I'll also throw out, for the purposes of discussion, a simple thing that the devs could do which seems within the realm of possibility, since it involves the least amount of work:
Three different IORs
Light IOR (current rewards)
Medium IOR (better rewards)
Heavy Duty IOR (bestest of stuffz)
A foundry mission would fail into each category depending on it's average time of completion. A new disclaimer would be automatically attached to a mission, based on its play time.
If it doesn't qualify, it gets the red text. If it does qualify for one of the three categories of rewards:
"This mission fulfills the Heavy Duty IOR" There would need to be a way where the mission doesn't change categories while a player is playing it, based on its play time.
Maybe once every maintenance cycle, the average play time is calculated, instead of in real time.
I could get behind this and even more if you added 4 tabs, Light Story, Medium Story, Heavy Duty, and Grinder.
IMO the only way this will be resolved is by Cryptic coming in and taking a stand on what they want from the Foundry. This may also mean they will have to start enforcing, which may require them to pay people to be the "police".
Exploit missions (Timid Farming and the new afk till time runs out) should never be allowed.
I suggested this many pages back.... Cryptic needs to employ someone to review the missions. This way any further arguments or exploitation will be stopped dead. As Zorbane said Cryptic needs to make a call and stand by it.
A set of mission guidelines/rules for categorization and eligibility would need to be issued so anyone authoring would know the boundaries before writing their masterpiece or mashup . When publishing it, the author would indicate the categories as they see fit. The Cryptic in-house person will review/play the mission to see if it fits the categories indicated and follows Cryptics polices. If it passes, it will be then released to the general public. If the mission fails, a brief message is sent to the author as to why it failed.
I am surprised that this is not in play now. What stops someone publishing a mission full of vulgarities or TRIBBLE? As to the additional costs, could not intern(s) be hired?
I believe we humans have proved both here in these forums and in the real world that we are not yet capable of policing ourselves. Please Cryptic take full control of the Foundry and as Susan Powter said: " Stop the Insanity! "
I suggested this many pages back.... Cryptic needs to employ someone to review the missions. This way any further arguments or exploitation will be stopped dead. As Zorbane said Cryptic needs to make a call and stand by it.
A set of mission guidelines/rules for categorization and eligibility would need to be issued so anyone authoring would know the boundaries before writing their masterpiece or mashup . When publishing it, the author would indicate the categories as they see fit. The Cryptic in-house person will review/play the mission to see if it fits the categories indicated and follows Cryptics polices. If it passes, it will be then released to the general public. If the mission fails, a brief message is sent to the author as to why it failed.
I am surprised that this is not in play now. What stops someone publishing a mission full of vulgarities or TRIBBLE? As to the additional costs, could not intern(s) be hired?
I believe we humans have proved both here in these forums and in the real world that we are not yet capable of policing ourselves. Please Cryptic take full control of the Foundry and as Susan Powter said: ?Stop the Insanity!?
I have to disagree with you on one point. I don't know if its possible to have someone play every mission. That's what the review content thing is for. This "in-house person" should check suspicious missions or missions that have been flagged though.
And very yes a set of guidelines or rules needs to be created.
I am surprised that this is not in play now. What stops someone publishing a mission full of vulgarities or TRIBBLE? As to the additional costs, could not intern(s) be hired?
If you havereview active you can report it instead of giving any stars.
And on what exactly do you base that last sentence?
It sounds like you think grind missions are taking people away from playing story missions. But it seems far more likely to me that those people just wouldn't be playing foundry content at all.
(As for the foundry being intended for gains or not... well, this is a MMO. Content that doesn't provide gains doesn't belong on a MMO, it belongs on fanfiction.net.)
-Morgan.
Personally I don't believe that grind missions belong in the Foundry period. It's a tool for players to create story content. Missions where you simply go in to farm EC, Items, or Accolades drift from the intent of the Foundry in my opinion.
I don't feel that missions that do this in the Foundry should be rewarded. There are other means in game for getting Dilithium, EC, and Items already and the Foundry shouldn't be used as such.
Here again, that's just my opinion, but I whole heatedly believe the Foundry should be for missions that actually tell a story.
I have to disagree with you on one point. I don't know if its possible to have someone play every mission. That's what the review content thing is for. This "in-house person" should check suspicious missions or missions that have been flagged though.
