I'd love to see more contests where the winner gets to be featured, but have them once a month or once every 2 months. So far I think I've seen like 2 contests in a year. I don't mind having a theme but it has to be open enough so people can be creative.
Even if there's no zen prize,at least begin featured means we could get some AD from the tips alone.
0
imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
edited May 2014
If there's something unique available, people will grind for it.
Look at each of the CTAs, and how many times people are willing to run the same skirmish over and over (and over and over) to get a crappy green companion.
If they would just come up with a few unique cosmetic items, and maybe a few of the typical mostly-useless green companions, and make them available in a Foundry shop, then give a Foundry coin for each 15 minutes of average play time of any given Foundry quest, people would flock to Foundries to get the unique stuff. Even if things took 400 coins + to get (thus requiring at least 100 hours of Foundry play), people would do it. Make the rewards actually useful, like they did with PvP, and you'd really be seeing people in the Foundries.
I view it as almost a complete failure, until EQN and a few other games come out... at which point it WILL hit complete failure.
I am utterly disappointed at Cryptic's continued failure to support UGC.
I could be wrong, but I place the blame firmly on the shoulders of PWE and their ridiculous pay to win philosophy. The game is a cash cow. Anything that does not directly put people into the cash shop comes second. With such a design it leads me to believe that cryptic are probably under manned and over worked, anything to save money and get maximum profit. Hell, they probably even have to make do with a cheap coffee machine to save the pennies.
I could be wrong, but I place the blame firmly on the shoulders of PWE and their ridiculous pay to win philosophy. The game is a cash cow. Anything that does not directly put people into the cash shop comes second. With such a design it leads me to believe that cryptic are probably under manned and over worked, anything to save money and get maximum profit. Hell, they probably even have to make do with a cheap coffee machine to save the pennies.
Which is Capitalism at it's finest.
And it is not just PWE... It is most MMO companies out there.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
Aye! A waste for them for sure. It demonstrates that PWE can not think outside of the box. Happy just to chug along making money on tried and tested means and other peoples idea's. They got lucky with Neverwinter, could have had a real gem of a game by their standards, but instead they turned it into there usual cash shop riddled rubbish.
It now targets an audience that is a direct contrast to what the foundry is or should be about. Hence the 15 minute quest. The average players mentality - 'I've got my AD, blow actually enjoying a good story if there is no reward.' A long step away from what I have heard of Neverwinter Nights.
If you build a car that no one drives,
If you write a book that no one reads,
If you paint a picture that no one sees,
Then you may have enjoyed building, writing and painting but ultimately the underlying purpose of your endeavours was to share your creation - hence Failure sadly.
If you build a car that no one drives,
If you write a book that no one reads,
If you paint a picture that no one sees,
Then you may have enjoyed building, writing and painting but ultimately the underlying purpose of your endeavours was to share your creation - hence Failure sadly.
Yeah....I've never written with the purpose to be sharing my creation. I don't know who you're talking to but most art and writing hobbyists I know, it's like pulling teeth to get them to share anything. Bottom line plenty of us write for the sake of the story, who cares if no one reads/watches/plays it? Sure, it'd be nice if someone did but that's not their purpose. It's just sort of...vain to assume that just because you make something someone will want to play it.
(Swear, not attacking you here, just can't find a less..."prickly" way to phrase this right now. Sorry )
I agree - the rewards system bites, but that's from a player standpoint: I would like more reason to play these awesome epic quests and have a reason not to spend my time playing working on the campaign quests for the thousandth time in order to get boons or gear that might actually improve what I've got. From a writing standpoint my work is my work and I'm not going to give up this new form of story telling. Simple as that. I just would like to see more features (details and encounters) and have the exploit quests actually have a crack down on them.
I agree with the majority of the posters - it needs some lovin' but it's certainly not a failure. Not yet anyways. Again, just my opinion on that matter. I like the foundry, plus it's like the rest of the game where it's free to use, I don't know of any other place I can do this kind of thing without paying a penny.
I like the foundry, plus it's like the rest of the game where it's free to use, I don't know of any other place I can do this kind of thing without paying a penny.
Not going to read the whole thread, but I would like to add my two cents.
The number one issue with Foundries is loot. The good ones are as well or better designed than the dev quests, and often more fun due to increased challenge.
Somehow, there needs to be a Dev pass to add profession nodes. Perhaps even create a pool of blue named drops that are exclusive to the Foundry and result in random drops. Unfortunately great design, white knuckle combat and humor only goes so far .. we need LOOT!!!
Cryptic - don't be so cheap and pony up resources for a governance team.
Yeah....I've never written with the purpose to be sharing my creation. I don't know who you're talking to but most art and writing hobbyists I know, it's like pulling teeth to get them to share anything. Bottom line plenty of us write for the sake of the story, who cares if no one reads/watches/plays it? Sure, it'd be nice if someone did but that's not their purpose. It's just sort of...vain to assume that just because you make something someone will want to play it.
(Swear, not attacking you here, just can't find a less..."prickly" way to phrase this right now. Sorry )
I agree - the rewards system bites, but that's from a player standpoint: I would like more reason to play these awesome epic quests and have a reason not to spend my time playing working on the campaign quests for the thousandth time in order to get boons or gear that might actually improve what I've got. From a writing standpoint my work is my work and I'm not going to give up this new form of story telling. Simple as that. I just would like to see more features (details and encounters) and have the exploit quests actually have a crack down on them.
