First Look at Neverwinter Foundry - STO's Future?

bazag · August 2012

At Gamescon 2012 the following video demo of Neverwinter's Foundry was recorded by Game Trailers and posted to their site.

Part 1
Part 2

While it's still apparently in Alpha. I'm really excited about the foundry's future in STO.

1. Screenshot previews in map and costume selectors - These are great to help people select map and costumes better.

2. "Populate Room" - 'nough said. Though whether this comes to STO is unknown

3. In-foundry chat - Long awaited and requested feature

4. Custom interiors and doors. Can't wait.

5. Author Subscriptions

Is there anything else you're looking forward to from getting from Neverwinter? Or any other thoughts or questions from watching this video?

I just wanted to share.

zorbane · August 2012

It looks great, the room designer will make creating custom makes wayyyy easier.

I am also curious about the end mission chest. What is Cryptic going to do to avoid exploiting it?

thegreendragoon1 · August 2012

zorbane wrote: »

It looks great, the room designer will make creating custom makes wayyyy easier.

I am also curious about the end mission chest. What is Cryptic going to do to avoid exploiting it?

She answered that in the Q&A session at the end (although it was hard to hear) that the reward would be based on the characters level and how long it took to play the mission.

nagorak · August 2012

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

She answered that in the Q&A session at the end (although it was hard to hear) that the reward would be based on the characters level and how long it took to play the mission.

I hope this comes to STO.

thegreendragoon1 · August 2012

A couple of interesting points:

First, the Interact with Object objective she was using had advanced options. It's hard to make out, but I can pick out the 3rd field which says Failure Text. Now this is interesting because for us, it isn't possible to fail an Interact objective.

Also in addition to the long lost Dialog with Object, they have another new objective. It looks like Unlock Door. Could be specific to Neverwinter or it could have something to do with custom interiors.

You'll also notice that in the map editor, they have a couple extra tabs. I can just make out that they have a Traps tab and a Teleporter tab. Now these could be object type unique to Neverwinter, but I can't help but think of hazards and in-map transfers.

I'm a little sorry they didn't have time to go deeper, I would have loved to seen they're trigger options and NPC behaviors.

zorbane · August 2012

I noticed that Popup dialogue isn't part of the story section anymore.

thegreendragoon1 · August 2012

zorbane wrote: »

I noticed that Popup dialogue isn't part of the story section anymore.

Good point, I wonder if that is because Neverwinter doesn't have anything like bridge officers, comm systems or anything else that would involve talking to someone that isn't directly in front of you.

designationxr377 · August 2012

MMmmmm.... I want these pants...

azurianstar · August 2012

bazag wrote: »

At Gamescon 2012 the following video demo of Neverwinter's Foundry was recorded by Game Trailers and posted to their site.

Part 1
Part 2

I really wish Cryptic made cities and zones as grand as what was on that video.

Foundry Chat: Nice! Be nice to chat while designing without cutting out while having to get off the testing character.

Map Previews: I really liked. Nice we don't have to go 1 at a time like with the current version.

Customizeable Interior Rooms: Really like to see that for STO. Make ships feel like ships.

Enemy Difficulty?: Ohh this is nice.

Job Board: Really liked the Improved UI where you can find things with a click, especially the Author's other works.

blargskull · August 2012

It sure looks 100 times better than STO Foundry. I bet the day they go to release it, 95% of the assets are missing or unavailable. The official excuse will be... oh that was the alpha version.

markhawkman · August 2012

Well for Chat I just do a map preview, I can chat on chat channels in map preview mode.

jnohd · August 2012

azurianstar wrote: »

I really wish Cryptic made cities and zones as grand as what was on that video.

Visit Qo'noS.

jnohd · August 2012

I liked the in-game cash donation feature... very interesting idea, I wonder how well it would work.

thegreendragoon1 · August 2012

jnohd wrote: »

I liked the in-game cash donation feature... very interesting idea, I wonder how well it would work.

We already have that, players can tip dilithium to authors.

jnohd · August 2012

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

We already have that, players can tip dilithium to authors.

