I like the featured per week. though i will echo the concern about the MOD4 release, alot of level 60s will be far too busy doing that stuff (atleast in the first week or so). You would have to feature only 6 per week, thats 4 months! I think if you did batches of say 10, it would make players confused and create distrust with those listings from getting an experience they did not expect.
I also think having a contest tab sounds great on paper, but it is similar to the original idea. Even with its own tab 100 quests is ALOT, anything stuck at the bottom will be lost or the tab may just be ignored entirely like the "new" tab since no one knows if any of them are worth the time.
I think the best way is if the Devs picked 40 to qualify and then featured those ones in batches. (have a foundry binge day? >.<) it is a contest after all, and it would be wise to give the community the top half of the entries to play rather than throwing them everything, which may result in players distrusting foundry quests even further.
If that is not possible the featured in batches would be significantly better than the original plan, as long as the batches are not too big as others have mentioned.
I have to agree with the remark about going against your original post about foundry rules and judging is pretty flaky. Here is what I propose for a solution. I totally spent 14 hour days working this foundry for the last 3 weeks. That's hundreds of hours into this contest. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining... however I was motivated by that 1st prize without a doubt.
Just the other week you guys managed to pick a winner for the Dragon Hunter contest with relative ease, and I don't think anyone thought twice about the choice you made. However i'm not too sure it's a good idea for Cryptic to choose the winner of this, simply because it will affect how the community reacts too contests of this nature in the future. I've got a big time investment in the foundry now, and I would really like some major improvements within the Foundry editor itself.
We need this too be a positive thing, in order for more people to use the foundry... which would hopefully motivate Cryptic to focus more of their time improving the foundry editor. I love the foundry, but it's hard to make great quests with the limits we have.
If we are all going to decide together on something like this, I think we should do it with some style.......
Let's elect a judge's panel and see who can bribe them the most! Just kidding, just kidding.
Sorry for the troll.
New content = Foundry play reduced too squat.
Honoring the original post = Only honorable choice
Everything else = Squat
Could of, would of, should of.... hindsight is 20/20.
Of course if you really wanted to do something cool Cryptic, make a posting about bad decision making with the release of New Content and Foundry Contest coinciding with each other... apologize to the community... and send everyone that entered not only a green companion.... but a free 79.99 Dragon Bundle when the expansion launches. Or at least a Dragon Mount.... or Dragonborn Racechange token. Something of note.
Just my thoughts. I tried to put out some quality Foundry work, and I have little expectation of winning... even if it was the best foundry out there.
Like you gave away... Feywild expansion packs to people who "Liked" you on facebook' and left it "Liked", and also you gave it too some lucky blog post reader. Just toss everyone the grand prize or the Dragon Expansion for participating. Seriously.
That's gonna be the only way to get people truly motivated to keep producing foundry work at this point. It'll perk everyone's ears up who didn't participate too.
1. Every single prior module has broken many foundry quests. Locking editing beforehand and judging after M4 is almost guaranteed to fail.
2. Community judging is also almost guaranteed to fail.
3. If more than 15-20 quests are to be judged by community then some form of ladder is needed... Maybe 10 "featured" entries each week, then the top 2 winners of each week make next ladder and 10 more per week, etc.
4. Also, if that many entries, contest should start after M4 -- and probably a couple weeks of editing to fix whatever M4 breaks.
As for changing how the judging will occur, is that really something people would prefer?
Yes. We've all (anyways, a lot of us) been saying that for the entire contest. At this point there are huge problems either way. I appreciate the intention behind breaking up the quests into groups, but as others have pointed out, that creates its own problems. And unless everything happens BEFORE mod 4 or AFTER the mod 4 rush is over, then spreading it out with greatly disadvantage quests that are judged concurrently, which is unfair. It's one of those ironic situations where deciding democratically is highly unlikely to result in a truly fair result. There are just too many choices, and with NO criteria for judging, people's decisions will be much too subjective.
There are just too many choices, and with NO criteria for judging, people's decisions will be much too subjective.
There is never a perfect way to vote. You could say the same about cryptic judging, they have their own tastes. Every individual is going to be biased towards one thing or another.
the public is the best way, sure they have their own tastes some which authors will not agree with (I made a long and specific genre foundry quest which only caters to a minority), but the player community is what this game was made for, and their opinions and enjoyment should be taken into consideration and should not be alienated.