And very yes a set of guidelines or rules needs to be created.
Yes initially there would be quite a backlog to go through (multiple interns then... say for this May or June as they will be coming out of college and looking for work). Cryptic could use this intermediate time to create some reviewing tools for them in order to make the review process as quick as possible. Once the initial backlog is done, they only have to stay on top of the new missions, there can't be that many published weekly, or are there?
I suggested this many pages back.... Cryptic needs to employ someone to review the missions. This way any further arguments or exploitation will be stopped dead. As Zorbane said Cryptic needs to make a call and stand by it.
A set of mission guidelines/rules for categorization and eligibility would need to be issued so anyone authoring would know the boundaries before writing their masterpiece or mashup . When publishing it, the author would indicate the categories as they see fit. The Cryptic in-house person will review/play the mission to see if it fits the categories indicated and follows Cryptics polices. If it passes, it will be then released to the general public. If the mission fails, a brief message is sent to the author as to why it failed.
I am surprised that this is not in play now. What stops someone publishing a mission full of vulgarities or TRIBBLE? As to the additional costs, could not intern(s) be hired?
I believe we humans have proved both here in these forums and in the real world that we are not yet capable of policing ourselves. Please Cryptic take full control of the Foundry and as Susan Powter said: " Stop the Insanity! "
3 reasons, Time, Cost, Workload
As a reviewer I can see that there are currently well over 200 missions in my list awaiting review just on the Fed side. Lets assume all these get locked off and that there's about the same on the KDF.
400 missions, being generous and assuming our imaginary worker does one minute every 15 minutes so they qualify for the wrapper, they read each text box and click on all options available to ensure that the average time continues to be about the same.
In one 8 hour day they get through 24 missions (we're assuming said imaginary worker is a robot, or at least works through his/her lunch breaks.
There are currently approximately, according to a presentation given last year, 1000 missions published on average a month.
1000/30=33.3 missions per day.
If this had been implimented at launch, then there would be approximately 3500 missions which hadn't been reviewed by our imaginary worker, and that's not including the beginning months where they were averaging 5000 missions a month.
This may be allieviated by adding a second worker, but even then we have the issue that 33.3 missions per day isn't enough for 2 workers to work all day. And because they're published at random points throughout the day they can't exactly be put on lower hours.
Simply put, it's too much hassle for Cryptic as they either have missions never get reviewed or published, or have people sitting at desks waiting for work.
Comment from one of the many now closed threads.
Let's try and start by talking about what seems to be the recurring theme of how UI improvements could improve the situation.
The simple separation of Combat/Story, would go a long way to making the sorts of content each of us is looking for easier to find. I think the biggest hurdle here is how tagging of missions would work.
Having read the many suggestions I have seen, I would add mine to the mix here for discussion.
Authors cannot publish a mission until they have chosen either "Combat" or "Story".
The mission is initially listed in the Tab.
For a player to leave a rating, they must choose whether they considered it "combat" or "Story" , on an extra button on the final rating screen.
Every 10 or 25 or 100 or however many ratings, the system automatically calculates the players votes, and reassigns the missions to the appropriate tab.
I like this idea. I also like the tiered reward structure or a reward that's in addition to the IOR for playing a spotlight mission like say a purple drop or a mystery box that may have dilithium, marks, or even lobi in it. It could be similar to the mystery box you used to get for aid the planet missions but with something high end in it. I would definitely play and hour long mission if there was a chance for additional high end items.
To be honest I only do grinder missions for fleet marks. I play PVP, mining, and rep for dilithium but I don't mind getting it from the foundry as a bonus. I would love a way to incorporate foundry content into reputation by playing longer missions with a story based on that particular faction. I am rather tired of repetitive romulan and borg content.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Yes initially there would be quite a backlog to go through (multiple interns then... say for this May or June as they will be coming out of college and looking for work). Cryptic could use this intermediate time to create some reviewing tools for them in order to make the review process as quick as possible. Once the initial backlog is done, they only have to stay on top of the new missions, there can't be that many published weekly, or are there?
There's a video out there where one of the Cryptic producer type guys is giving a presentation and states there are thousands (maybe ten to twenty thousand I forget) of missions out there. The majority of them utter TRIBBLE.
As for how many new missions are published weekly, only they know!
I could get behind this and even more if you added 4 tabs, Light Story, Medium Story, Heavy Duty, and Grinder.
