"Player-requested feature" doesn't really narrow it down as we have the bad habit of asking for everything. Seriously though, we do know it is a feature coming over from Neverwinter, but NOT the 3D nudger. My money is still on campaign support, but I can think of quite a few little features I'd love to get my hands on.
Not to sound bitter or anything to Cryptic, but as I have said many times before, what good are new features if no one can find the missions? Why isn't a simple overhaul of the search UI being made a priority so that people can see more than the Top 50?
The answer to "Why isn't X a priority" is: because Y is. No one has the resources to do everything, even if they would like to. I know that in my own work. I'd love to go to every middle school basketball game and do 20-inch stories with 5 big pictures, but I only have so much time and so much space, and the audience for that is small. I have to prioritize the high school games. The length of time an idea is out there also doesn't necessarily affect its priority.
Anyway, Zero is also working on an empty map for us. She said on the Roundtable it was crashing on her, but then she tweeted yesterday there might be a workaround. So in addition to whatever feature is being worked on, we have an empty map to look forward to.
The answer to "Why isn't X a priority" is: because Y is. No one has the resources to do everything, even if they would like to. I know that in my own work. I'd love to go to every middle school basketball game and do 20-inch stories with 5 big pictures, but I only have so much time and so much space, and the audience for that is small. I have to prioritize the high school games. The length of time an idea is out there also doesn't necessarily affect its priority.
Anyway, Zero is also working on an empty map for us. She said on the Roundtable it was crashing on her, but then she tweeted yesterday there might be a workaround. So in addition to whatever feature is being worked on, we have an empty map to look forward to.
I totally agree.
But it just seems like we have some really great people giving us great stuff (thank you!), yet it's pretty much for naught.
To use an analogy, it's like a great chef putting some delicious icing on an award winning cake - - standing in the middle of a kitchen that is on fire. Sure, the cake is going to be great...but there is something else going on that really should take precedence....or the cake will never get eaten.
The ability to follow specific authors in UI would be good. So would the campaign feature; it would make it easier to play multipart stories. I'd love to be able to build a map with tilesets instead of being stuck with building a map piece by piece.
More QoL/Usability features to lower the barrier of entry and make creating missions faster and easier.
I had a lot of story ideas for the Foundry but I inevitably get tired of fighting with maps and objects to make them do what I want. Stuff that should be simple, aren't. (ok, ok, done ranting now... )
Just stopping in from Abeir-Toril, as a Facebook group made me aware of the rumored upcoming changes. My best guess is you guys would get what's called the "campaign" where several quests are linked together to create a series. Neverwinter allows 15 quests to be "chained together" to create what is called a "campaign." Our foundry in Neverwinter has been set in what nautical terms is called the doldrums for an expected year's time, receiving no anticipated updates. It's good to see you guys getting some needed attention, perhaps there's hope for Neverwinter at some point in the not so near future. Now, can you guys please point me in the direction of what you call the "transporter room?" I met this wizard who only answered to "Q" and he told me the way back involved that mythical place...
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v2] - NW-DQWRKPLJO
A feature that I know a bunch of authors would love is the ability to chain together story arcs from different authors. Collaborative campaigns, if you will. Neverwinter could use that too, couldn't it?
Other collaborative features would also be useful.
But it just seems like we have some really great people giving us great stuff (thank you!), yet it's pretty much for naught.
To use an analogy, it's like a great chef putting some delicious icing on an award winning cake - - standing in the middle of a kitchen that is on fire. Sure, the cake is going to be great...but there is something else going on that really should take precedence....or the cake will never get eaten.
I know this is important to you. But I think that such an effort will most likely come with a revamp of the entire Mission Journal. The Foundry search is but one aging element in there. It also means that they have to wait until the resourcing for such an effort makes sense. To build on Drogyn's analogy, it's not just that Y is of greater importance, it's also that Q, V, T, G, A and F also have to be taken care of. And don't get me started on H, M and B which is way over due.
On the last Roundtable it was mentioned that a blank ground map was in the works. That's not a Neverwinter feature (AFAIK) but it is something STO Foundry authors have been requesting for a long time.
On the last Roundtable it was mentioned that a blank ground map was in the works. That's not a Neverwinter feature (AFAIK) but it is something STO Foundry authors have been requesting for a long time.
