition, may I make a suggestion. Keep it open. The last two were based on certain area's of the game which is very limiting. I wasn't around for the first, but the 2nd had few entry's and most just ignored the theme. Also give people time, I make quests much quicker than most and I struggled to get mine in on time and get it to daily. Those that were not daily did not stand a chance. Although you may change how the winner is decided, in which case that won't matter.
I would suggest the theme to be 'Forgotten realms Lore' from my own foundry experience I think many authors forget they are playing a D&D game.
They could easily email authors since they know who has published a Foundry. Whether people would see it as spam would be another issue.
I wasted five million AD promoting the Foundry.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
That is a completely untrue assumption.
You should take some lessons in programming. It would enlighten you a bit in how much work is required for every single miniscule detail.
Just because you can manually search for something doesn't mean there is an automated process to do it.
Without a doubt it could be programmed but that is why I suggest actually learning how to program before making such nonchalant claims. I said I worked on a Persistent World. My role was programming the game. The only certainty in programming is nothing is "easy" and as a programmer it makes me cringe every time I see such disregard for the effort required to write every program.
You really did just do 21st century equivalent of "if the people are unhappy give them cake."
You should take some lessons in programming. It would enlighten you a bit in how much work is required for every single miniscule detail.
Just because you can manually search for something doesn't mean there is an automated process to do it.
Without a doubt it could be programmed but that is why I suggest actually learning how to program before making such nonchalant claims. I said I worked on a Persistent World. My role was programming the game. The only certainty in programming is nothing is "easy" and as a programmer it makes me cringe every time I see such disregard for the effort required to write every program.
You really did just do 21st century equivalent of "if the people are unhappy give them cake."
Lulz, I programmed an award winning, popular ai for your other game you talk about. You may have even implemented it. I also implemented a dynamic jumping system complete with skill checking, automatically calculated line of sight checks and falling damage. I am in the "Hall of Fame" for making mods for that game.
As long as Cryptic bothered to keep track of which accounts have published a Foundry, something that would not be hard to gather up even if they didnt already, they could email the addresses associated with the accounts.
They could easily email authors since they know who has published a Foundry. Whether people would see it as spam would be another issue.
That just comes down to each person. I would get it and as far as I am concerned that is all that matters. Although it goes without saying the more the merrier. Still, I'll try and keep my eyes open.
If there is a competition I may be persuaded to drag myself off of ESO for a few days. ..... maybe...
As long as Cryptic bothered to keep track of which accounts have published a Foundry, something that would not be hard to gather up even if they didnt already, they could email the addresses associated with the accounts.
Definitely not as difficult as Ambi thinks -- at least on a unix system. A simple database SQL select containing foundry authors account and contact e-mail address output as a text list of e-mail accounts. Then run mail program with a file-template and supply all the addresses.
A Windows power-shell script ought to be pretty close as well.
So, 2 script commands (and a text file)?
If it's much harder than that somebody is doing their programming/system-admin really, really wrong.
Definitely not as difficult as Ambi thinks -- at least on a unix system. A simple database SQL select containing foundry authors account and contact e-mail address output as a text list of e-mail accounts. Then run mail program with a file-template and supply all the addresses.
A Windows power-shell script ought to be pretty close as well.
So, 2 script commands (and a text file)?
If it's much harder than that somebody is doing their programming/system-admin really, really wrong.
I will read that as: It could be done easily enough.
Comments
Let's see...
"Featured" Foundry Quests seem to be for a 2-week run in which they are at the top of the Featured tab. Last time there were 3 quests featured - that seems to be fairly consistent. Featured authors receive....nothing. (Although you do get a drastic increase in "tips" from the players that play your featured quest).
"Foundry Screenshot" is usually a weekly callout in a forum post for a "winning" screenshot. Winner receives...wait for it...the joy of "winning" the recognition of being posted to the forum.
I think I recall TWO, posssssibly three "Foundry Contests" based on a very broadly interpretable "theme." If I recall authors won....a forum posting, AND "Featured" status for a couple weeks.
Community Events? Foundry, no. "Adventure Hour" - streamed questing through typically Cryptic content, with occasional foundry quests thrown in. Adventure hour usually has a couple or three "prizes" (in-game companions, items, etc.) that people actively watching the stream get a chance at winning.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
You guys do have a community manager, yes? Even if he or she is new? This level of disregard is astonishing to me.
Why have you not organized? This is crazy.
We have just recently got a new CM. We had not had one for a couple of months previously and some people are understandably bitter but still not explaining the system as it works when there is actually a CM who is around to support the Foundry.
Now let me clear up your confusion, what you call a spotlight is more akin to what we call a featured quest. Spotlights come and go and are truthfully probably ignored by the majority of the player base. A spotlight is more or less a Featured Quest which also gets a news article (Not a Forum Post) on the front page as well.