However throwing 100 quests at them without sorting out the ones that would upset the community is a bad idea (the ones that are not as well made/enjoyable to put it lightly). As another author mentioned, if you did that. further on in the contest players will grow more and more distrustful and possibly ignore the later entries.
Sorry im probably repeating myself so I'll shut up.
Judging wise, it might be worth adding a category for honorable mentions. These would be the top 1-3 quests as selected by cryptic, ideally these would be different than those that won the public vote. Maybe add some smaller rewards for the quests chosen.
You'd still get the public voting and playing the quests, but get to also pick out some of the higher quality ones to highlight if they fell through the cracks in the public voting.
However throwing 100 quests at them without sorting out the ones that would upset the community is a bad idea (the ones that are not as well made/enjoyable to put it lightly). As another author mentioned, if you did that. further on in the contest players will grow more and more distrustful and possibly ignore the later entries.
I agree that this is the most important problem with the submissions as-is.
Oh, one last thing, more prizes (e.g. dragon bundle) for authors would be nice (instead of just the top 3), since theres alot more entries, alot more content made for the community, it would be nice to get a nice pat on the back for it. I've never seen this much activity with foundry creation before!
EDIT: Question. Are we suppose to press submit to cryptic?
I really like the idea of a rotation and feature, however you really should play some of them and make sure you aren't putting forth a featured module that is AWFUL. One really bad featured usually makes players run and hide.
If you want players to actually play and vote. I recommend that you have Dragonborn tokens appear at a rate of .01% per 15 minute average of a foundry. Have a static increase of .01 percent per featured contest entry they play. This will get players to play the "New Featured" give them a worthwhile reward for doing so and create a motivation for them to not play the same familiar foundry over and over.
So 1 featured played means 1 in 10,000 chance to win a dragonborn token.
Now considering the sheer massive numbers of people in the contest, you can actually get a player up to a reasonable chance to win a token by playing 50 or so of the unique features!
Create a Unique companion pet that goes with the contest. Like a Ex-Cultist companion. You will get enough plays of each foundry to have a fair system as to which is the best plus provide a whole new farm chance for players, in other words more players playing per day.
I really like the idea of a rotation and feature, however you really should play some of them and make sure you aren't putting forth a featured module that is AWFUL. One really bad featured usually makes players run and hide.
If you want players to actually play and vote. I recommend that you have Dragonborn tokens appear at a rate of .01% per 15 minute average of a foundry. Have a static increase of .01 percent per featured contest entry they play. This will get players to play the "New Featured" give them a worthwhile reward for doing so and create a motivation for them to not play the same familiar foundry over and over.
So 1 featured played means 1 in 10,000 chance to win a dragonborn token.
Now considering the sheer massive numbers of people in the contest, you can actually get a player up to a reasonable chance to win a token by playing 50 or so of the unique features!
Create a Unique companion pet that goes with the contest. Like a Ex-Cultist companion. You will get enough plays of each foundry to have a fair system as to which is the best plus provide a whole new farm chance for players, in other words more players playing per day.
Just some small thoughts.
Now this sounds like a very good idea to get people playing! I second the motion. The chances are still small enough that Cryptic won't be handing them out hand-over-fist, but it's something exciting to draw people in.
Being featured is a pretty nice reward for everyone, if you are interested in foundry achievements and tips and such, especially if it came with some announcements about a slew of foundry content that ties into the new release.
For the judging though, you'll have to take it as a learning experience and figure a better way next time. For now, probably the fairest thing to do is stick with the original intent as best you can. Featuring in batches so folks aren't overwhelmed and giving us a chance to check for problems after the update.
Is there a way to feature them all at once but randomize which ones show up on the front page each time the page loads?
0
drakkenfelMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 71
What if we waited to feature the first batch after the 19th? Hopefully most of the potential bugs will have been sorted out by then.
As for changing how the judging will occur, is that really something people would prefer?
I would prefer to have Cryptic Employees do the rating using a cutsheet for scoring, etc. Community vote is more of a Popularity contest and not of a Quality contest. I don't mind getting my backside handed to me by a Really Good Author. At that point, I "Died Well". I do mind having a person in a 400 member guild get all his buddies to vote for his mission as a Friend or as a Guild Request. Worse yet, folks will be asked to vote others low to raise the score of buddies. Face it, people are already politicking... Already seen the messages for "I will give you a gold if you vote me five stars"...