Just goes to show I need to pay more attention to the Foundry, then. I've been holding out for a while to see how the NW version is adapted to ours.

azurianstar · August 2012

jnohd wrote: »

Visit Qo'noS.

Are you serious? You could fit several First Cities in the city of Neverwinter.

zorbane · August 2012

There's been tons of news about the Neverwinter Foundry ever since Gamescom finished as Cryptic seemed to be really pushing the Foundry to anyone who was interested. Here's a couple interesting links I found.

This is a video I found of the Foundry presentation. It's being done by a different person than the one floating around on the forum so while he does the same things, he does talk about a few things the other presenter didn't talk about and also answers a few questions from the crowd. One big thing is that he goes into greater detail on the "Quest Board" and "Author Page".

Video Link (scroll down a bit): http://www.pcgames.de/Neverwinter-PC-235686/News/Neverwinter-Gamescom-Video-zeigt-Level-Editor-Foundry-1018577/

There was also an article theverge.com about the Foundry. There's a lot of things that the article mentioned that wasn't in the demo itself.

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/18/3251244/neverwinter-foundry-lets-you-build-anything-from-pvp-to-text

Here are some quotes about things we haven't heard about before:

The Dialog editor might be the most impressive feature of all. It allows players to build incredibly complex loops and trees of conversation with NPC contacts. Creators can gate off certain options until the player has acquired a particular item, fulfilled an objective, or ? take note, classic D&D players ? make accessible secret options if a player is proficient enough in a certain skill. Just imagine having a conversation with an NPC contact, and then being given the option to call out his hidden entourage because your Perception was high enough.

Most of this we are familiar with, but the "secret options" is something we don't have. While stats aren't a big deal in STO as most games, this certainly reminds me of the Tactical/Science/Engineering quest branches that some Cryptic missions have included.

Creators can tag their levels with various classifications for potential players to locate them; "German" to indicate that it's written in German, or "Non-Combat" to show that it's entirely composed of puzzles and dialog.

Tags will be a great boost for finding mission content. If a player is looking for a specific type of mission (Klingon, Time Travel etc) they could just use this instead of scrolling through the ENTIRE LIST of missions. It will also help authors get their missions some more exposure.

They can even link their levels together into entire campaigns and quest chains; even if all of the links in that chain haven't been built yet.

We've heard about the STO devs wanting this as well. It's cool that missions that don't yet exist can be put in the chains.

Zinkievich also confirmed that Cryptic was working to add Player-vs-Player functionality in Foundry, giving players access to the entire range of tools therein. That means they won't just make arenas for players to fight in; they can create objectives, or put every player on a race to finish the same quest.

Personally I wouldn't know what to do with this but I still find it an interesting concept. I'm sure there's other people here who would be able to do something cool.

Quests award XP based on how long the players spent playing them ? a five-minute quest only gives a fraction of how much an hour-long quest will award.

Something we've been looking for since the Foundry came into existence! However Clickies will still be used if they keep the 1440 Dilithium "Investigate Officer Reports" mission. Hopefully it will be tossed in lieu of the new reward system.

The only real restriction is the treasure chest which players can drop once into their levels, which also scales based on how long the quest takes to complete. However, creators will be able to pick specific types of items (swords, helmets, etc.), which will then automatically be fitted to the class of the player which found it. Best of all, after picking the archetype for the item, the creator can name it, and then that name will stay with the item even after the player has left the dungeon.

Kind of cool, people can integrate this reward into their missions. For example "steal super gun from Dominions" mission which rewards you the "Shapeshifting Rifle"

...players can only earn four hours worth of XP and loot from UGC missions in a day.

I think this is a step in the right direction. Exploiters will exploit but this allows both some protection against them and allows players to play a hefty amount of UGC before being capped.

jnohd · August 2012

azurianstar wrote: »

Are you serious? You could fit several First Cities in the city of Neverwinter.

Mistook your use of "grand" to mean "stately, or splendid nature" rather than "large or impressive in size."

podsix · August 2012

azurianstar wrote: »

I really wish Cryptic made cities and zones as grand as what was on that video.