I agree with the majority of the posters - it needs some lovin' but it's certainly not a failure. Not yet anyways. Again, just my opinion on that matter. I like the foundry, plus it's like the rest of the game where it's free to use, I don't know of any other place I can do this kind of thing without paying a penny.
No offense meant here...
But you seems to be contradicting yourself. First you say (paraphrased) Plenty do foundries just for the story, and who cares if anyone plays them. It would be nice, but that is not the purpose. Then you go on about having exploit quest gotten rid of. But if you are doing this for yourself and don't care if anyone plays it why worry about exploit quests?
I would say, depending on how you want to look at it... The Neverwinter Foundry is a failure. There are so many things wrong with it (exploit quests, Best tab a complete joke, end loot, etc, etc) that IMHO it is indeed a failure.
And just out of curiosity, what would make the Foundry a failure in your opinion?
There is not way of us knowing the numbers... But it seems that a lot of authors have left or are not using the foundry anymore. And it seems like fewer and fewer players are actually playing foundry quests. And why??? I would hazard a guess because of Cryptic/PWE is not addressing the issues that have been around since the game went live. And I don't see any changes coming in the foreseeable future.
So again, IMO the foundry is indeed a failure.
Just my 2coppers
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
But it seems that a lot of authors have left or are not using the foundry anymore. And it seems like fewer and fewer players are actually playing foundry quests.
This is something I noticed occasionally visiting these forums out of curiosity. As a STO author, it was actually a little sickening to see so much activity and hope during NW's launch. People seemed very optimistic about the future, and it was (understandably) voiced in a tone that ignored the longer history of tool. It was like watching the same story unfold all over again.
When NW launched, I couldn't keep a thread on the first page of these forums for more than 2 hours. Now, I see the same 5 or 6 people posting, and almost everyone is bitter and angry. There is a lot of bitterness and anger over at STO as well, but, from what I've read in this thread, our general morale is higher after a much longer period of dealing with the same issues.
And we've built up a pretty robust foundry community, which I honestly don't really see here. Are there any podcasts devoted to the foundry? We have 3 or 4 atm. Are there websites like Starbase UGC? Are there foundry FEs, robust contests, and all the other stuff that goes along with a dedicated, but small group of NW authors? It seems like none of the stuff that kept us together and supportive of each other exists over here. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's a little baffling to me that it crashed and burned so fast and hard here. Maybe the playerbase was just too MMO to even care about a story. I don't know much about NWN lore to judge whether or not it has a rich legacy of storytelling the way that our franchise does. I'll assume that it does, yet, for some reason, story without a shiny is worthless to the players here. To some extent, that is really true for us too. But, the "empty feeling" is less prevalent among folks who really don't care about grinding for some purple that has no noticeable gameplay advantage other than convincing some megalomaniac that he/she has the bestezt of Everythingz...
But you seems to be contradicting yourself. First you say (paraphrased) Plenty do foundries just for the story, and who cares if anyone plays them. It would be nice, but that is not the purpose. Then you go on about having exploit quest gotten rid of. But if you are doing this for yourself and don't care if anyone plays it why worry about exploit quests?
I would say, depending on how you want to look at it... The Neverwinter Foundry is a failure. There are so many things wrong with it (exploit quests, Best tab a complete joke, end loot, etc, etc) that IMHO it is indeed a failure.
And just out of curiosity, what would make the Foundry a failure in your opinion?
There is not way of us knowing the numbers... But it seems that a lot of authors have left or are not using the foundry anymore. And it seems like fewer and fewer players are actually playing foundry quests. And why??? I would hazard a guess because of Cryptic/PWE is not addressing the issues that have been around since the game went live. And I don't see any changes coming in the foreseeable future.
So again, IMO the foundry is indeed a failure.
Just my 2coppers
The exploit quests are against the rules but there's no policing being done. People shouldn't be allowed to misbehave without consequences. My dislike of exploit quests has nothing to do with my opinion as a writer or a player but simply where I stand on what's right. They agreed to follow the rules when they signed up but they can't manage that so they should be punished and the offense removed. Simple as that.
As for what would make the foundry a failure: if everyone gives up on it. There's lots of foundry authors happy to keep making quests despite the difficulties (if you hang out in the Foundry chat there's lots of them around).
I'm a die hard idealist and a bit of an optimist though, so I think my out look is a bit on the rare side 'round these parts.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
Forgotten Realms has way more storytelling capacity than Star Trek. If you think Star Trek has a rich storyline your mind would be blown by the depth that the Forgotten Realms has.
Part of it is the community is too MMO...
But it doesn't matter how good the stories are. There might as well be absolutely no rewards for doing Foundry Missions. The developer content isn't as interesting as Foundry Content but it is still good content and the severe difference in rewards drives all but a handful of even the players away from Foundry Content.
Rewards are part of the enjoyment. All games reward playing whether it is single player or multiplayer. The thing is those rewards have to be balanced throughout the game. A game with few rewards is fine but a game can't have equal effort reward differently without driving players to not enjoy the less rewarding content if not outright avoiding it.