@METH_SHADOWSTORM - Foundry author of: "The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
Alrighty...how about this?
In the interest of fairness and keeping with the original spirit of the contest, we will begin featuring the quests in batches starting August 19th. Each week, we will feature a new batch of quests. We will also be adding 2 more "Judges' Choice" prizes (exact prizes to be determined, but they'll be good) because you guys are so awesome and patient for waiting.
It'll take ~2 months longer, but at least we'll have some good Foundry quests to occupy us.
I figure this makes everyone (somewhat) happy, right?
Alrighty...how about this?
In the interest of fairness and keeping with the original spirit of the contest, we will begin featuring the quests in batches starting August 19th. Each week, we will feature a new batch of quests. We will also be adding 2 more "Judges' Choice" prizes (exact prizes to be determined, but they'll be good) because you guys are so awesome and patient for waiting.
It'll take ~2 months longer, but at least we'll have some good Foundry quests to occupy us.
In the last few days I had to completely work around a (new?) Cryptic bug that was spawning my below-terrain "logic" ON TOP OF the terrain. They were set to spawn at Y= -150' and they were spawning (on live only not foundry preview) ON terrain at Y=0'. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY feet above setting!
Only remaining question for me is what happens when Module 4 breaks many of the entries?
Alrighty...how about this?
In the interest of fairness and keeping with the original spirit of the contest, we will begin featuring the quests in batches starting August 19th. Each week, we will feature a new batch of quests. We will also be adding 2 more "Judges' Choice" prizes (exact prizes to be determined, but they'll be good) because you guys are so awesome and patient for waiting.
It'll take ~2 months longer, but at least we'll have some good Foundry quests to occupy us.
I figure this makes everyone (somewhat) happy, right?
As long as each batch is vetted to make sure it's a viable quest, and not a "dump CotD encounters on a pre-gen map" quest (which I believe was the intention anyway) I can get behind that.
Genus Draco Fad and the Muster@Jintortle
ID: NW-DD5FLOBTJ Cult of the Dragon Foundry Contest - Please participate and vote for your favourite - 26/6/2014 contest rating begins.
Sir Camps A Lot. Mr SlingShot Boom. XX Phantasmagorical. Jinn Dragonfeast.
SlingShot Boom Jr. Jocan Traders. Little Lord Forgatty, Dwarf Mean and introducing Necro Torquemada (The Warlock)
Pretty sure it's still closing at 10am tomorrow morning (PDT) like Akromatik said, he just won't be featuring them until the 19th (probably so he has time to play all hundred plus (good lord) entries to weed out the ones that don't meet the contest criteria).
Pretty sure it's still closing at 10am tomorrow morning (PDT) like Akromatik said, he just won't be featuring them until the 19th (probably so he has time to play all hundred plus (good lord) entries to weed out the ones that don't meet the contest criteria).
So then all the quests (that will be) broken by Cryptic releasing Module 4 are just out of luck?
Based on prior module breakages that should mean the only ones remaing will be the "I dumped 50 encounters on a map" quests.
Alrighty...how about this?
In the interest of fairness and keeping with the original spirit of the contest, we will begin featuring the quests in batches starting August 19th. Each week, we will feature a new batch of quests. We will also be adding 2 more "Judges' Choice" prizes (exact prizes to be determined, but they'll be good) because you guys are so awesome and patient for waiting.
It'll take ~2 months longer, but at least we'll have some good Foundry quests to occupy us.
I figure this makes everyone (somewhat) happy, right?
That actually sounds like a reasonable way to handle this.
Alrighty...how about this?
In the interest of fairness and keeping with the original spirit of the contest, we will begin featuring the quests in batches starting August 19th. Each week, we will feature a new batch of quests. We will also be adding 2 more "Judges' Choice" prizes (exact prizes to be determined, but they'll be good) because you guys are so awesome and patient for waiting.
It'll take ~2 months longer, but at least we'll have some good Foundry quests to occupy us.
I figure this makes everyone (somewhat) happy, right?
I believe this to be an excellent solution - additional reward to placate, additional judges to boost fairness, and extra time for great vetting.