Again with the profiling and no baseline to categorize the missions, so a story with LOTS of combat could fall into any one of the listed categories. I don't think it's fair to try to take a persons mission and say it fits into this mold and not that one because...
And with 4 categories it's even more confusing.
Lets say someone creates a mission that's an hour long and has no combat what-so-ever, is it automatically a story, and because it's long that makes it heavy duty ? Say it's an hour long mission interviewing Orion dancing girls for the chancellors birthday party.
:P
Then someone creates a 20 minute mission that requires a player destroy everything on the map and no conversation with anyone- instant grinder ?
I don't want to see ANY categorization of missions at all, but to try to bring all these recent foundry fights to an end I'll accept a little tagging of missions if it'll help users search for what they're interested in playing, perhaps 2 categories.
As a reviewer I can see that there are currently well over 200 missions in my list awaiting review just on the Fed side. Lets assume all these get locked off and that there's about the same on the KDF.
400 missions, being generous and assuming our imaginary worker does one minute every 15 minutes so they qualify for the wrapper, they read each text box and click on all options available to ensure that the average time continues to be about the same.
In one 8 hour day they get through 24 missions (we're assuming said imaginary worker is a robot, or at least works through his/her lunch breaks.
There are currently approximately, according to a presentation given last year, 1000 missions published on average a month.
1000/30=33.3 missions per day.
If this had been implimented at launch, then there would be approximately 3500 missions which hadn't been reviewed by our imaginary worker, and that's not including the beginning months where they were averaging 5000 missions a month.
This may be allieviated by adding a second worker, but even then we have the issue that 33.3 missions per day isn't enough for 2 workers to work all day. And because they're published at random points throughout the day they can't exactly be put on lower hours.
Simply put, it's too much hassle for Cryptic as they either have missions never get reviewed or published, or have people sitting at desks waiting for work.
Yes, this would be an investment for Cryptic, but what dollar value would you assign to disruption, bad feelings, loss of players and authors, and bad word of mouth that this has or will cause if not stopped?
This is a business, and operating a successful business requires continual investment, and I feel this is one that is worth it.
Again with the profiling and no baseline to categorize the missions, so a story with LOTS of combat could fall into any one of the listed categories. I don't think it's fair to try to take a persons mission and say it fits into this mold and not that one because...
And with 4 categories it's even more confusing.
Lets say someone creates a mission that's an hour long and has no combat what-so-ever, is it automatically a story, and because it's long that makes it heavy duty ? Say it's an hour long mission interviewing Orion dancing girls for the chancellors birthday party.
:P
Then someone creates a 20 minute mission that requires a player destroy everything on the map and no conversation with anyone- instant grinder ?
I don't want to see ANY categorization of missions at all, but to try to bring all these recent foundry fights to an end I'll accept a little tagging of missions if it'll help users search for what they're interested in playing, perhaps 2 categories.
I agree here. No one really knows what the intention of the mission is, other than the Author. Id personally say have the author tell you what kind of mission it is. If by chance someone just decides to troll the foundry and put a simple story mission into Hardcore so people will play it, report the mission.
Personally I don't believe that grind missions belong in the Foundry period. It's a tool for players to create story content. Missions where you simply go in to farm EC, Items, or Accolades drift from the intent of the Foundry in my opinion
Why can't I have both? It's not like people who like stories can't also use money, or that people who need money can't appreciate stories.
Right now, everything I can do that rewards dilithium is fairly repetitive and boring. Grinders are the *least* boring option available, but that doesn't make them ideal. And even if you removed them all, as long as the wrapper isn't time-sensitive, there would still be a gravitation to whatever mission took the closest to 15 minutes without going under. This does not strike me as ideal for anyone.
My take on what Cryptic could do to address some of the issues raise would be to divide the foundry missions into two general categories, being Holodeck and Missions, and remove the IOR entirely.
Holodeck
Missions in this category are short training missions ranging from anywhere to 5 to 20 minutes in length and would include the missions currently classed as grinders. The access points for these missions would be the holodecks at the respective academies.
From the missions designed for the Holodeck selected missions would be chosen which would become Fleet Holodeck missions (accessed from the holodecks on the fleet starbases). These missions would award a set amount of fleet marks and there would be no cool down between them so eventually there would be a variety of missions to choose from if you wish to get some fleet marks.