Featured Quests are actually advertized in game. Typically there is one new featurered quest and two old featured quests which is updated every week or two which show up as soon as you open up the Foundry Listings. Think of them like Stickied Threads in the Forums but in the actual in game Quest Catalog. Furthermore Featured Quests have their own tab so you can always look through ALL of the past featured quests at any time.
This is actually a huge advantage as an author as it is more or less like it's own "best" tab.
This is why it was stated earlier that featured quests, even those featured months ago, get a lot more plays than any other quests.
No there's no handouts when getting featured or spotlighted. That doesn't equate to getting nothing, though. And as I said earlier we just had a big discussion last week about the Foundry. There will be more contests and some other bigger changes coming if Akromatik can get the go ahead.
EDIT - Featured Quests are also not subject to the same rules as normal quests. A featured quest will always have something in the end chest even if it is less than 15 minutes long and is not subject to the XP limits which were put in place to limit farms. Unfortunately it still needs to be at least 15 minutes long in order to you t for dailies, though.
Highly exaggerating? ...so, I missed the news article? ...but they are ALSO getting a forum post (cf akromatic#1 and akromatic#2) that were...2 weeks apart and featured 3 new quests, not one new and two old. Maybe one new, two old was prior modus operandi? (I like 3 new per 2 weeks better if that continues forward!)
Doesn't equate to nothing?
...other than the "state/side-effect" of being "featured" or "spotlighted" could you reference any of these "not nothings" ?
(...and I don't think an achievement point qualifies
But, in fairness -- I do tend toward (hopefully just slightly) the harsher side of foundry related things.
Currently The Foundry is pretty unique among RPG MMOs and has such enormous, awesome potential one hopes by having open, honest discussions about it's wrinkles and growing pains will get them the attention they deserve. If I had my wishes, I'd add 10 more developers to the foundry team.
I'm definitely glad to have you and akromatic in there pulling for us and look forward to some changes in the future.
Community changes are good -- implementation of some Foundry Improvement Requests would be even better.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Um, not quite. Do you have a reference to this?
If so... apparently this is bugged:
Perhaps that is only "currently" featured (i.e. during the two-week period)?
...and maybe "money" (which people don't "see") "counts" as being "in the end chest?"
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
So if you want to take that 6k/15k, Foundry provides useful loot to less than half a characters gear progression lifetime. And when you consider how quickly you level to 60 and get that 6k, the Foundry provides useful loot for a much smaller period of your characters lifetime than the 6/15 fraction would lead you to believe.
Except its even worse, because the main campaign that takes you to that 6k gearscore provides unique lower level loot as well. So Foundry is never actually loot competetive, its just that for a fraction of the beginning of your character life it doesnt fall far enough behind that its not prohibitive.
Cryptic needed the Foundry to be strong, and it's neglect caused some I knew to stop creating and/or playing Neverwinter. Worse, it's position in the game reeks of insignificance, and until that frivolous identity is lost, so to will be the Foundry.
As an old school D&D guy, I have long been on-board with a MAJOR upgrade to the current Foundry, with better tools for designers, better reward for better designers (both for themselves as well as letting them construct custom gear they can offer in their quests, monitored by a select committee of foundry creators), rescaled loot tables with upgraded/new loot for all missions, and a shift in the importance of running Foundry missions in order to level characters into the higher levels.
Lets hope that more suits get on board as well and give us one HELL of a big update, because there's some AWESOME content that's been created in the past year, and even better content coming if Cryptic gives the Foundry some much needed TLC!!!
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I would expect people to come and go with a tool like the foundry. For many people once they have done a couple of quests then that is it. However the set of tools added to this significantly, people always quit prematurely and always for the same reasons. No Bosses, lots of bugs and no reason for people to play authors work. That is why there is so many unfinished campaigns.
The fact that the foundry is attached to a game that is just a market store for zen is the biggest reason I would consider it a failure from my own perspective. When I look at an MMO I want to do two things mainly which is PVP and Professions. Neverwinter is designed to force you to do a bit of everything, a constant grind for AD. Because I never dipped my hand in my pocket I always felt poor in this game. Any time spent in the foundry would be wasted time in terms of AD. Towards the end of my time I gave up on the game and just stuck with the foundry and in the end even that was not enough.
Every now and then I check back on these forums to see if changes have been made and I will continue to do so, but until Bosses, a more even reward system and many fixes to bugs have been added then I am really not interested in picking up where I left off. I have no doubt that when I am feeling artistic I will come and have a look, build some maps, design costumes etc but I currently have zero interest in releasing any content.