It's not about the type of players...
That's just human nature...
And it is rare for people to not care when equal effort is rewarded unequally.
This is something I noticed occasionally visiting these forums out of curiosity. As a STO author, it was actually a little sickening to see so much activity and hope during NW's launch. People seemed very optimistic about the future, and it was (understandably) voiced in a tone that ignored the longer history of tool. It was like watching the same story unfold all over again.
When NW launched, I couldn't keep a thread on the first page of these forums for more than 2 hours. Now, I see the same 5 or 6 people posting, and almost everyone is bitter and angry. There is a lot of bitterness and anger over at STO as well, but, from what I've read in this thread, our general morale is higher after a much longer period of dealing with the same issues.
And we've built up a pretty robust foundry community, which I honestly don't really see here. Are there any podcasts devoted to the foundry? We have 3 or 4 atm. Are there websites like Starbase UGC? Are there foundry FEs, robust contests, and all the other stuff that goes along with a dedicated, but small group of NW authors? It seems like none of the stuff that kept us together and supportive of each other exists over here. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's a little baffling to me that it crashed and burned so fast and hard here. Maybe the playerbase was just too MMO to even care about a story. I don't know much about NWN lore to judge whether or not it has a rich legacy of storytelling the way that our franchise does. I'll assume that it does, yet, for some reason, story without a shiny is worthless to the players here. To some extent, that is really true for us too. But, the "empty feeling" is less prevalent among folks who really don't care about grinding for some purple that has no noticeable gameplay advantage other than convincing some megalomaniac that he/she has the bestezt of Everythingz...
I won't make this a long post...
I will start out by saying I was really excited when I heard STO was coming out... But my excitement died pretty quickly when I started playing. I just could not get into the Cryptics version of Star Trek... So I never stayed long enough to get to the Foundry.
To me it wasn't so baffling to me that the NW Foundry community died so fast... I think the Authors were initially excited about the Foundry and then realized it was not what they expected and that things were just not going to be fixed anytime soon so they just gave up.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
The exploit quests are against the rules but there's no policing being done. People shouldn't be allowed to misbehave without consequences. My dislike of exploit quests has nothing to do with my opinion as a writer or a player but simply where I stand on what's right. They agreed to follow the rules when they signed up but they can't manage that so they should be punished and the offense removed. Simple as that.
As for what would make the foundry a failure: if everyone gives up on it. There's lots of foundry authors happy to keep making quests despite the difficulties (if you hang out in the Foundry chat there's lots of them around).
I'm a die hard idealist and a bit of an optimist though, so I think my out look is a bit on the rare side 'round these parts.
As for your first paragraph...
I got the (maybe wrong) impression that you did not, care of anyone played your Foundry quests. So my question was what difference does an exploit quest make to your foundry quest? Theoretically the whole Best and New tabs could be filled with exploit quests and it should not affect your enjoyment of the foundry, since you do not care if anyone plays your quests. Now I understand your rules argument and I agree they should be deleted and the author punished in some way. But don't hold your breath for that to happen.
As to your second paragraph...
I have two things here...
1. If failure is when no one plays or creates foundries... Then the foundry will never fail. Period. There will always be someone playing foundry quests and creating foundry quests as long as Cryptic/PWE doesn't kill it.
2. I guess we differ on your definitions. You state there are "lots" of authors. How many are "lots"? 10? 100? 1000?
I check the Foundry forum a few times a day just to see what is going on... And I rarely see more then 10-15 in the foundry forum at one time. Usually it is in the single digits. I have even seen it where there were none viewing the Foundry forum. That is where I ask the "What is Lots" question.
And lastly... I guess I am just jaded on the Foundry. With me it is glass half empty... The Foundry has seen its best days and is slowly fading into oblivion...
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
Forgotten Realms has way more storytelling capacity than Star Trek. If you think Star Trek has a rich storyline your mind would be blown by the depth that the Forgotten Realms has.
Part of it is the community is too MMO...
But it doesn't matter how good the stories are. There might as well be absolutely no rewards for doing Foundry Missions. The developer content isn't as interesting as Foundry Content but it is still good content and the severe difference in rewards drives all but a handful of even the players away from Foundry Content.
Rewards are part of the enjoyment. All games reward playing whether it is single player or multiplayer. The thing is those rewards have to be balanced throughout the game. A game with few rewards is fine but a game can't have equal effort reward differently without driving players to not enjoy the less rewarding content if not outright avoiding it.
It's not about the type of players...
That's just human nature...
And it is rare for people to not care when equal effort is rewarded unequally.
I have to agree with you on this...
Things need to be done, but I have my doubts it will ever be done.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
As to your second paragraph...
I have two things here...
1. If failure is when no one plays or creates foundries... Then the foundry will never fail. Period. There will always be someone playing foundry quests and creating foundry quests as long as Cryptic/PWE doesn't kill it.
2. I guess we differ on your definitions. You state there are "lots" of authors. How many are "lots"? 10? 100? 1000?
I check the Foundry forum a few times a day just to see what is going on... And I rarely see more then 10-15 in the foundry forum at one time. Usually it is in the single digits. I have even seen it where there were none viewing the Foundry forum. That is where I ask the "What is Lots" question.