As missions take place in the holodeck there are no drops. It also creates a simple rationale for these types of mission.
Missions
These would be the the run of the mill missions lasting 15 minutes or more that currently qualify for the IOR.
These award a set amount of dilithium (480) and 3 level appropriate items on completion. There are no drops in this missions.
Spotlight missions award a set amount of dilithium (960) and 5 level appropriate items and some CXP of an appropriate category on completion.
Outside the foundry I also feel there should be a small amount of dilithium for replying episodes to give the widest amount of choice as to what content people can play, in view of the position that dilithium is a time gated currency there isn't any reason why this couldn't be implemented.
This would give people a option to grind some fleet marks, or play longer missions for dilithium.
Additionally the foundry terms should be updated and if an author is found to be abusing the system according to the terms they can be appropriately penalized, such as publishing rights being suspended up to blocking access to foundry.
The above isn't perfect but it is perhaps something to consider, some of the ideas above were taken from previous posters
There's a video out there where one of the Cryptic producer type guys is giving a presentation and states there are thousands (maybe ten to twenty thousand I forget) of missions out there. The majority of them utter TRIBBLE.
As for how many new missions are published weekly, only they know!
So maybe it's time to flush the lot, that's what we are supposed to do with TRIBBLE right?
Missions can then be republished and go through the inhouse reviewers. Heck couldn't this even be done without taking down the Holodeck Foundry? Do this on Tribble and once complete transfer the new improved system to Holodeck?
I sure it will be a disruption, but wouldn't it be worth it? I know I'd buy that for a dollar!
My opinion is not secret. The Foundry was made by Cryptic for users to create content, but people are forgetting it was made for a very specific content: story content. Players complained about the Defend the Sector missio s that are in the game, and now other players are creating the exact same grinds and reaping the rewards that are meant for story stuff. If I'm wrong, Spotlight missions would feature grinders. They don't grinding and farming is not in the spirit of the Foundry's original intent: not to Cryptic, and not to me.
That being said, removing rewards is not the solution, neither is reducing them. Cryptic is doing exactly what they ought to do by eliminating grindong and exploitation of the Foundry. Their method is not ideal, but the result is fine.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] I am a Cheestah.
Check out my Foundry missions
Fed: "To Helna and Back", "Rema Donna", "Animations with Helna", "Mudd's Weapons", "Waiting for Wednesday", "Monolith"
KDF: "Time the Enemy", "Time the Ally", "Time the Traitor"
So maybe it's time to flush the lot, that's what we are supposed to do with TRIBBLE right?
Missions can then be republished and go through the inhouse reviewers. Heck couldn't this even be done without taking down the Holodeck Foundry? Do this on Tribble and once complete transfer the new improved system to Holodeck?
I sure it will be a disruption, but wouldn't it be worth it? I know I'd buy that for a dollar!
It's not up to you, me, cryptic, the other authors, etc to decide whose mission is TRIBBLE or not. Everyone who made a mission BOUGHT the right to make it. F2P players cannot make missions unless they buy foundry slots.
NOBODY has the right to flush anyones mission because they think it's TRIBBLE, NOBODY.
I've been avoiding this topic for the past several days. But since I know now for sure we do have dev attention, I'll repost a little of what I said in other threads last week, just so my vote's on record, as it were.
Exploits = bad. We all define these differently, of course. It is up to us, the players, to try and make Cryptic aware of what we believe to be exploits, and it is up to them to issue a ruling.
Grinders = OK. I'm not a fan of grinding, and I wish the current game didn't make people feel like they have to grind. That said, there is nothing inherently bad about grinders and not bad about the people who grind and certainly a grind mission (like the battleship rumbles) is not against any rules that I know of. I think we can live in harmony, but to do that...
Better UI = an absolute must! The problem I see is one of apples and oranges. When you play a grinder, you judge it on different criteria than a story mission. But right now the rating system doesn't distinguish. We need to separate the apples and oranges so that each can be compared to their own kind fairly.
The first thing you should see when you hit that "browse all" tab are a couple of buttons, like hippiejohn said. "Combat" and "Story" which you have to push one before you even get to a list of missions. (broad strokes, could be some more categories added to further specialize). And definitely it should be a checkbox on the Foundry summary page that authors have to click before they can publish.