One thing I will add though is despite the coming and goings of authors the foundry community has always been great. Probably better than all other mmo's I have been involved with.
At lower levels the loot is at least not that far behind official questline that the Rhix daily is useful if you intend your character to be self supporting for AD, allowing a fresh 60 to purchase a bit of T1 loot.
Winning authors of community contests don't get zen prizes? Granted, it's only like $10 worth of zen, but it's a nice prize after 6 weeks of a contest and voting period for a Foundry challenge. Here is the latest one for STO. Perhaps your new community manager could do something similar.
The morale around here seems much lower than ours, and our Foundry is abandoned, it seems. You folks really need somebody who cares. Even the mods are bitter about the Foundry, for good reasons.
The last contest was a looong time ago. There were never any prizes.
The contests are about the only thing keeping us going, since winning a contest is a guaranteed featured spot. Without a contest, I'm not really sure if I'd have the motivation to even make a ninth or tenth mission, since it's like 60 hours of work for 60 reviews in a year.
They do give Zen rewards out for much less though so it really never made sense to me that the reward was only being spotlighted...
But there's really not much I more I can say on that...
However I can say with 100% certainty that it doesn't matter what is done to make the Foundry Authors happy. The cold hard truth is that until the rewards are looked into the player base will not want to play the content no matter how good the content is.
So that is where I am pushing. While I would love more tools it wouldn't matter one bit if the players don't want to play the content anyway.
I am an outsider to your community, so please forgive the assumptions.
I have seen first-hand what a dedicated community manager can do (along with his team of mods), in spite of our game not seeming to have a single programmer who knows about the Foundry. Please don't point to the system, as if that excuses what appears to be a real lack of community management, coordination, and encouragement through things like live streams, contests, prizes, etc. There doesn't seem to be much community rallying over here at all.
I don't really understand the circumstances or the history, so I'm not blaming anyone in this thread. But, our STO community has been sustained by mods and managers who think outside of the box and don't just point fingers at the lack of a programmer's solution. Community events work. Community support works. Community encouragement works. Some rewards are nice, but it also helps to have a few folks really brainstorming the question of "What can I actually do to improve morale around here, when I have no control over programmers and schedules?" Well our community managers and our mods did a lot, in spite of the odds.
Again, I don't mean any offense. I have no knowledge of you as a moderator or supporter of the Foundry. It's just my knee jerk reactions to that post. Mostly, I am thinking that "these people had all the programmers and the shinies and we had very little, yet there is a passing of the buck from the only part of our community that kept anything going for us." I do agree with your points about the rewards system. It sounds really lousy over here. But, I wonder what a dedicated and active community manager could do about it, since I saw what one can do, despite the odds of nobody on his dev team having training in the Foundry.
Hopefully, this is read as an encouraging post to the mods and CM to feel somewhat empowered by past examples.
I first got introduced to UGC with Neverwinter Nights' Aurora Toolset. I spent many years playing Neverwinter Nights religiously because of the UGC. My mantra while Neverwinter was being released was that developer content sucks, UGC is far superior more often than not. And that has held true. No offense devs but players can make better storylines than any developers.
I worked on a Persistent World Server called Moonlight and Shadows which is in the NWVault Hall of Fame. In other words I have a long history of UGC myself. I came to Neverwinter hoping to be a content developer long before the game was ever released.
As a player the only thing that separates me from the standard elitists is attitude towards other players. I play to win. That is how I have fun when playing games. However I am elitist on myself rather than expecting others to be elitist. I am not a person that says a person can't play if they are blank class or are not a skilled player. I will play with any one with any group composition at any pace because to me every second that I spend helping other players get better at the game is a reward.
What I will not do is be on my own and choose not to play to win. Which was the brick wall I hit with the Foundry.
You have no idea how much it pains me that I almost never play Foundry Content. I absolutely detest the fifteen minute comedy skits that infest the "best" tab. There are so many great missions created with great storylines but you simply can not deliver a worthwhile storyline in 15 minutes. However as the elitist pig I am every time I do a mission which is 30+ minutes long with true effort put into making quality content I get to the end and feel like I get punched in my stomach by the horrible waste of time feeling.
If you can play a good story and feel a good story is a reward of its own kudos to you. I can not. It sucks every bit of the enjoyment of the experience from me. So it's a rare day when I actually play Foundry Content.
So you are talking to a content developer who is here because of UGC...
Who can not bring himself to do UGC missions...
I am a player first, mod second. The sad truth is as a player I can't play UGC.
So I am sorry but you are not going to have me rallying the troops. I can't lead a parade when I can't walk the walk.