***
As a side note (and only partially on topic):
Thank you for featuring my Blacklake Luskan yesterday! (And thank you to all the other Devs and rest of Cryptic team who helped vote on it). The featuring is nice, but it is the fresh influx of awesome comments that have reinvigorated my interest in creating some new stuff, now percolating ideas for a new campaign.
Ironic tidbit: Blacklake Luskan was my entry for the very first Foundry Contest during Foundry Beta - the contest entries to be the first Foundry Quests available during Open Beta launch. The rule was to create a quest that featured the "ongoing events of Blacklake district" - which is why it ties into the Cryptic Blacklake storyline so tightly.
For all you Foundry Authors going forward: have faith - some comments will frustrate you, but it's those great ones that really pump you up. I am so looking forward to these and I intend to play them all.
I've enjoyed playing through several of the contest entries already, and I'm looking forward to dozens and dozens more.
Personally, I'm excited to see so many folks create entries for the contest. It's great to see the creativity of many of the more accomplished Authors, and it's awesome to see people trying their hand at the Foundry for the first time and coming up with some fun adventures for us all.
As far as I'm concerned, the contest is already a success. Simply focusing attention on this great aspect of the game is terrific. And, hopefully, the weekly posting of new entries will keep the attention on the Foundry for a while.
I had a fun time creating my quest, too. It was fun focusing on a different game element (in my case, balanced-but-challenging combat that would require strategy from weaker characters but offer something meaningful to zerg for well-geared ones). I also enjoyed crafting the final fight and using some new tricks to make it work correctly.
So... THANK YOU to everyone who has spent so many, many hours creating adventures for us all. And GOOD LUCK to everyone in the contest!
I do have a few concerns with using the Feature tab for the contest, but I admit that it is probably the most feasible way to get a large amount of community involvement. In my mind the ideal way would be just to make an additional tab in the foundry menu that contains foundry entries and simply rotate that list daily or every few days. However, I suspect that would require additional resources that are currently tied up with other endeavors (Mod 4, console porting, etc.) so it isn't likely to happen.
1). Featuring all of the quests would be like giving everyone the top prize, as that was the one carrot that couldn't be bought with a couple hours worth of real-world work. I would suspect that most well-polished, feature-worthy quests are the culmination of hundreds of hours of labor (at the very least close to a hundred) ... I know that's what I put into my quests and there are many very impressive quests out there that must have taken even more than that. I have only played a few of the contest entries so far and have been impressed, I would bet that many of the entries will make awesome featured quests. But not all of them. Which leads me to my second concern:
2). Someone mentioned this before, but it is something that I can reiterate from experience. Foundry quests are what sets Neverwinter apart. They can hook new players, or drive them away. I played the Neverwinter Beta very briefly. I only really made it to level 8 before quitting. Of course, I decided to give it another try back in January, and I'm glad that I did. But why did I abandon the beta so quickly? I played a couple Foundry quests. And they were terrible. I don't remember much about the quests in general but they involved bad grammar/spelling, completely misused races and enemies in the forgotten realms context and an unpleasant/illogical plot. Once again, I'm very glad that I came back, because there are a lot of wonderful Foundry creations and I have enjoyed the game itself. But Featured quests appear everywhere for new players to click on. A few bad eggs is enough to drive players away from the game. That in and of itself makes me nervous.
With those concerns being voiced, I will silently walk away and look forward to playing as many of the entries as I am able to. There are a lot of really good ones out there, and I wish everyone the best! Instead of rushing to make a quest for the contest I focused on finishing up one of my other quests. So I get to be an unbiased observer
I know this might be a stupid question, but do they take a copy of the foundry before the deadline (like featured), or you are not aloud to do anymore publishes or you get disqualified? (means you have to duplicate the map if you want to keep improving it?)
In the last few days I had to completely work around a (new?) Cryptic bug that was spawning my below-terrain "logic" ON TOP OF the terrain. They were set to spawn at Y= -150' and they were spawning (on live only not foundry preview) ON terrain at Y=0'. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY feet above setting!
Only remaining question for me is what happens when Module 4 breaks many of the entries?