So yes, it looks like we're getting empty interior maps, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the new Foundry feature. Empty interiors are an asset addition.
While, as mentioned before, a 3D editor is unlikely, it would likely be the most useful feature we could get. I think we should be highly grateful for any feature we get.
Some things that I, personally, would like to see...
3D Editor (NEED!)
Branching tasks (multiple endings, anyone?)
Blank maps (both interior and exterior)
Costume Importing (am I the only one that never ran into the bug that made this feature get taken away?)
NPC Contact Costume duplication (Let me "import" an NPC Contact as a costume starting-point and edit from there)
The ability to change name/registry on ship Fed costumes (Starship 98712354681231561, registry 6512116841351 is annoying)
Mission-linking (Campaign)
Teleport (move to X location on the same map)
Player-ship interiors (with bridge and decks on the same map)
Romulan ship interiors
Player & BOff NPC Contacts (I want to meet my mirror-self)
Ground map "Static"
Energy Dampening volume (force melee combat)
NPC item list (I want to be able to pick what kind of weapons my NPCs use)
Modern, Archaic, and Pre-Warp buildings & objects
The Guardian of Forever prop (both dormant & active states)
"Switchable" states (I want to turn on & off a hologram at-will, instead of just visible-hidden once each)
Captain-only, 1-BOff, and 2-Boff volumes
Roleplay mission tags (when selected, the number of people that can join the mission is increased to 20... because 5 people per instance doesn't make for a very good Fleet RP event)
PvP mission tags (When selected, two opposing teams on the same mission able to combat each other: capture the flag, mass combat, etc.)
Oh, what the hell, why not be bold and just open Cryptic's in-house mission editor and call it Foundry 1.0, finally ending the perpetual Beta.
The Foundry is a simple set of tools that is designed to permit untrained folks to produce their own game maps and missions. My guess is that the editor that the devs use would be too complex for the untrained author to use, similar to Unreal Engine (which you can check out for free at https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 ).
Some things that I, personally, would like to see...
3D Editor (NEED!)
Branching tasks (multiple endings, anyone?)
Blank maps (both interior and exterior)
Costume Importing (am I the only one that never ran into the bug that made this feature get taken away?)
NPC Contact Costume duplication (Let me "import" an NPC Contact as a costume starting-point and edit from there)
The ability to change name/registry on ship Fed costumes (Starship 98712354681231561, registry 6512116841351 is annoying)
Mission-linking (Campaign)
Teleport (move to X location on the same map)
Player-ship interiors (with bridge and decks on the same map)
Romulan ship interiors
Player & BOff NPC Contacts (I want to meet my mirror-self)
Ground map "Static"
Energy Dampening volume (force melee combat)
NPC item list (I want to be able to pick what kind of weapons my NPCs use)
Modern, Archaic, and Pre-Warp buildings & objects
The Guardian of Forever prop (both dormant & active states)
"Switchable" states (I want to turn on & off a hologram at-will, instead of just visible-hidden once each)
Captain-only, 1-BOff, and 2-Boff volumes
Roleplay mission tags (when selected, the number of people that can join the mission is increased to 20... because 5 people per instance doesn't make for a very good Fleet RP event)
PvP mission tags (When selected, two opposing teams on the same mission able to combat each other: capture the flag, mass combat, etc.)
Oh, what the hell, why not be bold and just open Cryptic's in-house mission editor and call it Foundry 1.0, finally ending the perpetual Beta.
So, while all of these would be nice (barring the last sentence, I'd rather not have to have a two-year degree to understand the editor) there are some specific reasons why we don't have some of these things.
I think we all know by now that the Foundry doesn't directly make money and doesn't get a huge amount of participation and therefor is unlikely to get a lot of development. So, in general, if Cryptic doesn't have it already built for their own work, they won't be making it special for the Foundry. That eliminates "Modern, Archaic, and Pre-Warp buildings & objects" unless they make some for official missions. They also do not really have the ability to do branching tasks, and I don't see them making that special for us.
The Guardian of Forever is owned by someone else, and had to be specially licensed for the one Cryptic mission it appears in. That's why it had to be removed from that map for the Foundry.
not actual forks in the story itself, but options for how to complete the mission. Stuff like the career specific objectives. You have to do at least one of them, but it doesn't matter which one.