And lastly... I guess I am just jaded on the Foundry. With me it is glass half empty... The Foundry has seen its best days and is slowly fading into oblivion...
Yeah, we differ there and nothing wrong with that, it's that silly little optimist that resides in my head going "rah-rah-rah" no matter how dumb my beliefs (in this case my definition) sound rationally. I've got a pretty unfounded opinion but I'd rather keep it then change to a more rational view.
Though one of the things about the forum is that a lot of the newer authors aren't actually aware that there is a forum here or use it, most of the interactions I've had are happening in the Foundry whilst I'm working on my quests.
As for being jaded, it's more than understandable. I think I would be too if I had been with it from the start. I just got lucky I only joined recently so I haven't had time for constant strings of disappointment to wear me down.
PS. I don't really care if folks play my quests so you got the right opinion, I will still publish and put them up for review but I'm happy as long as I tell the characters' story in a way that makes me happy.
PS. I don't really care if folks play my quests so you got the right opinion, I will still publish and put them up for review but I'm happy as long as I tell the characters' story in a way that makes me happy.
Have to mostly agree here. I don't really care (very much) if people play my foundries or not -- sure, I really do enjoy seeing positive reviews and knowing that a handful of people have thoroughly enjoyed something I've created. But, I gain the majority of my enjoyment in the process of creation -- turning my idea/story into something virtually tangible. It's like an adult 3-d lego set with buttons and lights and speakers.
PS. I don't really care if folks play my quests so you got the right opinion, I will still publish and put them up for review but I'm happy as long as I tell the characters' story in a way that makes me happy.
Have to mostly agree here. I don't really care (very much) if people play my foundries or not -- sure, I really do enjoy seeing positive reviews and knowing that a handful of people have thoroughly enjoyed something I've created. But, I gain the majority of my enjoyment in the process of creation -- turning my idea/story into something virtually tangible. It's like an adult 3-d lego set with buttons and lights and speakers.
Here is my jaded thinking kicking in here so please don't take offense either of you...
If you don't care if people play your Foundry quests... Why publish them? That seems to indicate you do, in fact, care if people play them.
As I said I have been using the Foundry since the beginning. I have published a few quests and I have pulled all of them. The one thing I hate then/now and always will is the fact that I have to beg to have my quests played. And I am very disappointed with having players determine the tags for my quests. To me that is the dumbest idea ever...
Again there are so many thing wrong with the foundry... I still on occasion log into the foundry and play around, but I doubt I will ever publish again.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
0
orangefireeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,148Arc User
Here is my jaded thinking kicking in here so please don't take offense either of you...
If you don't care if people play your Foundry quests... Why publish them? That seems to indicate you do, in fact, care if people play them.
As I said I have been using the Foundry since the beginning. I have published a few quests and I have pulled all of them. The one thing I hate then/now and always will is the fact that I have to beg to have my quests played. And I am very disappointed with having players determine the tags for my quests. To me that is the dumbest idea ever...
Again there are so many thing wrong with the foundry... I still on occasion log into the foundry and play around, but I doubt I will ever publish again.
I can't speak for the posters you are responding to, but as for me, if I have something ready, I hit the publish, I post it on the forums, etc. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm doing it for the sole purpose of getting plays, but I want to let people who are interested in playing them play them.
Besides, it's much more fun to play my quests with my own character than with the author character.
Neverwinter players are stubborn things....until you strip them down to bone. (Cursed players, my flowers, MINE!) Oh how I plotted their demise.
If you don't care if people play your Foundry quests... Why publish them? That seems to indicate you do, in fact, care if people play them.
That's a funny one, I both agree and disagree, I don't make foundry quests in order to get plays, it's like playing the guitar or painting. A hobby, as someone pointed out.
The thing is, when you do something like write a song, create the next Moaning Lisa and you are proud of it, of course you want people to try/play/listen to it, it's part of human nature. People that deny these feelings are not honest. There is however a big difference between making something for enjoyments sake or just to make money, get plays in this case. This is why most popular things are so generic these days. Every industry has been incorporated. The people that succeed are not the ones doing it for the love of it, or at least the ones pulling the strings. It's all money, money, money and each thing has a set sequence to make it what it is. Music, art, mmo's.
This brings us full circle to the foundry being a failure or success. It is both, on the one hand the idea behind it is great and I'm sure the good folks at cryptic once had big idea's for it and put a lot of love into it. But the evil folks at PWE are confused, they haven't seen this in an mmo before. Can it make money? How? For now it seems to have been all but shelved with the minimum love. A promotion tool and nothing more.
It's sad the world is like this, but it is what it is.
I can't speak for the posters you are responding to, but as for me, if I have something ready, I hit the publish, I post it on the forums, etc. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm doing it for the sole purpose of getting plays, but I want to let people who are interested in playing them play them.
Besides, it's much more fun to play my quests with my own character than with the author character.
I kind of agree here... And I can see your point.
Except that I do not enjoy playing my own quests. I know too much about what is going on and what is around the next corner to have it be fun.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
That's a funny one, I both agree and disagree, I don't make foundry quests in order to get plays, it's like playing the guitar or painting. A hobby, as someone pointed out.