I had a similar problem on a couple of my maps. I thought I was doing something wrong. Relatively happy to know that it was not "just" me. :-)
@METH_SHADOWSTORM - Foundry author of: "The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
0
drakkenfelMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 71
With those concerns being voiced, I will silently walk away and look forward to playing as many of the entries as I am able to. There are a lot of really good ones out there, and I wish everyone the best! Instead of rushing to make a quest for the contest I focused on finishing up one of my other quests. So I get to be an unbiased observer
I look forward to reading the Constructive Criticism of you and others. I have done a couple Foundry missions in STO and now a couple here in NW. I still feel like an amateur, and I try to learn from every experience. I hope that I have contributed some decent content that folks will at least mention that they had some fun running through. In that case, I have already won.
Good Luck to Everyone. Now I get to play some fresh new content, and that was the service that the Foundry was supposed to give us. Lay on! I have some cultists to frustrate... :-)
@METH_SHADOWSTORM - Foundry author of: "The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
I had a similar problem on a couple of my maps. I thought I was doing something wrong. Relatively happy to know that it was not "just" me. :-)
1st of all, try to avoid such things, they are annoying not viable and with unexpected behavior thus unreliable.
2nd, /loc usually returns relative height, especially in exterior maps. Relative to terrain height medium or max terrain height or min terrain height from author view. That cmd sux and does not reflect the expected to-zero height. As an example in one of the maps i used i have to subtract ~60ft to zero which /loc returns. Make ur own tests.
A bit nosy NW-DKG7E99X6
"Hardcore" exploration journey and dungeon crawl. Read its description prior to trying it.
Comments
I also think having a contest tab sounds great on paper, but it is similar to the original idea. Even with its own tab 100 quests is ALOT, anything stuck at the bottom will be lost or the tab may just be ignored entirely like the "new" tab since no one knows if any of them are worth the time.
I think the best way is if the Devs picked 40 to qualify and then featured those ones in batches. (have a foundry binge day? >.<) it is a contest after all, and it would be wise to give the community the top half of the entries to play rather than throwing them everything, which may result in players distrusting foundry quests even further.
If that is not possible the featured in batches would be significantly better than the original plan, as long as the batches are not too big as others have mentioned.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Just the other week you guys managed to pick a winner for the Dragon Hunter contest with relative ease, and I don't think anyone thought twice about the choice you made. However i'm not too sure it's a good idea for Cryptic to choose the winner of this, simply because it will affect how the community reacts too contests of this nature in the future. I've got a big time investment in the foundry now, and I would really like some major improvements within the Foundry editor itself.
We need this too be a positive thing, in order for more people to use the foundry... which would hopefully motivate Cryptic to focus more of their time improving the foundry editor. I love the foundry, but it's hard to make great quests with the limits we have.
If we are all going to decide together on something like this, I think we should do it with some style.......
Let's elect a judge's panel and see who can bribe them the most! Just kidding, just kidding.
Sorry for the troll.
New content = Foundry play reduced too squat.
Honoring the original post = Only honorable choice
Everything else = Squat
Could of, would of, should of.... hindsight is 20/20.
Of course if you really wanted to do something cool Cryptic, make a posting about bad decision making with the release of New Content and Foundry Contest coinciding with each other... apologize to the community... and send everyone that entered not only a green companion.... but a free 79.99 Dragon Bundle when the expansion launches. Or at least a Dragon Mount.... or Dragonborn Racechange token. Something of note.
Just my thoughts. I tried to put out some quality Foundry work, and I have little expectation of winning... even if it was the best foundry out there.
Like you gave away... Feywild expansion packs to people who "Liked" you on facebook' and left it "Liked", and also you gave it too some lucky blog post reader. Just toss everyone the grand prize or the Dragon Expansion for participating. Seriously.
That's gonna be the only way to get people truly motivated to keep producing foundry work at this point. It'll perk everyone's ears up who didn't participate too.
My honest opinion.
Best of luck to everyone!
2. Community judging is also almost guaranteed to fail.
3. If more than 15-20 quests are to be judged by community then some form of ladder is needed... Maybe 10 "featured" entries each week, then the top 2 winners of each week make next ladder and 10 more per week, etc.
4. Also, if that many entries, contest should start after M4 -- and probably a couple weeks of editing to fix whatever M4 breaks.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
There is never a perfect way to vote. You could say the same about cryptic judging, they have their own tastes. Every individual is going to be biased towards one thing or another.
the public is the best way, sure they have their own tastes some which authors will not agree with (I made a long and specific genre foundry quest which only caters to a minority), but the player community is what this game was made for, and their opinions and enjoyment should be taken into consideration and should not be alienated.
