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Season 7 Should be about converting Foundry Missions.
centersolace
Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
Even If we just converted the (current) foundry spotlight missions we would have 17 extra story missions with many for either faction. Here is a older thread about converting 43 Klingon missions into actual missions. Boom, full KDF progression system. Once this tech is in place, Cryptic could convert 2 or 3 foundry missions every two months or so. That may not sound like much, but it's a whole lot more than we're getting right now.
It would allow Cryptic to take care of the things the foundry cannot. Like bug fixes, PvP, PvE arenas like Nukura, STFs, items, weapons and ships.
If a better foundry rewards system, Nagus's mission replay daily, and the above foundry conversion tool were implemented, it would considerably boost story content and repeatability. Without much work on Cryptics part.
Plus a game where players could create a mission good enough that it's implemented into the actual game, would be an experience and system wholly unique to STO. (They could even use it for Neverwinter, then they would only have to compete with themselves)
Those three things could encompass an entire seasons worth of work, and at this time they would be more than welcome.
It would allow Cryptic to take care of the things the foundry cannot. Like bug fixes, PvP, PvE arenas like Nukura, STFs, items, weapons and ships.
If a better foundry rewards system, Nagus's mission replay daily, and the above foundry conversion tool were implemented, it would considerably boost story content and repeatability. Without much work on Cryptics part.
Plus a game where players could create a mission good enough that it's implemented into the actual game, would be an experience and system wholly unique to STO. (They could even use it for Neverwinter, then they would only have to compete with themselves)
Those three things could encompass an entire seasons worth of work, and at this time they would be more than welcome.
Post edited by centersolace on
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Problem: Who would keep the continuity internally consistent? Foundry missions are basically fanon and throwaway lines could contradict in-game lore (which is based on Trek canon, some TrekLit novels and The Needs of the Many). :eek:
That would be part of the conversion process. The best missions tend to be insular and only referrence established canon, or else invent non-contradictory self-canon. For example my missions use a race called the Berenavians as a protectorate of the Federation. They're not mentioned anywhere else and the mission doesn't pretend they're particularly special so it doesn't matter that they're included.
For more drastic violations of canon or continuity, the mission converter would just have to take a liberty with the mission and make a change.
That's why only the highest rated, the foundry spotlight missions, and the foundry contest winners would be eligible for conversion. They would need to be the cream of the crop, but the good thing is that there are a lot of those.
If anything is going to be done with the Foundry it should wait until after NWN is out, as then the Foundry team will have more time to try and adapt meaningful changes from the core Foundry in NWN to STO.
If Cryptic made this system happen, they wouldn't be able to use "Story Missions" as an excuse to hold them back from those things you're asking for now would they?
Also:It would (Mostly) complete KDF. I say do it.
But I imagine there would be somekind of legal hurdles, CBS needing approval, and somekind of compensation for the author to have their missions become official.
The wrapper awards 1400ish dil for it, but three good Foundry missions don't represent a good time vs dilithium investment, so you are still doing it through love of the Foundry rather than getting dilithium, unless it's one of those "talk to the wall" jobs of course. And those folks're likely to be playing Foundry missions anyhow. It's not going to draw new people in to that often overlooked hoard of good UGC.
Doesn't the Foundry EULA specifically specify that you relinquish all rights to your Foundry projects, once published, and that Cryptic basically can do anything they want with any of the content you create in the Foundry?
I still think Cryptic NEEDS to create atleast 1 official mission PER MONTH, but barring that, i'd say make the "best" Foundry missions part of the official storyline, as long as the Foundry mission complies with (and not contradict) established STO canon.
A new ship/skin variant, special voting rights for future content, access to the captains table, a unique title, a Dil or Zen stipend, there's hundreds of ways it could be done.
That is a good idea, it would inspire more people to take part in it, and those already making missions would have to step up their game.