Ok yeah there is that. We can sort of do that kind of thing with triggers, although for sure it'd be nice to be able to do it with objectives. Something like how we can do "complete all" objectives now only using "or" instead of "and".
What I was meaning was more like branching storylines that take you to different maps based on your choices, or choices that carry across maps. Which they and we cannot do currently.
not actual forks in the story itself, but options for how to complete the mission. Stuff like the career specific objectives. You have to do at least one of them, but it doesn't matter which one.
Another example would be the ability to choose different subtasks to complete an objective, as in "Of Bajor".
Something like branching subtasks is possible to do in the Foundry, but it's ugly. I once spent hours and hours working on a scenario where you had two choices, to aid one group or another, and choosing one triggered changes that made it impossible to go back and also choose the second. Different sets of actors/objects got triggered depending on the initial choice. The experience was so exhausting and frustrating that I never completed the mission... or really wanted to, at that point. The basic logic worked, but enough other things didn't work that I wasn't satisfied with it.
A simple way to create A/B tasks (or an If..Then..Else construct) would greatly enhance mission construction for us and for the Devs alike.
Different sets of actors/objects got triggered depending on the initial choice. The experience was so exhausting and frustrating that I never completed the mission... or really wanted to, at that point. The basic logic worked, but enough other things didn't work that I wasn't satisfied with it.
I had a better experience with a couple choices for a mission ending. In one case you could take custody of the villain yourself or submit him to the klingons for justice. Another character you had the choice of putting in the brig or not. These choices occurred on a couple maps prior to the one where the resolution took place, but I set up the right triggers for that resolution with labeled dialog choices from an initial pop-up.
It wasn't seamless, and it didn't affect the action of the mission, but it got the job done (though more tools in this vein would be welcome.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
not actual forks in the story itself, but options for how to complete the mission. Stuff like the career specific objectives. You have to do at least one of them, but it doesn't matter which one.
Another example would be the ability to choose different subtasks to complete an objective, as in "Of Bajor".
Something like branching subtasks is possible to do in the Foundry, but it's ugly. I once spent hours and hours working on a scenario where you had two choices, to aid one group or another, and choosing one triggered changes that made it impossible to go back and also choose the second. Different sets of actors/objects got triggered depending on the initial choice. The experience was so exhausting and frustrating that I never completed the mission... or really wanted to, at that point. The basic logic worked, but enough other things didn't work that I wasn't satisfied with it.
A simple way to create A/B tasks (or an If..Then..Else construct) would greatly enhance mission construction for us and for the Devs alike.
So what did you think needed more work?
I've seen it done, and when done right it's AMAZING. Some guy named Pendra put together a mission with ONE actual objective on a map, but in order to do so he created an environment where you couldn't simply walk to the objective. You had to deal with an intricate web of pseudo objectives to find the way to get to the real objective. This made multiple ways the story could go.
You can fake if-then-else with a logic structure that's more like: if A do X, if B do Y, etc.... It does not have a case else, but you can put in several cases.
The two things, I'd like most are, like Drogyn said, the ability to put these forks into the actual mission list, and the ability to toggle object states.
The Guardian of Forever is owned by someone else, and had to be specially licensed for the one Cryptic mission it appears in. That's why it had to be removed from that map for the Foundry.
You know, I've heard this before but have never seen anything to support it.
First: The Guardian of Forever is, basically, a character in "City on the Edge of Forever". As I've mentioned before, on other threads, individual components of an artistic work aren't copyrightable--only "completed works in a fixed medium" are. A lopsided talking doughnut-shaped rock is hardly a completed work.
Second: Harlan Ellison wrote the (first two drafts of the) script on commission--copyright belongs to CBS (as Desilu's legal descendant), not Ellison. It's called "work for hire" and is not a new concept.
Third: Ellison sued CBS for failure to pay writer's royalties from the episode, which is a common contract stipulation for Screen Writers' Guild members (they take a smaller commission in exchange for a percentage of royalties). His lawsuit (which was settled out-of-court) had nothing to do with the Guardian.