The thing is, when you do something like write a song, create the next Moaning Lisa and you are proud of it, of course you want people to try/play/listen to it, it's part of human nature. People that deny these feelings are not honest. There is however a big difference between making something for enjoyments sake or just to make money, get plays in this case. This is why most popular things are so generic these days. Every industry has been incorporated. The people that succeed are not the ones doing it for the love of it, or at least the ones pulling the strings. It's all money, money, money and each thing has a set sequence to make it what it is. Music, art, mmo's.
This brings us full circle to the foundry being a failure or success. It is both, on the one hand the idea behind it is great and I'm sure the good folks at cryptic once had big idea's for it and put a lot of love into it. But the evil folks at PWE are confused, they haven't seen this in an mmo before. Can it make money? How? For now it seems to have been all but shelved with the minimum love. A promotion tool and nothing more.
It's sad the world is like this, but it is what it is.
I agree with you... The Foundry is a great idea. But I am not sure the failure is all PWE. To me there are a lot of things the are "problems" with the foundry that I have a hard time pointing to PWE as the cause. Things like the "tag" system, the adjusted rating system, the tab system, and others. Those all seem to fall into Cryptics lap.
For instance... I read somewhere on these forums about how to get your quests plays. The response was in part an explanation that there are thousands of quests on the "For Review" tab and more being added every day. My thoughts were... Doesn't anyone see a problem here? I doubt that there are thousands of quests "On the For Review Tab" There may very well be thousands of quests that need reviews, but I doubt all of them are actually on the tab. I don't even thing you can scroll thru hundreds of quests on the for review tab. So there are thousands of quests that will probably never get enough reviews to make to the "New" tab. Some of which are probably very good quests. Which brings me to the "Tag" system problems. I could go on and on... But I won't bore anyone here.
So to end this... I play around with the Foundry for my own enjoyment and won't publish any that I may finish from here on out.
Sweet Water and Light Laughter Till Next We Meet.
Narayan
I agree with you... The Foundry is a great idea. But I am not sure the failure is all PWE. To me there are a lot of things the are "problems" with the foundry that I have a hard time pointing to PWE as the cause. Things like the "tag" system, the adjusted rating system, the tab system, and others. Those all seem to fall into Cryptics lap.
For instance... I read somewhere on these forums about how to get your quests plays. The response was in part an explanation that there are thousands of quests on the "For Review" tab and more being added every day. My thoughts were... Doesn't anyone see a problem here? I doubt that there are thousands of quests "On the For Review Tab" There may very well be thousands of quests that need reviews, but I doubt all of them are actually on the tab. I don't even thing you can scroll thru hundreds of quests on the for review tab. So there are thousands of quests that will probably never get enough reviews to make to the "New" tab. Some of which are probably very good quests. Which brings me to the "Tag" system problems. I could go on and on... But I won't bore anyone here.
So to end this... I play around with the Foundry for my own enjoyment and won't publish any that I may finish from here on out.
The thing is, the foundry takes a lot of time and effort from cryptic's point of view. They will have targets and deadlines to meet and working time will be tight. If the targets are not on the foundry they will not work on it. I'm sure they would like to. Who really knows?
I agree though, mistakes have been made. The tag system for sure. But mistakes usually come from stress.
The thing is, that even if most of the quests played are farm quests for the daily, it's still people using the foundry, so it's not a failure. We just, as authors, wish that those who play it would prefer to play story driven quests, or quests that toook more effort to make.
Also, being featured grants you thousands of plays, so there IS lots of people playing story driven foundries too, but they usually only play the featured ones, and don't go out of these.
I think a better reward system would help with this problem. And also a way to encourage playing new quests. Like the first time you play a foundry quest you get something.
Here is my jaded thinking kicking in here so please don't take offense either of you...
If you don't care if people play your Foundry quests... Why publish them? That seems to indicate you do, in fact, care if people play them.
......
I still on occasion log into the foundry and play around, but I doubt I will ever publish again.
None taken. I do it because my brother saw that I never shared any of my work (art, writing, etc.) and was following my example. Only he wouldn't take any pride in what he accomplished and did it not out of a lack of desire but because he thought it wasn't good enough. So I started putting my work out there to be an example to him, to show him that it's alright to be proud of what you did even if other people don't like it or its not as good as someone else makes. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but it's what I do as big sis, it's a habit that started on DeviantArt and just carried to every other site I've been on. So I don't care about people actually playing them, but I DO care about being a good example for my little brother.
I'm sure there are others with random reasoning behind why they feel they have to hit "publish" when they finish something too.
I would certainly be lying if I said I didn't like having my work liked by other people, but at the same time I'm not upset or disappointed if no one plays it either.
It's actually a little sad that you won't publish again, you sound like you'd be able to come up with a good plot and quest. But I understand where you're coming from.
For me, it saps a lot of my motivation, knowing that I'm putting a lot of time and work (yes, it does feel like work battling the STO foundry), and virtually nobody will play it. A storyteller needs an audience. Otherwise I'm talking to a wall after an epic battle to get a toolset to do simple things.