Actually I wonder who works on missions content over on the STO team, I wonder how they'd feel knowing that this would mean them getting the sack? Probably a lot worse than how I'd feel about this being the end of Cryptic created stories.
I don't think that section of the EULA is worththe paper it's written on. Copyright lay in the Us is a complicated beast. But when it comes to transfer of copyrights of a work, the law is remarkably clear and concise. So I don't think that Cryptic will be making anything in the Foundry "officially" published by Cryptic. The legal paperwork won't be worth it especially when it comes to international law.
You're forgetting that many of the foundry missions are very, very good. Do you know how amazing this would be? We could have some foundry authors with great ideas get the huge amounts of renown that they deserve, we could have a full KDF faction, and we could free up Cryptic so they could do things that the foundry can't!
We could bring back Featured Episodes! We could have a new STF, Fleet Action, or otherwise some kind of raid mission every other month! We could have a new sector every year! We could get PvP missions! We could get all kinds of crazy stuff in addition to dozens of fantastic missions!
Sure, it would slow down all that stuff for a single season, but then think of how fast Cryptic could put out content if this sort of thing was made available?
Plus, the mission making team wouldn't get fired silly, who do you think made Nukura? :P
Nope he's right, anything that is posted to the foundry becomes the property of Cryptic, as is the things that are posted on this forum. They wouldn't be able to have such a thing if that wasn't the rule.
What if someone writes a foundry mission and decides to write in into a novel later? They'd have to ask Cryptic first, not the other way around. In fact, developers have suggested this idea, but the reason was lack of tech or something like that. Not legal hurdles (as far as I know). If we let them make the tech, they would no longer have excuses no?
Cryptic isn't a bunch of voracious animals, they are capable of reason, and making deals. This could work in everyone's favour.
It isn't that simple against Cryptic or PWE either though. The missions are still working with the Trek IP, which the writers definitely have no rights to outside of context of the Foundry.
It isn't like you can publish your own fan fiction without breaking copyright law yourself....
Hence why Cryptic (and CBS/Paramount) took great care in making sure that Cryptic owns everything and is entitled to do what ever it wants with it, including: censorship, editing, deletion, and I'd assume that includes publishing it!
I will lay a wager of $1,000 US, that if Cryptic did anything with a Foundry mission othen than just promoting it, Cryptic would contact the author and have them sign a release which transfers on paper all copyrights of the work to Cryptic/PWE/et. al.
Just because something is put into a EULA doesn't not mean that it would apply if pushed. Most terms on a EULA would apply. But Copyright Law in the US is a complicated beast. It doesn't not always make intuitive sense. I avoids the details, but US copylaw states that transfer of Copyright have to be make on paper and must clearly describe the work of which the rights are being transferred. As far as I know, a blanket clause of claiming copyright has never been tried on a court of law. In every instance, of terms like that showup in EULA, they company has backed down on the phrasing of the terms when push came to shove.
As for freeing them up, how?
You say we could have FE's again, but why would they do that? This is what will replace those.
You say they could increase their creation of group content, but how does switching people from making new story content to going over foundry content going to add to that?
You say we could have more PvP, but the PvP team (what's left of it) doesn't seem to be involved in that process anyway.
I just don't see it happening. All I see is this actually making it more difficult for Cryptic to develop new Story content of their own, and I am absolutely against that.
I agree with you 100%. I think Cryptic SHOULD make their own missions for their game. However, one thing that changed since Foundry was first added, was the game did a massive shift from P2P (Pay 2 Play) to F2P (Free 2 Play). I think Cryptic has more or less silently, shifted it's focus to having the players create the story content for them, rather than the other way around.
What I want them to do, is use the foundry to give us a steady stream of (High Quality) content. This would allow them to release a couple of "Remastered" episodes every month or so. That is a whole lot more than what we are getting right now.
I simply want stuff to do, while Cryptic makes other stuff to do. Now with the free to play format, it would work very well.
And we could have a full KDF faction! That in and of itself should be reason enough to do this.