However throwing 100 quests at them without sorting out the ones that would upset the community is a bad idea (the ones that are not as well made/enjoyable to put it lightly). As another author mentioned, if you did that. further on in the contest players will grow more and more distrustful and possibly ignore the later entries.
Sorry im probably repeating myself so I'll shut up.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
You'd still get the public voting and playing the quests, but get to also pick out some of the higher quality ones to highlight if they fell through the cracks in the public voting.
Part 1: Death comes to Neverwinter - NW-DL8EPHRAT
EDIT: Question. Are we suppose to press submit to cryptic?
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
If you want players to actually play and vote. I recommend that you have Dragonborn tokens appear at a rate of .01% per 15 minute average of a foundry. Have a static increase of .01 percent per featured contest entry they play. This will get players to play the "New Featured" give them a worthwhile reward for doing so and create a motivation for them to not play the same familiar foundry over and over.
So 1 featured played means 1 in 10,000 chance to win a dragonborn token.
Now considering the sheer massive numbers of people in the contest, you can actually get a player up to a reasonable chance to win a token by playing 50 or so of the unique features!
Create a Unique companion pet that goes with the contest. Like a Ex-Cultist companion. You will get enough plays of each foundry to have a fair system as to which is the best plus provide a whole new farm chance for players, in other words more players playing per day.
Just some small thoughts.
Now this sounds like a very good idea to get people playing! I second the motion. The chances are still small enough that Cryptic won't be handing them out hand-over-fist, but it's something exciting to draw people in.
For the judging though, you'll have to take it as a learning experience and figure a better way next time. For now, probably the fairest thing to do is stick with the original intent as best you can. Featuring in batches so folks aren't overwhelmed and giving us a chance to check for problems after the update.
Is there a way to feature them all at once but randomize which ones show up on the front page each time the page loads?
I would prefer to have Cryptic Employees do the rating using a cutsheet for scoring, etc. Community vote is more of a Popularity contest and not of a Quality contest. I don't mind getting my backside handed to me by a Really Good Author. At that point, I "Died Well". I do mind having a person in a 400 member guild get all his buddies to vote for his mission as a Friend or as a Guild Request. Worse yet, folks will be asked to vote others low to raise the score of buddies. Face it, people are already politicking... Already seen the messages for "I will give you a gold if you vote me five stars"...
"The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
In the interest of fairness and keeping with the original spirit of the contest, we will begin featuring the quests in batches starting August 19th. Each week, we will feature a new batch of quests. We will also be adding 2 more "Judges' Choice" prizes (exact prizes to be determined, but they'll be good) because you guys are so awesome and patient for waiting.
It'll take ~2 months longer, but at least we'll have some good Foundry quests to occupy us.
I figure this makes everyone (somewhat) happy, right?
In the last few days I had to completely work around a (new?) Cryptic bug that was spawning my below-terrain "logic" ON TOP OF the terrain. They were set to spawn at Y= -150' and they were spawning (on live only not foundry preview) ON terrain at Y=0'. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY feet above setting!
Only remaining question for me is what happens when Module 4 breaks many of the entries?
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
ID: NW-DD5FLOBTJ Cult of the Dragon Foundry Contest - Please participate and vote for your favourite - 26/6/2014 contest rating begins.
Sir Camps A Lot. Mr SlingShot Boom. XX Phantasmagorical. Jinn Dragonfeast.
SlingShot Boom Jr. Jocan Traders. Little Lord Forgatty, Dwarf Mean and introducing Necro Torquemada (The Warlock)
I think it has to close on the 19th in case of any bugs introduced by module 4.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
So then all the quests (that will be) broken by Cryptic releasing Module 4 are just out of luck?
Based on prior module breakages that should mean the only ones remaing will be the "I dumped 50 encounters on a map" quests.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
That actually sounds like a reasonable way to handle this.
Best of luck to everyone!
I believe this to be an excellent solution - additional reward to placate, additional judges to boost fairness, and extra time for great vetting.
***
As a side note (and only partially on topic):
Thank you for featuring my Blacklake Luskan yesterday! (And thank you to all the other Devs and rest of Cryptic team who helped vote on it). The featuring is nice, but it is the fresh influx of awesome comments that have reinvigorated my interest in creating some new stuff, now percolating ideas for a new campaign.