It's not up to you, me, cryptic, the other authors, etc to decide whose mission is TRIBBLE or not. Everyone who made a mission BOUGHT the right to make it. F2P players cannot make missions unless they buy foundry slots.
NOBODY has the right to flush anyones mission because they think it's TRIBBLE, NOBODY.
You're wrong. Cryptic has that right, and you signed a contract to that effect.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
User generated content should not be shackledto small definitions. Player types and playstyles are varied and no one persons style should dictate anothers. Limiting creators of content only be of the pages of text variety should not be the sole criteria. Some people are good as designing level, but are horrible writers. Some are great writers, bad level designers. Rare few areboth. By being so judgemental not only of playstyle, but of author skill, the foundry becomes a toy only ofan elite few. And denies that part ofthe game to the rest of theplayers.
Is the game enriched by being so small with the foundry? Or is it enriched by a wider user base?
My opinion is not secret. The Foundry was made by Cryptic for users to create content, but people are forgetting it was made for a very specific content: story content. Players complained about the Defend the Sector missio s that are in the game, and now other players are creating the exact same grinds and reaping the rewards that are meant for story stuff. If I'm wrong, Spotlight missions would feature grinders. They don't grinding and farming is not in the spirit of the Foundry's original intent: not to Cryptic, and not to me.
That being said, removing rewards is not the solution, neither is reducing them. Cryptic is doing exactly what they ought to do by eliminating grindong and exploitation of the Foundry. Their method is not ideal, but the result is fine.
I agree with Hav here. If you really want to grind there are plenty of places to accomplish the same thing. The Foundry should be for Story missions, and grinding missions in the Foundry is really just a method to exploit the daily mission associated with the Foundry. I'm all for making more interesting grinding missions, but the rewards for them should be similar to the explore TRIBBLE cluster missions, and not reward the full amount that the Foundry daily currently gives.
I agree with Hav here. If you really want to grind there are plenty of places to accomplish the same thing. The Foundry should be for Story missions, and grinding missions in the Foundry is really just a method to exploit the daily mission associated with the Foundry. I'm all for making more interesting grinding missions, but the rewards for them should be similar to the explore TRIBBLE cluster missions, and not reward the full amount that the Foundry daily currently gives.
What makes your opinion more valid than anothers that you judge them? Someone could make a mirror judgement about your playstyle and it's inferiority to what they prefer to do. If anything yourfavored types of missions are already givenspecial treatment with the spotlight... is that not enough or do you feel it is a zero sum system which only one point of view candominate.
I have to disagree with you on one point. I don't know if its possible to have someone play every mission. That's what the review content thing is for. This "in-house person" should check suspicious missions or missions that have been flagged though.
And very yes a set of guidelines or rules needs to be created.
One possibility would be allowing the person who checks to view the mission in the foundry interface. That'd make it possible to filter out some of the more obvious possibilities.
What makes your opinion more valid than anothers that you judge them? Someone could make a mirror judgement about your playstyle and it's inferiority to what they prefer to do. If anything yourfavored types of missions are already givenspecial treatment with the spotlight... is that not enough or do you feel it is a zero sum system which only one point of view candominate.
IDIC
Dude.... look at what the Devs have told us about what the DEVS think it's for.... Try looking at this from their point of view.
The Devs created the spotlights cecause the Devs think the Spotlights are the best stuff the Foundry has to offer. The Devs killed console clickies because the Devs felt they were an exploit.
What do you think is going to be the end result here?
It's not up to you, me, cryptic, the other authors, etc to decide whose mission is TRIBBLE or not. Everyone who made a mission BOUGHT the right to make it. F2P players cannot make missions unless they buy foundry slots.
NOBODY has the right to flush anyones mission because they think it's TRIBBLE, NOBODY.
Whoa Tex!
I am talking about the in-house review of mission categorization only, not the mission content, nor grammar or spelling, not canon accuracy or even foundry prowess.
The review system would still be left to foundry users as it is now (1 to 5 stars).
As long your mission(s) are categorized properly, they would be accepted and republished for the world to enjoy, or not.
"TRIBBLE" should be judged on it's crapness
"exploits" should be judged depending whether they misuse or abuse any particular element or combination thereof.
Cryptic has the right to determine whether something falls into the exploit category or not.
As a general thing.