Granted, this is with STO's foundry. I've lost a lot of motivation to spend 50-60 hours building and fighting with triggers and the storyboard to add content for a game whose company doesn't seem to really care whether players can even find my missions without a custom search of my author name. I'm sure some individual devs care, but not the schedule makers.
It's like why bother? Why bother creating content for a game that does very little to support and upgrade the tool or help the content-makers?
I have 8 missions, but I haven't felt motivated to really work on one in like a year or so. I would probably have less motivation if I made NW missions, given the lack of player incentives for foundry.
Comments
Even if there's no zen prize,at least begin featured means we could get some AD from the tips alone.
Look at each of the CTAs, and how many times people are willing to run the same skirmish over and over (and over and over) to get a crappy green companion.
If they would just come up with a few unique cosmetic items, and maybe a few of the typical mostly-useless green companions, and make them available in a Foundry shop, then give a Foundry coin for each 15 minutes of average play time of any given Foundry quest, people would flock to Foundries to get the unique stuff. Even if things took 400 coins + to get (thus requiring at least 100 hours of Foundry play), people would do it. Make the rewards actually useful, like they did with PvP, and you'd really be seeing people in the Foundries.
-- @Gruffydd
I am utterly disappointed at Cryptic's continued failure to support UGC.
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?
I could be wrong, but I place the blame firmly on the shoulders of PWE and their ridiculous pay to win philosophy. The game is a cash cow. Anything that does not directly put people into the cash shop comes second. With such a design it leads me to believe that cryptic are probably under manned and over worked, anything to save money and get maximum profit. Hell, they probably even have to make do with a cheap coffee machine to save the pennies.
Which is Capitalism at it's finest.
And it is not just PWE... It is most MMO companies out there.
Narayan
Which makes it all the more ridiculous that they haven't figured out how to monetize the Foundry with product placement like movies and television have done for decades. PWE marketing fail.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Aye! A waste for them for sure. It demonstrates that PWE can not think outside of the box. Happy just to chug along making money on tried and tested means and other peoples idea's. They got lucky with Neverwinter, could have had a real gem of a game by their standards, but instead they turned it into there usual cash shop riddled rubbish.
It now targets an audience that is a direct contrast to what the foundry is or should be about. Hence the 15 minute quest. The average players mentality - 'I've got my AD, blow actually enjoying a good story if there is no reward.' A long step away from what I have heard of Neverwinter Nights.
If you write a book that no one reads,
If you paint a picture that no one sees,
Then you may have enjoyed building, writing and painting but ultimately the underlying purpose of your endeavours was to share your creation - hence Failure sadly.
422 - Bride of Yeenoghu
Yeah....I've never written with the purpose to be sharing my creation. I don't know who you're talking to but most art and writing hobbyists I know, it's like pulling teeth to get them to share anything. Bottom line plenty of us write for the sake of the story, who cares if no one reads/watches/plays it? Sure, it'd be nice if someone did but that's not their purpose. It's just sort of...vain to assume that just because you make something someone will want to play it.
(Swear, not attacking you here, just can't find a less..."prickly" way to phrase this right now. Sorry
I agree - the rewards system bites, but that's from a player standpoint: I would like more reason to play these awesome epic quests and have a reason not to spend my time playing working on the campaign quests for the thousandth time in order to get boons or gear that might actually improve what I've got. From a writing standpoint my work is my work and I'm not going to give up this new form of story telling. Simple as that. I just would like to see more features (details and encounters) and have the exploit quests actually have a crack down on them.
I agree with the majority of the posters - it needs some lovin' but it's certainly not a failure. Not yet anyways. Again, just my opinion on that matter. I like the foundry, plus it's like the rest of the game where it's free to use, I don't know of any other place I can do this kind of thing without paying a penny.
......yet.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
The number one issue with Foundries is loot. The good ones are as well or better designed than the dev quests, and often more fun due to increased challenge.
Somehow, there needs to be a Dev pass to add profession nodes. Perhaps even create a pool of blue named drops that are exclusive to the Foundry and result in random drops. Unfortunately great design, white knuckle combat and humor only goes so far .. we need LOOT!!!
Cryptic - don't be so cheap and pony up resources for a governance team.
No offense meant here...
But you seems to be contradicting yourself. First you say (paraphrased) Plenty do foundries just for the story, and who cares if anyone plays them. It would be nice, but that is not the purpose. Then you go on about having exploit quest gotten rid of. But if you are doing this for yourself and don't care if anyone plays it why worry about exploit quests?
I would say, depending on how you want to look at it... The Neverwinter Foundry is a failure. There are so many things wrong with it (exploit quests, Best tab a complete joke, end loot, etc, etc) that IMHO it is indeed a failure.
And just out of curiosity, what would make the Foundry a failure in your opinion?
There is not way of us knowing the numbers... But it seems that a lot of authors have left or are not using the foundry anymore. And it seems like fewer and fewer players are actually playing foundry quests. And why??? I would hazard a guess because of Cryptic/PWE is not addressing the issues that have been around since the game went live. And I don't see any changes coming in the foreseeable future.
So again, IMO the foundry is indeed a failure.
