A question to foundry authors!

midniteshadow7

Hi,

I have a question for all the foundry authors out there!

With the foundry code branch now available for the STO developers to look at for use within STO, I thought of a question and would be interested in your views and thought it might be of interest to others including the dev when considering actions they might wish to take!

My question is... Which would you prefer if it came down to these scenarios?:

1) The devs could introduce *a lot* of new tools to the foundry that would make things a lot easier and quicker to generate your missions, but, doing so would mean all missions that you have already created would be lost.

2) The devs could import *some* new tools that would make things a little easier and quicker for you all to generate your missions and would mean that doing so would not erase any missions that already exists.

Thank you to everyone who takes part in this discussion, I look forward to your replies.
(Please note that these scenarios have not come from anything that any Cryptic or any developer has said about the foundry and any possible updates from Neverwinter, they have come from my own personal curiosity - hopefully I won't be killed like the cat! :P)


LLAP

soriedem

I would choose option 1 if it came with plenty of notice so that I can make back ups. Some of my missions are dated and I would like to go back in and fix them. Recreating them would be a pain, but if we get a lot of cool tools out of it, i am willing to make that sacrifice. I am probably alone in this view point.

castsbugc

Honestly, I have never needed a whole lot of fancy-shmancy tools added.

Yes some additional features would nice, but when it all comes down to it, I want more in terms of assets then complicated bits.

While I would love access to object rotation, I could live with versions of objects that are rotated in different direction.

drogyn1701

I'm gonna guess a lot of us would prefer scenario 2. I know I personally would not like to loose all of my hard work over the past 2 1/2 years just to have a couple new toys.

We've been discussing this a lot lately on the forums and on the Roundtable and we really don't want or need everything from Neverwinter. Some of it really doesn't apply to STO and I'd rather they take an incremental approach and be able to keep all the current data rather than a start-from-scratch approach.

Off the top of my head, some of the little things we want are:
-Turn mob friendly when hit points reach a certain amount
-Sound effect details that we can trigger
-Campaigns (linking missions so they have to be played one after the other)

Seems like these things could be added without too much trouble. Some things like the interior room drag and drop editor and the Nudger (the ability to move objects around in 3D) will probably take a lot more effort, but would be well worth having for STO authors.

kirksplat

I think if we picked #1, we would all regret it. Those fancy new features would probably be incredibly broken and buggy.

Everything would be half-baked. I'd rather they fix what is currently there and give us assets.

zorbane

I'd like to see all the stuff fixed first, including bringing back the import costume thing!

thehavraha

If provided the proper tools to export, save, and reimport our missions, I could see option one being viable.

But as I keep saying on Podcast UGC and Zorbane has reiterated here, fixing things that have nothing to do with Neverwinter like costume import/export should be a priority.

thegreendragoon1

I'm just going to point out that if an import/export could work across a major overhaul of the Foundry, they could most likely just convert the database. It might also be a case of things come over partially, but are messed up.

I think the acceptability of option 1 would depend greatly on the scope of the overhaul and how much easier it would be to use the new tools. If we can rebuild our missions in a fraction of the time it took to build the first time, might be worth it.

amahood

midniteshadow7 wrote: »

Hi,

I have a question for all the foundry authors out there!

With the foundry code branch now available for the STO developers to look at for use within STO, I thought of a question and would be interested in your views and thought it might be of interest to others including the dev when considering actions they might wish to take!

My question is... Which would you prefer if it came down to these scenarios?:

1) The devs could introduce *a lot* of new tools to the foundry that would make things a lot easier and quicker to generate your missions, but, doing so would mean all missions that you have already created would be lost.

2) The devs could import *some* new tools that would make things a little easier and quicker for you all to generate your missions and would mean that doing so would not erase any missions that already exists.

Thank you to everyone who takes part in this discussion, I look forward to your replies.
(Please note that these scenarios have not come from anything that any Cryptic or any developer has said about the foundry and any possible updates from Neverwinter, they have come from my own personal curiosity - hopefully I won't be killed like the cat! :P)


LLAP

I would choose the 3rd invisible option which is:

3) They create an Installable Foundry Software, to install to your computer, so that the Only time you rely upon their servers is when you want to Upload the entire finished Episode/ Project. - This would make things ALOT easier for everyone, and would have less problems than what is currently.

I do NOT like the first option you suggested, as that would erase ALL the Hard Work I did on my Episodes/Projects which I've created already in the past (and I quite like the stories for them). So it would not be good to lose all that one has worked for already. And the second option.... sounds like what they are already trying to do . Hence why I choose the third invisible option I spoke of above.

God bless and take care.

adverbero

Option 1
( though this wouldn't effect me much, since im a new author)

IF WE GET BRANCHING objectives AND Carry over Optional choices through map transfer, would be especially good for detective style mysteries where you decide who gets arrested at the end

Maybe SPOTLIGHT MISSIONS with branching, could grant a 1 TIME accolade for the branch you choose to take ?

, along with disable enemeies, something often used in cryptic missions, maybe even throw in forced Holo emitters , like the ones avalible for GPL, but just applied inside the foundry mission , so you can have the player assume command of another vessel in appearance ( probably a lot easier to do that actually change them to another ship, since they have admtted this is hard to do)

otherwise 2


I also agree with the idea of installing the software, i'm tired of loosing changes i made because of server disconnections, it only takes a few secconds of wifi drop out for the game to kick me out


I

nagorak

Option 1 is completely unacceptable. I would leave the Foundry and never come back if I lost all of my previous work. Not only would I be devastated by just losing it, but I would have no confidence the same thing would not happen again in the future.

At the very least they would have to make it so that "legacy" missions still worked and opened in a legacy editor without the new features.

idrona

I am not an author of Foundry missions, but I know what it's like to make similar decisions.

My vote would be for option 1 ,
sometimes it's better to scrap/sacrifice something to take a leap forward.


My 2 GPL

markhawkman

To me, option 1 is only palatable if there is some way to import the scrapped missions later. BUT, AFAIK that is somewhat similar to the way Cryptic does autorepublish.