I don't get the people who try so hard to not play this game. There are plenty of short story missions out there that qualify for IOR. In the Custom search you are able to search on average completion time. If you want a short mission use that to search.
The only difference between BOFF Grinders and these qualified missions is that people go can complete them by doing absolutely nothing. They still take the same amount of time. There is still a 30 min cooldown on the IOR repeatable. You still get the same rewards.
In one you play the game, in another you don't. Wouldn't actually playing the game be more fun then going AFK for 15-20 mins?
What do you think is going to be the end result here?
I'm pretty sure worst case scenario will be the result, and Ill go back to what I was doingafter season 7 hit (play something else). But i'm still foolishand hope that good decisions will be made.
You're wrong. Cryptic has that right, and you signed a contract to that effect.
I don't recall in the EULA that cryptic can remove content that a user created because they think it's TRIBBLE. I agree they have the right to remove TRIBBLE, tasteless, or other license violations but 'TRIBBLE' is a subjective description that differs greatly from the above.
Comments
I could get behind this and even more if you added 4 tabs, Light Story, Medium Story, Heavy Duty, and Grinder.
I suggested this many pages back.... Cryptic needs to employ someone to review the missions. This way any further arguments or exploitation will be stopped dead. As Zorbane said Cryptic needs to make a call and stand by it.
A set of mission guidelines/rules for categorization and eligibility would need to be issued so anyone authoring would know the boundaries before writing their masterpiece or mashup . When publishing it, the author would indicate the categories as they see fit. The Cryptic in-house person will review/play the mission to see if it fits the categories indicated and follows Cryptics polices. If it passes, it will be then released to the general public. If the mission fails, a brief message is sent to the author as to why it failed.
I am surprised that this is not in play now. What stops someone publishing a mission full of vulgarities or TRIBBLE? As to the additional costs, could not intern(s) be hired?
I believe we humans have proved both here in these forums and in the real world that we are not yet capable of policing ourselves. Please Cryptic take full control of the Foundry and as Susan Powter said: " Stop the Insanity! "
I have to disagree with you on one point. I don't know if its possible to have someone play every mission. That's what the review content thing is for. This "in-house person" should check suspicious missions or missions that have been flagged though.
And very yes a set of guidelines or rules needs to be created.
Foundry Mission Database
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
If you havereview active you can report it instead of giving any stars.
Personally I don't believe that grind missions belong in the Foundry period. It's a tool for players to create story content. Missions where you simply go in to farm EC, Items, or Accolades drift from the intent of the Foundry in my opinion.
I don't feel that missions that do this in the Foundry should be rewarded. There are other means in game for getting Dilithium, EC, and Items already and the Foundry shouldn't be used as such.
Here again, that's just my opinion, but I whole heatedly believe the Foundry should be for missions that actually tell a story.
Yes initially there would be quite a backlog to go through (multiple interns then... say for this May or June as they will be coming out of college and looking for work). Cryptic could use this intermediate time to create some reviewing tools for them in order to make the review process as quick as possible. Once the initial backlog is done, they only have to stay on top of the new missions, there can't be that many published weekly, or are there?
3 reasons, Time, Cost, Workload
As a reviewer I can see that there are currently well over 200 missions in my list awaiting review just on the Fed side. Lets assume all these get locked off and that there's about the same on the KDF.
400 missions, being generous and assuming our imaginary worker does one minute every 15 minutes so they qualify for the wrapper, they read each text box and click on all options available to ensure that the average time continues to be about the same.
In one 8 hour day they get through 24 missions (we're assuming said imaginary worker is a robot, or at least works through his/her lunch breaks.
There are currently approximately, according to a presentation given last year, 1000 missions published on average a month.
1000/30=33.3 missions per day.
If this had been implimented at launch, then there would be approximately 3500 missions which hadn't been reviewed by our imaginary worker, and that's not including the beginning months where they were averaging 5000 missions a month.
This may be allieviated by adding a second worker, but even then we have the issue that 33.3 missions per day isn't enough for 2 workers to work all day. And because they're published at random points throughout the day they can't exactly be put on lower hours.
Simply put, it's too much hassle for Cryptic as they either have missions never get reviewed or published, or have people sitting at desks waiting for work.
I understand that, but still the general public would be able to see this garbage if even briefly.
With the in-house person looking over these missions first... it can never happen.
Then itwould be a massive failof the community reviewers... 5 of whom have to rate it forit to show to the public.