Just my 2coppers
Narayan
This is something I noticed occasionally visiting these forums out of curiosity. As a STO author, it was actually a little sickening to see so much activity and hope during NW's launch. People seemed very optimistic about the future, and it was (understandably) voiced in a tone that ignored the longer history of tool. It was like watching the same story unfold all over again.
When NW launched, I couldn't keep a thread on the first page of these forums for more than 2 hours. Now, I see the same 5 or 6 people posting, and almost everyone is bitter and angry. There is a lot of bitterness and anger over at STO as well, but, from what I've read in this thread, our general morale is higher after a much longer period of dealing with the same issues.
And we've built up a pretty robust foundry community, which I honestly don't really see here. Are there any podcasts devoted to the foundry? We have 3 or 4 atm. Are there websites like Starbase UGC? Are there foundry FEs, robust contests, and all the other stuff that goes along with a dedicated, but small group of NW authors? It seems like none of the stuff that kept us together and supportive of each other exists over here. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's a little baffling to me that it crashed and burned so fast and hard here. Maybe the playerbase was just too MMO to even care about a story. I don't know much about NWN lore to judge whether or not it has a rich legacy of storytelling the way that our franchise does. I'll assume that it does, yet, for some reason, story without a shiny is worthless to the players here. To some extent, that is really true for us too. But, the "empty feeling" is less prevalent among folks who really don't care about grinding for some purple that has no noticeable gameplay advantage other than convincing some megalomaniac that he/she has the bestezt of Everythingz...
The exploit quests are against the rules but there's no policing being done. People shouldn't be allowed to misbehave without consequences. My dislike of exploit quests has nothing to do with my opinion as a writer or a player but simply where I stand on what's right. They agreed to follow the rules when they signed up but they can't manage that so they should be punished and the offense removed. Simple as that.
As for what would make the foundry a failure: if everyone gives up on it. There's lots of foundry authors happy to keep making quests despite the difficulties (if you hang out in the Foundry chat there's lots of them around).
I'm a die hard idealist and a bit of an optimist though, so I think my out look is a bit on the rare side 'round these parts.
Part of it is the community is too MMO...
But it doesn't matter how good the stories are. There might as well be absolutely no rewards for doing Foundry Missions. The developer content isn't as interesting as Foundry Content but it is still good content and the severe difference in rewards drives all but a handful of even the players away from Foundry Content.
Rewards are part of the enjoyment. All games reward playing whether it is single player or multiplayer. The thing is those rewards have to be balanced throughout the game. A game with few rewards is fine but a game can't have equal effort reward differently without driving players to not enjoy the less rewarding content if not outright avoiding it.
It's not about the type of players...
That's just human nature...
And it is rare for people to not care when equal effort is rewarded unequally.
I won't make this a long post...
I will start out by saying I was really excited when I heard STO was coming out... But my excitement died pretty quickly when I started playing. I just could not get into the Cryptics version of Star Trek... So I never stayed long enough to get to the Foundry.
To me it wasn't so baffling to me that the NW Foundry community died so fast... I think the Authors were initially excited about the Foundry and then realized it was not what they expected and that things were just not going to be fixed anytime soon so they just gave up.
Narayan
As for your first paragraph...
I got the (maybe wrong) impression that you did not, care of anyone played your Foundry quests. So my question was what difference does an exploit quest make to your foundry quest? Theoretically the whole Best and New tabs could be filled with exploit quests and it should not affect your enjoyment of the foundry, since you do not care if anyone plays your quests. Now I understand your rules argument and I agree they should be deleted and the author punished in some way. But don't hold your breath for that to happen.
As to your second paragraph...
I have two things here...
1. If failure is when no one plays or creates foundries... Then the foundry will never fail. Period. There will always be someone playing foundry quests and creating foundry quests as long as Cryptic/PWE doesn't kill it.
2. I guess we differ on your definitions. You state there are "lots" of authors. How many are "lots"? 10? 100? 1000?
I check the Foundry forum a few times a day just to see what is going on... And I rarely see more then 10-15 in the foundry forum at one time. Usually it is in the single digits. I have even seen it where there were none viewing the Foundry forum. That is where I ask the "What is Lots" question.
And lastly... I guess I am just jaded on the Foundry. With me it is glass half empty... The Foundry has seen its best days and is slowly fading into oblivion...
Narayan
I have to agree with you on this...
Things need to be done, but I have my doubts it will ever be done.
Narayan
Yeah, we differ there and nothing wrong with that, it's that silly little optimist that resides in my head going "rah-rah-rah" no matter how dumb my beliefs (in this case my definition) sound rationally. I've got a pretty unfounded opinion but I'd rather keep it then change to a more rational view.
Though one of the things about the forum is that a lot of the newer authors aren't actually aware that there is a forum here or use it, most of the interactions I've had are happening in the Foundry whilst I'm working on my quests.
As for being jaded, it's more than understandable. I think I would be too if I had been with it from the start. I just got lucky I only joined recently so I haven't had time for constant strings of disappointment to wear me down.
PS. I don't really care if folks play my quests so you got the right opinion, I will still publish and put them up for review but I'm happy as long as I tell the characters' story in a way that makes me happy.