Ironic tidbit: Blacklake Luskan was my entry for the very first Foundry Contest during Foundry Beta - the contest entries to be the first Foundry Quests available during Open Beta launch. The rule was to create a quest that featured the "ongoing events of Blacklake district" - which is why it ties into the Cryptic Blacklake storyline so tightly.
For all you Foundry Authors going forward: have faith - some comments will frustrate you, but it's those great ones that really pump you up. I am so looking forward to these and I intend to play them all.
Personally, I'm excited to see so many folks create entries for the contest. It's great to see the creativity of many of the more accomplished Authors, and it's awesome to see people trying their hand at the Foundry for the first time and coming up with some fun adventures for us all.
As far as I'm concerned, the contest is already a success. Simply focusing attention on this great aspect of the game is terrific. And, hopefully, the weekly posting of new entries will keep the attention on the Foundry for a while.
I had a fun time creating my quest, too. It was fun focusing on a different game element (in my case, balanced-but-challenging combat that would require strategy from weaker characters but offer something meaningful to zerg for well-geared ones). I also enjoyed crafting the final fight and using some new tricks to make it work correctly.
So... THANK YOU to everyone who has spent so many, many hours creating adventures for us all. And GOOD LUCK to everyone in the contest!
1). Featuring all of the quests would be like giving everyone the top prize, as that was the one carrot that couldn't be bought with a couple hours worth of real-world work. I would suspect that most well-polished, feature-worthy quests are the culmination of hundreds of hours of labor (at the very least close to a hundred) ... I know that's what I put into my quests and there are many very impressive quests out there that must have taken even more than that. I have only played a few of the contest entries so far and have been impressed, I would bet that many of the entries will make awesome featured quests. But not all of them. Which leads me to my second concern:
2). Someone mentioned this before, but it is something that I can reiterate from experience. Foundry quests are what sets Neverwinter apart. They can hook new players, or drive them away. I played the Neverwinter Beta very briefly. I only really made it to level 8 before quitting. Of course, I decided to give it another try back in January, and I'm glad that I did. But why did I abandon the beta so quickly? I played a couple Foundry quests. And they were terrible. I don't remember much about the quests in general but they involved bad grammar/spelling, completely misused races and enemies in the forgotten realms context and an unpleasant/illogical plot. Once again, I'm very glad that I came back, because there are a lot of wonderful Foundry creations and I have enjoyed the game itself. But Featured quests appear everywhere for new players to click on. A few bad eggs is enough to drive players away from the game. That in and of itself makes me nervous.
With those concerns being voiced, I will silently walk away and look forward to playing as many of the entries as I am able to. There are a lot of really good ones out there, and I wish everyone the best! Instead of rushing to make a quest for the contest I focused on finishing up one of my other quests. So I get to be an unbiased observer
Frozen Folly (NW-DEVSLU387, NW-DNETAP6GR)
Bargain Hunting (NW-DNFK5E9HB)
Draylor - 60 CW
Artek - 60 GF
Treponema - 60 DC
Tymber - 60 GWF
Borellia - 60 TR
Leptospira - 45 HR
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Name: Corridor of the Cult
ID: NW-DHZW693US
Thought you could enter all day today.
I had a similar problem on a couple of my maps. I thought I was doing something wrong. Relatively happy to know that it was not "just" me. :-)
"The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
I look forward to reading the Constructive Criticism of you and others. I have done a couple Foundry missions in STO and now a couple here in NW. I still feel like an amateur, and I try to learn from every experience. I hope that I have contributed some decent content that folks will at least mention that they had some fun running through. In that case, I have already won.
Good Luck to Everyone. Now I get to play some fresh new content, and that was the service that the Foundry was supposed to give us. Lay on! I have some cultists to frustrate... :-)
"The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
1st of all, try to avoid such things, they are annoying not viable and with unexpected behavior thus unreliable.
2nd, /loc usually returns relative height, especially in exterior maps. Relative to terrain height medium or max terrain height or min terrain height from author view. That cmd sux and does not reflect the expected to-zero height. As an example in one of the maps i used i have to subtract ~60ft to zero which /loc returns. Make ur own tests.