I like this idea. I also like the tiered reward structure or a reward that's in addition to the IOR for playing a spotlight mission like say a purple drop or a mystery box that may have dilithium, marks, or even lobi in it. It could be similar to the mystery box you used to get for aid the planet missions but with something high end in it. I would definitely play and hour long mission if there was a chance for additional high end items.
To be honest I only do grinder missions for fleet marks. I play PVP, mining, and rep for dilithium but I don't mind getting it from the foundry as a bonus. I would love a way to incorporate foundry content into reputation by playing longer missions with a story based on that particular faction. I am rather tired of repetitive romulan and borg content.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
There's a video out there where one of the Cryptic producer type guys is giving a presentation and states there are thousands (maybe ten to twenty thousand I forget) of missions out there. The majority of them utter TRIBBLE.
As for how many new missions are published weekly, only they know!
Foundry Mission Database
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
Again with the profiling and no baseline to categorize the missions, so a story with LOTS of combat could fall into any one of the listed categories. I don't think it's fair to try to take a persons mission and say it fits into this mold and not that one because...
And with 4 categories it's even more confusing.
Lets say someone creates a mission that's an hour long and has no combat what-so-ever, is it automatically a story, and because it's long that makes it heavy duty ? Say it's an hour long mission interviewing Orion dancing girls for the chancellors birthday party.
:P
Then someone creates a 20 minute mission that requires a player destroy everything on the map and no conversation with anyone- instant grinder ?
I don't want to see ANY categorization of missions at all, but to try to bring all these recent foundry fights to an end I'll accept a little tagging of missions if it'll help users search for what they're interested in playing, perhaps 2 categories.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Yes, this would be an investment for Cryptic, but what dollar value would you assign to disruption, bad feelings, loss of players and authors, and bad word of mouth that this has or will cause if not stopped?
This is a business, and operating a successful business requires continual investment, and I feel this is one that is worth it.
I agree here. No one really knows what the intention of the mission is, other than the Author. Id personally say have the author tell you what kind of mission it is. If by chance someone just decides to troll the foundry and put a simple story mission into Hardcore so people will play it, report the mission.
Why can't I have both? It's not like people who like stories can't also use money, or that people who need money can't appreciate stories.
Right now, everything I can do that rewards dilithium is fairly repetitive and boring. Grinders are the *least* boring option available, but that doesn't make them ideal. And even if you removed them all, as long as the wrapper isn't time-sensitive, there would still be a gravitation to whatever mission took the closest to 15 minutes without going under. This does not strike me as ideal for anyone.
-Morgan.
Holodeck
Missions in this category are short training missions ranging from anywhere to 5 to 20 minutes in length and would include the missions currently classed as grinders. The access points for these missions would be the holodecks at the respective academies.
From the missions designed for the Holodeck selected missions would be chosen which would become Fleet Holodeck missions (accessed from the holodecks on the fleet starbases). These missions would award a set amount of fleet marks and there would be no cool down between them so eventually there would be a variety of missions to choose from if you wish to get some fleet marks.
As missions take place in the holodeck there are no drops. It also creates a simple rationale for these types of mission.
Missions
These would be the the run of the mill missions lasting 15 minutes or more that currently qualify for the IOR.
These award a set amount of dilithium (480) and 3 level appropriate items on completion. There are no drops in this missions.
Spotlight missions award a set amount of dilithium (960) and 5 level appropriate items and some CXP of an appropriate category on completion.
Outside the foundry I also feel there should be a small amount of dilithium for replying episodes to give the widest amount of choice as to what content people can play, in view of the position that dilithium is a time gated currency there isn't any reason why this couldn't be implemented.
This would give people a option to grind some fleet marks, or play longer missions for dilithium.
Additionally the foundry terms should be updated and if an author is found to be abusing the system according to the terms they can be appropriately penalized, such as publishing rights being suspended up to blocking access to foundry.
The above isn't perfect but it is perhaps something to consider, some of the ideas above were taken from previous posters
So maybe it's time to flush the lot, that's what we are supposed to do with TRIBBLE right?
Missions can then be republished and go through the inhouse reviewers. Heck couldn't this even be done without taking down the Holodeck Foundry? Do this on Tribble and once complete transfer the new improved system to Holodeck?