Have to mostly agree here. I don't really care (very much) if people play my foundries or not -- sure, I really do enjoy seeing positive reviews and knowing that a handful of people have thoroughly enjoyed something I've created. But, I gain the majority of my enjoyment in the process of creation -- turning my idea/story into something virtually tangible. It's like an adult 3-d lego set with buttons and lights and speakers.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Here is my jaded thinking kicking in here so please don't take offense either of you...
If you don't care if people play your Foundry quests... Why publish them? That seems to indicate you do, in fact, care if people play them.
As I said I have been using the Foundry since the beginning. I have published a few quests and I have pulled all of them. The one thing I hate then/now and always will is the fact that I have to beg to have my quests played. And I am very disappointed with having players determine the tags for my quests. To me that is the dumbest idea ever...
Again there are so many thing wrong with the foundry... I still on occasion log into the foundry and play around, but I doubt I will ever publish again.
Narayan
I can't speak for the posters you are responding to, but as for me, if I have something ready, I hit the publish, I post it on the forums, etc. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm doing it for the sole purpose of getting plays, but I want to let people who are interested in playing them play them.
Besides, it's much more fun to play my quests with my own character than with the author character.
That's a funny one, I both agree and disagree, I don't make foundry quests in order to get plays, it's like playing the guitar or painting. A hobby, as someone pointed out.
The thing is, when you do something like write a song, create the next Moaning Lisa and you are proud of it, of course you want people to try/play/listen to it, it's part of human nature. People that deny these feelings are not honest. There is however a big difference between making something for enjoyments sake or just to make money, get plays in this case. This is why most popular things are so generic these days. Every industry has been incorporated. The people that succeed are not the ones doing it for the love of it, or at least the ones pulling the strings. It's all money, money, money and each thing has a set sequence to make it what it is. Music, art, mmo's.
This brings us full circle to the foundry being a failure or success. It is both, on the one hand the idea behind it is great and I'm sure the good folks at cryptic once had big idea's for it and put a lot of love into it. But the evil folks at PWE are confused, they haven't seen this in an mmo before. Can it make money? How? For now it seems to have been all but shelved with the minimum love. A promotion tool and nothing more.
It's sad the world is like this, but it is what it is.
I kind of agree here... And I can see your point.
Except that I do not enjoy playing my own quests. I know too much about what is going on and what is around the next corner to have it be fun.
Narayan
I agree with you... The Foundry is a great idea. But I am not sure the failure is all PWE. To me there are a lot of things the are "problems" with the foundry that I have a hard time pointing to PWE as the cause. Things like the "tag" system, the adjusted rating system, the tab system, and others. Those all seem to fall into Cryptics lap.
For instance... I read somewhere on these forums about how to get your quests plays. The response was in part an explanation that there are thousands of quests on the "For Review" tab and more being added every day. My thoughts were... Doesn't anyone see a problem here? I doubt that there are thousands of quests "On the For Review Tab" There may very well be thousands of quests that need reviews, but I doubt all of them are actually on the tab. I don't even thing you can scroll thru hundreds of quests on the for review tab. So there are thousands of quests that will probably never get enough reviews to make to the "New" tab. Some of which are probably very good quests. Which brings me to the "Tag" system problems. I could go on and on... But I won't bore anyone here.
So to end this... I play around with the Foundry for my own enjoyment and won't publish any that I may finish from here on out.
Narayan
The thing is, the foundry takes a lot of time and effort from cryptic's point of view. They will have targets and deadlines to meet and working time will be tight. If the targets are not on the foundry they will not work on it. I'm sure they would like to. Who really knows?
I agree though, mistakes have been made. The tag system for sure. But mistakes usually come from stress.
Also, being featured grants you thousands of plays, so there IS lots of people playing story driven foundries too, but they usually only play the featured ones, and don't go out of these.
I think a better reward system would help with this problem. And also a way to encourage playing new quests. Like the first time you play a foundry quest you get something.
None taken. I do it because my brother saw that I never shared any of my work (art, writing, etc.) and was following my example. Only he wouldn't take any pride in what he accomplished and did it not out of a lack of desire but because he thought it wasn't good enough. So I started putting my work out there to be an example to him, to show him that it's alright to be proud of what you did even if other people don't like it or its not as good as someone else makes. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but it's what I do as big sis, it's a habit that started on DeviantArt and just carried to every other site I've been on. So I don't care about people actually playing them, but I DO care about being a good example for my little brother.
I'm sure there are others with random reasoning behind why they feel they have to hit "publish" when they finish something too.
I would certainly be lying if I said I didn't like having my work liked by other people, but at the same time I'm not upset or disappointed if no one plays it either.
It's actually a little sad that you won't publish again, you sound like you'd be able to come up with a good plot and quest. But I understand where you're coming from.
Granted, this is with STO's foundry. I've lost a lot of motivation to spend 50-60 hours building and fighting with triggers and the storyboard to add content for a game whose company doesn't seem to really care whether players can even find my missions without a custom search of my author name. I'm sure some individual devs care, but not the schedule makers.
It's like why bother? Why bother creating content for a game that does very little to support and upgrade the tool or help the content-makers?
I have 8 missions, but I haven't felt motivated to really work on one in like a year or so. I would probably have less motivation if I made NW missions, given the lack of player incentives for foundry.