Hence why I keep pushing for the rewards to be looked at over and over and over again. Until those rewards are improved many players who are like me and want to enjoy UGC will keep ignoring it and you have a fat chance in hell to get those who really have no interest in UGC ever doing it. There will be no audience until the rewards are looked at.
So please take a minute to look past the mod title and look at who you are speaking to.
If I am not playing and enjoying UGC there is a huge problem.
So sorry but this is not STO. There is no amount of positive community rallying which will make me enjoy foundry content. You get more rewards by going anywhere in the game and killing the random mobs. You probably get more rewards from a single loot node in the main world than you get from an entire Foundry Quest.
In STO you have decent incentives to play UGC whether you enjoy UGC or not. There are no incentives to do UGC in Neverwinter other than the Rhix daily which as I said earlier really pushes people to do farm quests rather than quality content. There's nothing the community team can do to change the cold hard reality of the situation: there are no incentives to play quality Foundry Content as a player.
I will not treat you all like children. I am going to tell you the truth as I see it. I am telling you that the biggest problem with UGC at this time is not the tools. You could have all the tools in the world and make the most amazing content ever and still not have an audience to enjoy it.
As the system stands my best chance to get more players to play UGC is by telling them that every time they play a Foundry Quest a kitten purrs because I can't tell them that they will get rewarded by the game.
The number one complaint from Content Developers is players do not play their content. The best way to get more content played is to get more players playing Foundry Content in general. In order to get more players playing Foundry Content in general it has to be more appealing for them to spend their time doing Foundry Content. The number one reason why players do not play Foundry Content is because it is not rewarding enough.
In order to make the content developers happy the players have to be made happy first.
NWVault. Wow. That brings back memories. I wrote some of the first NWScript examples and probably the first NWScript Reference Manual. Good times. If they were to integrate LUA into NWO...I'd probably never leave the house.
Agree 1,000%
I can't even fathom why they don't even implement the incredibly simple adjustment of simply "shifting" a single mob-loot-rainbow-explosion item (just ONE) from every 5th kill and save/deposit it into the final chest -- the PERCEPTION alone of this incredible "bounty" of a dozen or more items would do wonders. With ZERO change in the actual existing loot/treasure calculations. They would STILL be nearly worthless and really, really, REALLY do need to be adjusted - but a simple solution that any beginning developer could code in probably less than a couple of hours - including testing. Boggles the mind they can't even do that. Just the mere perception of a "big haul" in the end chest would be an enormous win. I'd even be willing to sign an NDA and code the dang changes for them!
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I hope they email me to let me know.
Authors, both past and present, are the vast minority of the player base.
It will definitely be advertised on the front page and have a dedicated thread here but not likely to be advertised via e-mail.
I'll try and keep my eye on it, but the thing with authors is that they won't always be playing and keeping tabs on the forum. It is very much an on/off thing for many. They may be in the minority but they should be considered an important minority as they develop free content. But then this is all part of the problem. If you sent out emails you would no doubt have many old authors return even if just for a while which would create a buzz.
In regards to the competition, may I make a suggestion. Keep it open. The last two were based on certain area's of the game which is very limiting. I wasn't around for the first, but the 2nd had few entry's and most just ignored the theme. Also give people time, I make quests much quicker than most and I struggled to get mine in on time and get it to daily. Those that were not daily did not stand a chance. Although you may change how the winner is decided, in which case that won't matter.
I would suggest the theme to be 'Forgotten realms Lore' from my own foundry experience I think many authors forget they are playing a D&D game.
You should take some lessons in programming. It would enlighten you a bit in how much work is required for every single miniscule detail.
Just because you can manually search for something doesn't mean there is an automated process to do it.
Without a doubt it could be programmed but that is why I suggest actually learning how to program before making such nonchalant claims. I said I worked on a Persistent World. My role was programming the game. The only certainty in programming is nothing is "easy" and as a programmer it makes me cringe every time I see such disregard for the effort required to write every program.
You really did just do 21st century equivalent of "if the people are unhappy give them cake."
As long as Cryptic bothered to keep track of which accounts have published a Foundry, something that would not be hard to gather up even if they didnt already, they could email the addresses associated with the accounts.
That just comes down to each person. I would get it and as far as I am concerned that is all that matters. Although it goes without saying the more the merrier. Still, I'll try and keep my eyes open.
If there is a competition I may be persuaded to drag myself off of ESO for a few days.
Definitely not as difficult as Ambi thinks -- at least on a unix system. A simple database SQL select containing foundry authors account and contact e-mail address output as a text list of e-mail accounts. Then run mail program with a file-template and supply all the addresses.
A Windows power-shell script ought to be pretty close as well.
So, 2 script commands (and a text file)?
If it's much harder than that somebody is doing their programming/system-admin really, really wrong.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I will read that as: It could be done easily enough.