They do, check out Millenium City in Champions online.. unfortunately in STO, the closest we have to that is "sector space" which no one wants to spend any time in, because it's just the space between missions.

bazag · August 2012

zorbane wrote: »

Most of this we are familiar with, but the "secret options" is something we don't have. While stats aren't a big deal in STO as most games, this certainly reminds me of the Tactical/Science/Engineering quest branches that some Cryptic missions have included.

We have this to a degree. We can hide/shoow based on objectives and in map object dialogs triggers such as Object interacted, reached markers and Dialog prompt reached.

Just an FYI

jnohd · August 2012

podsix wrote: »

They do, check out Millenium City in Champions online.. unfortunately in STO, the closest we have to that is "sector space" which no one wants to spend any time in, because it's just the space between missions.

I'd need to dig, but I seem to recall the CO devs admitting to the fact that MC is literally the biggest they can make with the current Crypric Engine, no bigger will be possible without zoning...

I do miss big sandboxes with behind-the-scenes zoning and big issues if you traded something to someone across a hidden server line in your house on Tatooine...

azurianstar · August 2012

podsix wrote: »

They do, check out Millenium City in Champions online.. unfortunately in STO, the closest we have to that is "sector space" which no one wants to spend any time in, because it's just the space between missions.

While they have demonstrated this, they have no willingness in STO. Mainly, because I think they don't know what to put in these cities.

Could you imagine if First City was that size, where the farther you got, the more delapodated the buildings become (I.E. the slums)? Or travelling through Downtown San Fran in traveling across the bay on a transport or even walking to Starfleet HQ or Starfleet Medical from Starfleet Academy? Or walking around the cities of Andoria, Vulcan, or even the resorts of Risa (which isn't Giligan's Island).

lordxenite · August 2012

I'm excited! :cool:

kirksplat · August 2012

Ok, first impressions:

I absolutely love the room legos and the doors. That kind of feature would make building sets so much less time consuming. And our sets would actually not be ugly mashes of the same 3 walls that don't fit together.

We absolutely need this for starbase and ship interiors, where I can easily attach an engineering room to a corridor that leads to a turbolfit, etc.

Really, really, really hope that there is someone actually making the legos for sto. But, I wouldn't be surprised if there is not. At the most basic level for sto, if they just ripped apart some interiors and gave the pieces, we'd probably be happy with that.

I also really like the added UA for subscribing to an author.

What really really confuses me is the lack of a popup dialogue in the story board. I can't imagine building missions without it, unless it's something that I add onto the map. In some ways that is much better to work with, since it can be tied into triggers. But I still use a lot of dialogues on the story board. Linking every one into a trigger would be annoying, and there are times when I wouldn't want to do so.

Anyways, I really hope to see some of this stuff make its way back to sto.

firelordzx5 · August 2012

I'm waiting for a costumization system for the ship interiors using the foundry, but since Cryptic is currently developing, neverwinter, Cryptic doesn't pay much attention to the STO's community, seeing how the neverwinter's foundry works, this give me a little hope...

however I cannot guarantee about a FULL and/or DEEP costumization (making custom hallways, custom lounge/mess hall, crew quarters, shuttlebay/hangars, custom bridges, etc...) but at least creating something more... unique and more according to the players' convenience and creating customs crewmembers (create our crewmembers with uniforms and races that the player's want)

for fleets, this may be also is great oportunity, the Creator of such fleet and High rank members can customize their starbase, aslo creating a proper zone for the starbase (let face it, no all want their starbase in a deep space, others want to their base in an asteriods' belt or orbiting a planet) as their want, making the starbase's interiors and zones more unique and different from others,

but when that happens, the game will be in season 8 or 9 :P

I could be wrong, maybe this will never happens, but everyone has the right to dream. :rolleyes::cool:;)

leviathan99 · August 2012

kirksplat wrote: »

Ok, first impressions:

I absolutely love the room legos and the doors. That kind of feature would make building sets so much less time consuming. And our sets would actually not be ugly mashes of the same 3 walls that don't fit together.

We absolutely need this for starbase and ship interiors, where I can easily attach an engineering room to a corridor that leads to a turbolfit, etc.

Really, really, really hope that there is someone actually making the legos for sto. But, I wouldn't be surprised if there is not. At the most basic level for sto, if they just ripped apart some interiors and gave the pieces, we'd probably be happy with that.

I also really like the added UA for subscribing to an author.

What really really confuses me is the lack of a popup dialogue in the story board. I can't imagine building missions without it, unless it's something that I add onto the map. In some ways that is much better to work with, since it can be tied into triggers. But I still use a lot of dialogues on the story board. Linking every one into a trigger would be annoying, and there are times when I wouldn't want to do so.

Anyways, I really hope to see some of this stuff make its way back to sto.

The lack of pop-ups is because STO took a shortcut with hailing/combadges.

You'll actually have to walk up to someone to talk to them in Neverwinter and, presumably, stay in close range of them to talk.

nagorak · August 2012

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

The lack of pop-ups is because STO took a shortcut with hailing/combadges.

You'll actually have to walk up to someone to talk to them in Neverwinter and, presumably, stay in close range of them to talk.

That doesn't make sense to me. Even without hailing there are still going to be times where you need to have a dialogue pop-up. Someone you're passing by might yell for help, or ask you to come over and speak to them.

Not having pop-ups would be very constraining, maybe worse than any of the limitations we face right now in the STO Foundry. It basically means that all NPCs can only be used to react to the player, instead of actively engage the player themselves. (Imagine from the standpoint of the NPC that when a player talks to them a pop-up dialogue appears to them, when you get a pop-up dialogue it's because they acted first and initiated communication with you.)

tjexcimer500 · August 2012

It is a shame that they're not implementing a system similar to the NWN1 Aurora toolset which was truly boundless in what you could do. You could even program (in a C++ like language) in what you wanted if it didn't exist. You could add your own models and create your own maps - rather than having to use their limited layouts. It's just sad knowing how amazing it could actually be...

Now that being said - thank goodness they've at least created the Foundry for STO & NWN3 and that there will be community content (unlike so many other games).

drogyn1701 · August 2012

If you're a gaming company you would do different things with a single player RPG editor than you would with an MMO. With an MMO you have to be concerned about people cheating and hacking which is why third party modding is generally out except for those games that allow interface editing. So naturally the Foundry for STO and NW is going to be limited. But hey, better than most MMOs, which don't have any sort of UGC editors.

As for the NW Foundry, its actually got me interested in the game, where I wasn't before. I'd love to see more.

blargskull · August 2012

To address the players zorbane, jnohd, and azurianstar above talking about map/city size and zoning etc...

If you recall your GTA 3 to GTA VC, games such as these required splash screens to swap out maps and "rezone" the player. This was virtually done away with in GTA SA, as the only time it occurs is when you enter or exit a building. Then by GTA IV zoning seemed to vanish altogether.

So how was this accomplished? Graphics engineers and model makers now use LOD modeling. LOD is short for Level Of Detail and what we do now is start by making low resolution maps of the entire world with minimal texture. This model shows up in the far distance. As the player gets closer we replace both the mesh and texture with a medium resolution. The section of the map the player is currently working in is the highest detail. As the player moves, the high resolution is replaced with medium and low.

Another "trick" used is to only draw and calculate what is inside the player's view. This can best be seen in GTA SA. Traffic and peds appear from nowhere when your back is turned.

As for shear size, we had an argument at work about which game had the larger map. GTA SA or Morrowind? In the ESM editor manual it stated distance and then we found that GTA SA has a simple way to measure distance walked on foot or driven by car. It turned out the both maps were too close to call. Each 2.5 to 3 virtual miles end to end. However in the end it was pointed out that with the ESM editor that ships with Morrowind it could expand out to infinity, so we agreed that Morrowind won.

First Look at Neverwinter Foundry - STO's Future?

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