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Does Cryptic really not want us making missions as good as theirs?
novapolaris
Member Posts: 809 Arc User
With the fact that more seems to get *removed* from the Foundry than added, especially assets like costumes and features like costume import/export, it feels like the people at Cryptic don't want us making missions on the same level of quality as them. I will admit however that there has been some decent work regarding adding props, but it's still a bit limited. Hopefully the missing costumes will not be too far off.
If this is not true, speak up now. However, proof will be required, as so far words have often seemed to be empty in regards to the Foundry. For example, even after my thread about the "Foundry - Discussion & Feedback" section being ignored, it still doesn't feel very much like anyone at Cryptic pays attention to it much at all yet.
The limitations with Neverwinter's version of the Foundry also seem to indicate this, although it has some features that STO's doesn't, like room-building tech.
I do not like writing a post with this kind of tone, but I feel that it is necessary to see whether or not this is the case with the Foundry. If Cryptic is actually working on a major update to the Foundry, I will gladly eat my words.
If this is not true, speak up now. However, proof will be required, as so far words have often seemed to be empty in regards to the Foundry. For example, even after my thread about the "Foundry - Discussion & Feedback" section being ignored, it still doesn't feel very much like anyone at Cryptic pays attention to it much at all yet.
The limitations with Neverwinter's version of the Foundry also seem to indicate this, although it has some features that STO's doesn't, like room-building tech.
I do not like writing a post with this kind of tone, but I feel that it is necessary to see whether or not this is the case with the Foundry. If Cryptic is actually working on a major update to the Foundry, I will gladly eat my words.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
they may not want us to be be able to make mission as good as them, so that their missions always have an attraction but more realistically if people could make foundry mission at FE quality then it would only be a good thing for the game. They dont charge for missions at all. so whether people play theirs or ours, they want people in the game playing something.
even if its true, its never going to happen as their tools will always be more advanced than ours, simply because of the nature of development, so they will always be ahead of us even in an ideal world.
they are constantly improving the foundry, it just happens slowly (and the team has been working on nw, rather than here). yes sometimes features are removed but that is due to them not working quite right and causing problems. its not a desire to keep us from developing better missions. they have said now NW is out they can start looking at their features and bringing them over to STO so you should see a greater rate of improvements than before. dstahl indicated that we could start to see them in the next season, but take that with a pinch of salt.
also the tools that they use require actual trained experience. it involves coding. our tools are designed to be simple that anyone can use it. once they invent a new feature for themselves it cant just be copied over to the foundry. it takes time to make a version that we can use. even then it may not be possible or practical depending on the feature to integrate it into what is already there.
Second, the limitations of the Foundry have nothing to do with a developer 'fear' of rival missions. There are usually three reasons something is limited in the Foundry: One, it is simply something they haven't had the time to develop yet. (In fact, the foundry is far less limited than when it first opened.) Two, a limitation is imposed as a safety net to new foundry authors. Three, it's limited to prevent exploitation of the system.
One final note I'll make, don't fall into the trap of thinking that tech defines whether a mission is good or not. In fact, there are foundry missions that can rival featured episodes. I quite confident that Cryptic has little fear of competition from players and have even have commented on their love of seeing what the foundry community comes up with.
We recently did an interview with Kestral on the Foundry Roundtable, and she commented that she often feels that the developers are far more limited because they have to focus on broad-appeal storytelling within a stringent set of rules, where as foundry authors can write almost anything they want.
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
I think some people come to the Foundry thinking it'll be like modding for a single player game, but this really isn't that. This is a basic level editor and that's what it should be. We shouldn't be able to alter everything the way you can in a lot of single player games. UGC in MMOs has to be limited.
Thank you. This post was the result of a particularly paranoid night, and your response has alleviated some of that. I do still worry about certain tech making it in (or back in), but I am hopeful that something big (in a good way) will be coming to the Foundry for STO in the next few months.
Also, I did not mean to say that I wanted access to the actual, coding-required dev tools. That is not what I meant. Surely the room-building tech can be added, however, as it's already in Neverwinter and shouldn't require any coding on the author's part.
*sigh* I must have been having a very bad night when I wrote the original post.
There isn't a single author that doesn't wish the Foundry received new tech at a quicker pace, but by the same token, it's forced us to come up with more and more ingenious solutions to various problems. It was pointed out to me recently that if you look at the Neverwinter foundry, almost none of them hold a candle to foundry missions in STO, because the NW players aren't challenged like the STO players are.
i'm sad that the foundry isn't an installable program, it would solve alot of issues....:(
They way the Foundry works, it wouldn't really be effective to have a separate client, and it certainly couldn't run offline. The Foundry is very database driven and it needs to be in order to work effectively in an MMO setting. There are also security concerns that would arise from having a separate downloadable client.
What we've been told is that stuff is coming, the foundry team is currently busy with Neverwinter's foundry. Once they're done over there, we should get all that tech ported over.
But I will give voice to a comment another fellow author made, in some ways, our Foundry is superior to that of Neverwinter. Yes they have the pretty tools, and the fancy tricks, but that makes them soft. We have to figure out how to get things to work right without all the aids. We have to work around obnoxious limitations. We have to be more creative, more inventive, more tenacious. I think thats a win for us.
(But dont think I wouldnt take the room editor and the object limit in a heartbeat if its offered
It's about money man, it always is.
With the switching npcs, we could have a workaround if the we had a few npc groups that didn't have a beam in animation when they are triggered from invis to visible. With that little change, we could replace a friendly mob with an enemy version of itself. Of course, it wouldn't work right from hostile to friendly, because the hostiles would die.
Just throwing that out there, in case a programmer reads it. Thanks for what you do Frost.
Though I respect your opinion, I disagree with it profoundly. I believe they can make an installable foundry for us. I think it would be the wisest choice. And being afraid of security, is not an issue, because if somebody really wants to hack into there game, a good computer genius will be able to do it with the files that come with the game itself that is downloaded onto the computer.
And as for the database driven thought you mentioned, um..... that's why you make an installable program, to hold the database of all things on your computer....gee... much like a game that's downloaded......?
Anyhow I still think it's wiser to make it an installable program. And until otherwise, it will continue to be a slow crashing load....unfortunately.
In the end it really doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, (I intend no offense nor take any) it's simply one of those 'ain't gonna happen' things. I'm just trying to save you the trouble of pursuing a dead end.
Ohhh ok, thank you for explainin it to me. I appreciate it. I didn't know.... **sigh**** still.. I wish the Foundry was an installable program dang it.... snf snff..
That is a suggestion I'll get filed. As usual, I can't promise anything, but I can pass this along.
People say this all the time, I have yet to see any evidence of it.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Glad to hear that, CrypticFrost.
Any chance for Neverwinter's "Fight to Submission" combat NPC option to make it into STO's Foundry? People have been asking for this for a long time, and I'm glad to see it made it in at least somewhere.
I don't think you bothered reading any of the posts that followed that. My stance isn't still the same as when I wrote that.