I sure it will be a disruption, but wouldn't it be worth it? I know I'd buy that for a dollar!
That being said, removing rewards is not the solution, neither is reducing them. Cryptic is doing exactly what they ought to do by eliminating grindong and exploitation of the Foundry. Their method is not ideal, but the result is fine.
Check out my Foundry missions
Fed: "To Helna and Back", "Rema Donna", "Animations with Helna", "Mudd's Weapons", "Waiting for Wednesday", "Monolith"
KDF: "Time the Enemy", "Time the Ally", "Time the Traitor"
It's not up to you, me, cryptic, the other authors, etc to decide whose mission is TRIBBLE or not. Everyone who made a mission BOUGHT the right to make it. F2P players cannot make missions unless they buy foundry slots.
NOBODY has the right to flush anyones mission because they think it's TRIBBLE, NOBODY.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Exploits = bad. We all define these differently, of course. It is up to us, the players, to try and make Cryptic aware of what we believe to be exploits, and it is up to them to issue a ruling.
Grinders = OK. I'm not a fan of grinding, and I wish the current game didn't make people feel like they have to grind. That said, there is nothing inherently bad about grinders and not bad about the people who grind and certainly a grind mission (like the battleship rumbles) is not against any rules that I know of. I think we can live in harmony, but to do that...
Better UI = an absolute must! The problem I see is one of apples and oranges. When you play a grinder, you judge it on different criteria than a story mission. But right now the rating system doesn't distinguish. We need to separate the apples and oranges so that each can be compared to their own kind fairly.
The first thing you should see when you hit that "browse all" tab are a couple of buttons, like hippiejohn said. "Combat" and "Story" which you have to push one before you even get to a list of missions. (broad strokes, could be some more categories added to further specialize). And definitely it should be a checkbox on the Foundry summary page that authors have to click before they can publish.
That's all I have to say on the subject.
You're wrong. Cryptic has that right, and you signed a contract to that effect.
Is the game enriched by being so small with the foundry? Or is it enriched by a wider user base?
I agree with Hav here. If you really want to grind there are plenty of places to accomplish the same thing. The Foundry should be for Story missions, and grinding missions in the Foundry is really just a method to exploit the daily mission associated with the Foundry. I'm all for making more interesting grinding missions, but the rewards for them should be similar to the explore TRIBBLE cluster missions, and not reward the full amount that the Foundry daily currently gives.
What makes your opinion more valid than anothers that you judge them? Someone could make a mirror judgement about your playstyle and it's inferiority to what they prefer to do. If anything yourfavored types of missions are already givenspecial treatment with the spotlight... is that not enough or do you feel it is a zero sum system which only one point of view candominate.
IDIC
My character Tsin'xing
The Devs created the spotlights cecause the Devs think the Spotlights are the best stuff the Foundry has to offer. The Devs killed console clickies because the Devs felt they were an exploit.
What do you think is going to be the end result here?
My character Tsin'xing
Whoa Tex!
I am talking about the in-house review of mission categorization only, not the mission content, nor grammar or spelling, not canon accuracy or even foundry prowess.
The review system would still be left to foundry users as it is now (1 to 5 stars).
As long your mission(s) are categorized properly, they would be accepted and republished for the world to enjoy, or not.
The two are completely different.
"TRIBBLE" should be judged on it's crapness
"exploits" should be judged depending whether they misuse or abuse any particular element or combination thereof.
Cryptic has the right to determine whether something falls into the exploit category or not.
As a general thing.
I don't get the people who try so hard to not play this game. There are plenty of short story missions out there that qualify for IOR. In the Custom search you are able to search on average completion time. If you want a short mission use that to search.
The only difference between BOFF Grinders and these qualified missions is that people go can complete them by doing absolutely nothing. They still take the same amount of time. There is still a 30 min cooldown on the IOR repeatable. You still get the same rewards.
In one you play the game, in another you don't. Wouldn't actually playing the game be more fun then going AFK for 15-20 mins?
I'm pretty sure worst case scenario will be the result, and Ill go back to what I was doingafter season 7 hit (play something else). But i'm still foolishand hope that good decisions will be made.
I don't recall in the EULA that cryptic can remove content that a user created because they think it's TRIBBLE. I agree they have the right to remove TRIBBLE, tasteless, or other license violations but 'TRIBBLE' is a subjective description that differs greatly from the above.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG