First, spotlight foundry mission is about a promoting a mission, not an author. If some authors are simply more awesome than others, and have many awesome mission, I found normal to have several of their missions promoted. As said before, if we compare to great author, like Shakespear or Asimov, several of their works got prizes, and less known authors may have complained that awards were always for the same people.
As another example, much bigger than foundry mission, Marie Curie received 2 nobel prizes for her work. The highest award a scientist can dream of. She was the first (and only ?). During a time and a place were women couldn't vote. Simply mean her work was exceptional, probably because she was an incredible woman, ahead of her time. Doesn't mean it's a conspiracy, even if I'm sure a lot of people saw it that way.
Would it be better to ignore a mission to promote a less interesting one because the author already got promoted once ?
(And I honestly mean no disparagement to the spotlighted authors or the authors who make great use of Starbase UGC and other sites to promote their work - which again, I've done myself -- and think Kirkfat has done a MAJOR service in starting, providing and maintaining the site; BUT, if it is only 100 or so Foundry authors out of the entire STO Foundry authorbase who make UGC content worthy of being spotlight -- then honestly, I'd consider the Foundry a major failure.)
There is not a lot of player on STO. Only 1 server for the entire world. On those people, how many of them are creative enough to use the foundry ? 1-10% ? How many of them have the time and will to make missions ? Then again, on those few peoples, how many of them make good missions, worth to be spotlight ? I'd say 100 awesome authors is not a failure.
Honestly, I think something the Foundry is still missing is an easy way for them to promote their mission in the game itself -- (look at the way the Cryptic mission interface easily promotes STO events, etc.) -- and that's something that perhaps Cryptic could think about adding to th mission interface -- a way that also promotes rank and file missions, that easy for authors to make use of and is shown as an option to authors in the Foundry tool.
Last time I checked, there is a "submit for spotlight" button in the mission editor. Dunno if it was removed recently, but I can't think of a better way to ask for spotlight.
Also, you can promote it with the forum, and Bran seems to check often. Especially if your mission is good and a lot of people comment the thread.
If you are shy or afraid, you don't want to be spotlight anyway.
There is not a lot of player on STO. Only 1 server for the entire world.
Not to disagree with your main points, which are completely valid, but I see statements like the above a lot and want to make sure people aren't operating under invalid assumptions.
There is one "logical" server. It consists, however, of hundreds of computers, in a giant and expandable cluster. There are 2 million people with accounts in this game, and tens of thousands can be active at any time. Steam, for instance, shows that just people playing concurrently who obtained the game from Steam, and just for today, has exceeded 2,600. Most people don't play it via Steam, and it's early in the day.
This is a very large MMO population.
I'm not aware of any recent MMORPG where one "server" equals one computer. Even WoW, with an architecture that uses many servers, has each server on in excess of 20 computer blades. (it was 20 during Wrath of the Lich King; I assume it's more now, although it's possible it's less with their new hardware.)
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
I'd have to see the full list of spotlights, but I think that less than half of the authors who get spotlighted are actively promoting their missions at Starbase UGC. Some of us have actively promoted their missions for them, when we discover something unexpected from someone we've never heard of before.
The equation of sbugc with spotlights is not justified by looking at the lists of who gets spotlighted.
Having one server is not indicative of having a small game population. Its always had one server regardless of how many people are playing. Same with Champions Online and the same with a few other games as well (Guild Wars 1 for example). And actually I think having one server is one of STO's strengths. Everyone is together. Make a STO friend in real life or in another game and you are guaranteed to be able to play with them without any messy server transfers. Look at all the problems other games have had with multiple servers. STO doesn't have to mess with that.
BUT, if it is only 100 or so Foundry authors out of the entire STO Foundry authorbase who make UGC content worthy of being spotlight -- then honestly, I'd consider the Foundry a major failure.)
That seems a rather odd way to look at it, and not at all keeping with how most artistic things work.
Depending on the size of the foundry author group, it's only logical that only a given % of them would produce really good stuff. This is no different then any thing else in life. Some people are good at it, some aren't. Just because someone isn't good at it doesn't mean they can't still take part.
If there's 1,000 people who really do much with the foundry, and 100 of them are worthy of the spotlight, that's 10% and seems to be about right to me. I mean you don't see every novel written in a given sub-genera being on a top 10 list. Why should the foundry be any different? It's fairly unreasonable to expect every mission made to be worthy of the spotlight.
We did talk with BranFlakes about making an infographic for the Foundry like they did for the game as a whole. Number of authors, number of missions, number of plays, etc. I hope they'll make that for us, would be great to see the actual numbers.
But I think cptvanor is right. From my experience, looking at modding communities (which the Foundry community resembles) in other games, they tend to be a smaller portion of the actual playerbase. And there are always a smaller number of people making mods than playing them, and a smaller portion of those are putting out "quality" mods. I imagine the reason for that is because it's hard work to create. And some people just don't go in for that creative aspect, they just want to play.
So to my mind having a small number of authors in proportion to the overall game population doesn't make the Foundry a failure, it makes it normal.
We did talk with BranFlakes about making an infographic for the Foundry like they did for the game as a whole. Number of authors, number of missions, number of plays, etc. I hope they'll make that for us, would be great to see the actual numbers.
But I think cptvanor is right. From my experience, looking at modding communities (which the Foundry community resembles) in other games, they tend to be a smaller portion of the actual playerbase. And there are always a smaller number of people making mods than playing them, and a smaller portion of those are putting out "quality" mods. I imagine the reason for that is because it's hard work to create. And some people just don't go in for that creative aspect, they just want to play.
So to my mind having a small number of authors in proportion to the overall game population doesn't make the Foundry a failure, it makes it normal.
As a long time modder: heck yeah!
Good mod work takes quite a lot of time and effort. The same is true of foundry missions.
Well now that the Foundry has been nerfed and the spotlight has been somewhat buffed, this discussion does become even more important, as does the impartiality of Cryptic and its employees in tagging missions that will be the only ones players look at.
If they look at the Foundry at all anymore.
How MMO companies reach for the stars: "And as far as Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre."
They looked at it for over a year when it didn't have rewards. I'm not too worried. Bottom line is they all still will give DL rewards, it just now scales. The time spent in your missions should now be worth the time spent in an Alimac epic.
Now, the rewards for that time spent, that's a different matter. One involving FMs and Cryptic's stance (as expressed by Bran) that Foundry isn't where they want FMs coming from and DL. If the DL reward for 30+ min isn't 960 or so I will be... unimpressed... with the change. But right now reward talk is all speculation.
Now, the rewards for that time spent, that's a different matter. One involving FMs and Cryptic's stance (as expressed by Bran) that Foundry isn't where they want FMs coming from and DL. If the DL reward for 30+ min isn't 960 or so I will be... unimpressed... with the change. But right now reward talk is all speculation.
If Dilithium isn't calculated at 960/15min increments the change is DOA. And there is nothing to replace the loss of FMs, so this is a rather harsh nerf that should return the foundry to its former ghosttown status.
How MMO companies reach for the stars: "And as far as Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre."
If Dilithium isn't calculated at 960/15min increments the change is DOA. And there is nothing to replace the loss of FMs, so this is a rather harsh nerf that should return the foundry to its former ghosttown status.
I think that former status is likely, because there is no way Cryptic is going to hand out 3840 dilithium for doing an hour-long epic Foundry mission.
Last night I played "Checks and Balances" on tribble. This mission probably has an average playtime of 60 to 90 minutes. I was awarded 1440 dilithium (but I clicked through it in 20 minutes, since I've already played it 4 times).
Then please go elsewhere for your stuffz. I'm happy with 1440. It's one of my favorite missions.
You misunderstand, I don't play foundry for 'stuffz' but I know some do because the dailies can become mindnumbingly boring after a few hundred plays. 1440 dilith for 60 minutes is a complete joke, and tho 2880 is a bit better it still dosen't compare to to the other non-repeatable daily's that award 480 dilith for 5 minutes work.
Just be glad KS that the author didn't do what you proposed doing to your missions to keep peeps from clicking thru them because they didn't want to read all that text dribble. We'll see how this nerf plays out and I hope it doesn't turn the foundry into a ghost town but as I said a few time before, everyone should be trying to get more people participating in the foundry, not alienating those that already do.
We'll see how this nerf plays out and I hope it doesn't turn the foundry into a ghost town but as I said a few time before, everyone should be trying to get more people participating in the foundry, not alienating those that already do.
it lookson the order of 360 per 15minutes. disgustingly paltry.
I can tell you right now it will devolve backinto the exclusive playground that he and others have always wanted. I and mostof the playerbase was just filth destroying their domain (paraphrased from too many ugly posts to count). Well, mission accomplished asthe game is now returning to the season7 resource drought that drove me and others off.
You misunderstand, I don't play foundry for 'stuffz' but I know some do because the dailies can become mindnumbingly boring after a few hundred plays. 1440 dilith for 60 minutes is a complete joke, and tho 2880 is a bit better it still dosen't compare to to the other non-repeatable daily's that award 480 dilith for 5 minutes work.
Just be glad KS that the author didn't do what you proposed doing to your missions to keep peeps from clicking thru them because they didn't want to read all that text dribble. We'll see how this nerf plays out and I hope it doesn't turn the foundry into a ghost town but as I said a few time before, everyone should be trying to get more people participating in the foundry, not alienating those that already do.
The thing is, everyone seems to keep focusing on stuffz, lootz, ferengi this and ferengi that...the whole idea behind the Foundry was for people to be able to share their ideas of an entertaining mission with other people. Its the somewhat sad state of MMOs where people care more about being Uber L33T and having all the stuffs vs actually finding a way to enjoy the game.
I suppose that for some, the part of being better than all others and having all the toys is their idea of fun. I just think in this whole argument that people are losing sight of actually trying to have fun and not 'what reward can I have or has been taken away'
The thing is, everyone seems to keep focusing on stuffz, lootz, ferengi this and ferengi that...the whole idea behind the Foundry was for people to be able to share their ideas of an entertaining mission with other people. Its the somewhat sad state of MMOs where people care more about being Uber L33T and having all the stuffs vs actually finding a way to enjoy the game.
I suppose that for some, the part of being better than all others and having all the toys is their idea of fun. I just think in this whole argument that people are losing sight of actually trying to have fun and not 'what reward can I have or has been taken away'
I should note this can be extended to the wider game as well. mindlessly running the same few missions over and over again to get 'teh stuffz' is...its just not a good thing, and this needs to be addressed, frankly I have little motivation to grind for things because....there is little joy in it.
Maybe working towards the newest shiny is fun for some people. Who are you to tell them they're wrong? :mad:
But does the fun come from mindlessly shooting things in the face click click pow, or from some other aspect? thats the thing that I dont get from things like say Farm 101, a sense of adventure.
Look, it comes down to this, what you or I think doesnt mean ANYTHING if it is decided by the systems people and or management that a change needs be be made because something isn't working in the way they intended. I am frankly getting quite tired of hearing all this Us vs. Them and Elitist nonsense coming out of the hands of ALL people. Personally I have never stated that anything should be removed unless it in some manner hampers aspects of the game. As far as whether I consider working towards some shiny as fun, considering the personal time Ive put in to push pull and drag a small group of people to a T3 starbase...no I cant say thats been fun at all, its almost been work, just with more shooting things in the face, which there have been days I wish I could DO that at work :1
The thing is, everyone seems to keep focusing on stuffz, lootz, ferengi this and ferengi that...the whole idea behind the Foundry was for people to be able to share their ideas of an entertaining mission with other people. Its the somewhat sad state of MMOs where people care more about being Uber L33T and having all the stuffs vs actually finding a way to enjoy the game.
I suppose that for some, the part of being better than all others and having all the toys is their idea of fun. I just think in this whole argument that people are losing sight of actually trying to have fun and not 'what reward can I have or has been taken away'
Ya, I get that but when the IOR went to a repeatable daily it BECAME the farmland that 'some' hate so much. I've tried for a long time to forget the crying by 'some' that their missions weren't played enough even before the IOR went repeatable, but it seems that 'some' have found a receptive ear to ensure their stuff is pushed over others who stuff is more popular. It's not a biggie for me but as atomictiki put it, "it will devolve backinto the exclusive playground that he and others have always wanted" which I think is not good for the foundry overall.
I should note this can be extended to the wider game as well. mindlessly running the same few missions over and over again to get 'teh stuffz' is...its just not a good thing, and this needs to be addressed, frankly I have little motivation to grind for things because....there is little joy in it.
Its the PWE business model! Its not going to changeone iota. if anything it will continue to increase over time.
The thing is, everyone seems to keep focusing on stuffz, lootz, ferengi this and ferengi that...the whole idea behind the Foundry was for people to be able to share their ideas of an entertaining mission with other people. Its the somewhat sad state of MMOs where people care more about being Uber L33T and having all the stuffs vs actually finding a way to enjoy the game.
I suppose that for some, the part of being better than all others and having all the toys is their idea of fun. I just think in this whole argument that people are losing sight of actually trying to have fun and not 'what reward can I have or has been taken away'
This whole foundry "war" to me is just another jocks vs nerds battle. A large portion of the player base just want to grind the game and play to win y'know the "Starcraft" type, its all about the strategy and who cares about art. And then there are the artsy story tellers who are trying to make an enjoyable player experience or use the game as their own minecraft and build their own little worlds.
A TIME TO SEARCH: ENTER MY FOUNDRY MISSION at the RISA SYSTEM Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
And then there are the artsy fartsy story tellers who are trying to make an enjoyable player experience or use the game as there own minecraft and build their own little worlds.
Comments
As another example, much bigger than foundry mission, Marie Curie received 2 nobel prizes for her work. The highest award a scientist can dream of. She was the first (and only ?). During a time and a place were women couldn't vote. Simply mean her work was exceptional, probably because she was an incredible woman, ahead of her time. Doesn't mean it's a conspiracy, even if I'm sure a lot of people saw it that way.
Would it be better to ignore a mission to promote a less interesting one because the author already got promoted once ?
There is not a lot of player on STO. Only 1 server for the entire world. On those people, how many of them are creative enough to use the foundry ? 1-10% ? How many of them have the time and will to make missions ? Then again, on those few peoples, how many of them make good missions, worth to be spotlight ? I'd say 100 awesome authors is not a failure.
Last time I checked, there is a "submit for spotlight" button in the mission editor. Dunno if it was removed recently, but I can't think of a better way to ask for spotlight.
Also, you can promote it with the forum, and Bran seems to check often. Especially if your mission is good and a lot of people comment the thread.
If you are shy or afraid, you don't want to be spotlight anyway.
Not to disagree with your main points, which are completely valid, but I see statements like the above a lot and want to make sure people aren't operating under invalid assumptions.
There is one "logical" server. It consists, however, of hundreds of computers, in a giant and expandable cluster. There are 2 million people with accounts in this game, and tens of thousands can be active at any time. Steam, for instance, shows that just people playing concurrently who obtained the game from Steam, and just for today, has exceeded 2,600. Most people don't play it via Steam, and it's early in the day.
This is a very large MMO population.
I'm not aware of any recent MMORPG where one "server" equals one computer. Even WoW, with an architecture that uses many servers, has each server on in excess of 20 computer blades. (it was 20 during Wrath of the Lich King; I assume it's more now, although it's possible it's less with their new hardware.)
The equation of sbugc with spotlights is not justified by looking at the lists of who gets spotlighted.
That seems a rather odd way to look at it, and not at all keeping with how most artistic things work.
Depending on the size of the foundry author group, it's only logical that only a given % of them would produce really good stuff. This is no different then any thing else in life. Some people are good at it, some aren't. Just because someone isn't good at it doesn't mean they can't still take part.
If there's 1,000 people who really do much with the foundry, and 100 of them are worthy of the spotlight, that's 10% and seems to be about right to me. I mean you don't see every novel written in a given sub-genera being on a top 10 list. Why should the foundry be any different? It's fairly unreasonable to expect every mission made to be worthy of the spotlight.
But I think cptvanor is right. From my experience, looking at modding communities (which the Foundry community resembles) in other games, they tend to be a smaller portion of the actual playerbase. And there are always a smaller number of people making mods than playing them, and a smaller portion of those are putting out "quality" mods. I imagine the reason for that is because it's hard work to create. And some people just don't go in for that creative aspect, they just want to play.
So to my mind having a small number of authors in proportion to the overall game population doesn't make the Foundry a failure, it makes it normal.
Good mod work takes quite a lot of time and effort. The same is true of foundry missions.
My character Tsin'xing
If they look at the Foundry at all anymore.
Now, the rewards for that time spent, that's a different matter. One involving FMs and Cryptic's stance (as expressed by Bran) that Foundry isn't where they want FMs coming from and DL. If the DL reward for 30+ min isn't 960 or so I will be... unimpressed... with the change. But right now reward talk is all speculation.
If Dilithium isn't calculated at 960/15min increments the change is DOA. And there is nothing to replace the loss of FMs, so this is a rather harsh nerf that should return the foundry to its former ghosttown status.
I think that former status is likely, because there is no way Cryptic is going to hand out 3840 dilithium for doing an hour-long epic Foundry mission.
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
I cap 2 toons in that time without playing ANY foundry missions or STF's.
What a waste of time the foundry has become.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Then please go elsewhere for your stuffz. I'm happy with 1440. It's one of my favorite missions.
Since it's a spotlight, you would have received an extra 1440 D if it was the first spotlight you played in 24 hours. 2880 D + ECs ain't to shabby!
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
You misunderstand, I don't play foundry for 'stuffz' but I know some do because the dailies can become mindnumbingly boring after a few hundred plays. 1440 dilith for 60 minutes is a complete joke, and tho 2880 is a bit better it still dosen't compare to to the other non-repeatable daily's that award 480 dilith for 5 minutes work.
Just be glad KS that the author didn't do what you proposed doing to your missions to keep peeps from clicking thru them because they didn't want to read all that text dribble. We'll see how this nerf plays out and I hope it doesn't turn the foundry into a ghost town but as I said a few time before, everyone should be trying to get more people participating in the foundry, not alienating those that already do.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
it lookson the order of 360 per 15minutes. disgustingly paltry.
I can tell you right now it will devolve backinto the exclusive playground that he and others have always wanted. I and mostof the playerbase was just filth destroying their domain (paraphrased from too many ugly posts to count). Well, mission accomplished asthe game is now returning to the season7 resource drought that drove me and others off.
The thing is, everyone seems to keep focusing on stuffz, lootz, ferengi this and ferengi that...the whole idea behind the Foundry was for people to be able to share their ideas of an entertaining mission with other people. Its the somewhat sad state of MMOs where people care more about being Uber L33T and having all the stuffs vs actually finding a way to enjoy the game.
I suppose that for some, the part of being better than all others and having all the toys is their idea of fun. I just think in this whole argument that people are losing sight of actually trying to have fun and not 'what reward can I have or has been taken away'
I should note this can be extended to the wider game as well. mindlessly running the same few missions over and over again to get 'teh stuffz' is...its just not a good thing, and this needs to be addressed, frankly I have little motivation to grind for things because....there is little joy in it.
But does the fun come from mindlessly shooting things in the face click click pow, or from some other aspect? thats the thing that I dont get from things like say Farm 101, a sense of adventure.
Look, it comes down to this, what you or I think doesnt mean ANYTHING if it is decided by the systems people and or management that a change needs be be made because something isn't working in the way they intended. I am frankly getting quite tired of hearing all this Us vs. Them and Elitist nonsense coming out of the hands of ALL people. Personally I have never stated that anything should be removed unless it in some manner hampers aspects of the game. As far as whether I consider working towards some shiny as fun, considering the personal time Ive put in to push pull and drag a small group of people to a T3 starbase...no I cant say thats been fun at all, its almost been work, just with more shooting things in the face, which there have been days I wish I could DO that at work :1
Ya, I get that but when the IOR went to a repeatable daily it BECAME the farmland that 'some' hate so much. I've tried for a long time to forget the crying by 'some' that their missions weren't played enough even before the IOR went repeatable, but it seems that 'some' have found a receptive ear to ensure their stuff is pushed over others who stuff is more popular. It's not a biggie for me but as atomictiki put it, "it will devolve backinto the exclusive playground that he and others have always wanted" which I think is not good for the foundry overall.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
And that might be a tiny consolation if dilithium were at all the issue here.
Its the PWE business model! Its not going to changeone iota. if anything it will continue to increase over time.
This whole foundry "war" to me is just another jocks vs nerds battle. A large portion of the player base just want to grind the game and play to win y'know the "Starcraft" type, its all about the strategy and who cares about art. And then there are the artsy story tellers who are trying to make an enjoyable player experience or use the game as their own minecraft and build their own little worlds.
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
My character Tsin'xing
Hey Im with you guys grinding is just too boring...
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Says who ?
It wasn't the devs who made it grindable by going to a repeatable IOR daily .
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Here's what Bran said(he's not a dev but he works for them): http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=550841
My character Tsin'xing
The description on the STO website about the Foundry
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