Fourth: The Guardian wasn't created by Ellison. Ellison's drafts included nine-foot-tall monolithic statue creatures called the "Guardians of the Time Vortex"... those characters were replaced with the Guardian of Forever in the third (final) draft by Roddenberry, Coon, and Fontana, written after Ellison left in protest.
Fifth: The Guardian, itself, was created and designed by Associate Art Director Rolland Brooks, because Matt Jefferies was out sick that week.
Lastly: The Guardian appears in numerous other Trek titles (both canon and licensed), completely unrelated to Ellison, including TAS: Yesteryear, dozens of novels, Last Unicorn RPG sourcebooks, the Trek09 tie-in comics, and of course, STO.
As an aside, Ellison is notorious for filing lawsuits against anyone and anything that might, possibly, be remotely connected to anything that Ellison might have had some creative input on, including 'Star Wars', 'I, Robot', 'Future Cop', 'In Time', CBS, and AOL. Notably, he's so successfully annoying that he always settled out of court for undisclosed amounts, despite never having won any of his suits. AOL, at the time (2004) stated in a press release that they agreed to settle "... just to get rid of him and be done with it".
So... unless someone can find a credible reference source contradicting the above: I want my Guardian of Forever Foundry prop!!!!
Comments
"Player-requested feature" doesn't really narrow it down as we have the bad habit of asking for everything.
* Something the players have requested
* Something that at this moment in time is in Neverwinter's foundry
* Isn't a 3D editor
hmm..
More commands for npc contacts? (Follow Player etc ?)
Or ... are we getting horses?!
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
My character Tsin'xing
Ah, thanks Mark.
So that probably means no new search UI.
Not to sound bitter or anything to Cryptic, but as I have said many times before, what good are new features if no one can find the missions? Why isn't a simple overhaul of the search UI being made a priority so that people can see more than the Top 50?
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
Anyway, Zero is also working on an empty map for us. She said on the Roundtable it was crashing on her, but then she tweeted yesterday there might be a workaround. So in addition to whatever feature is being worked on, we have an empty map to look forward to.
I totally agree.
But it just seems like we have some really great people giving us great stuff (thank you!), yet it's pretty much for naught.
To use an analogy, it's like a great chef putting some delicious icing on an award winning cake - - standing in the middle of a kitchen that is on fire. Sure, the cake is going to be great...but there is something else going on that really should take precedence....or the cake will never get eaten.
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
More QoL/Usability features to lower the barrier of entry and make creating missions faster and easier.
I had a lot of story ideas for the Foundry but I inevitably get tired of fighting with maps and objects to make them do what I want. Stuff that should be simple, aren't. (ok, ok, done ranting now...
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v2] - NW-DQWRKPLJO
Other collaborative features would also be useful.
I know this is important to you. But I think that such an effort will most likely come with a revamp of the entire Mission Journal. The Foundry search is but one aging element in there. It also means that they have to wait until the resourcing for such an effort makes sense. To build on Drogyn's analogy, it's not just that Y is of greater importance, it's also that Q, V, T, G, A and F also have to be taken care of. And don't get me started on H, M and B which is way over due.
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
My character Tsin'xing
So yes, it looks like we're getting empty interior maps, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the new Foundry feature. Empty interiors are an asset addition.
3D Editor (NEED!)
Branching tasks (multiple endings, anyone?)
Blank maps (both interior and exterior)
Costume Importing (am I the only one that never ran into the bug that made this feature get taken away?)
NPC Contact Costume duplication (Let me "import" an NPC Contact as a costume starting-point and edit from there)
The ability to change name/registry on ship Fed costumes (Starship 98712354681231561, registry 6512116841351 is annoying)
Mission-linking (Campaign)
Teleport (move to X location on the same map)
Player-ship interiors (with bridge and decks on the same map)
Romulan ship interiors
Player & BOff NPC Contacts (I want to meet my mirror-self)
Ground map "Static"
Energy Dampening volume (force melee combat)
NPC item list (I want to be able to pick what kind of weapons my NPCs use)
Modern, Archaic, and Pre-Warp buildings & objects
The Guardian of Forever prop (both dormant & active states)
"Switchable" states (I want to turn on & off a hologram at-will, instead of just visible-hidden once each)
Captain-only, 1-BOff, and 2-Boff volumes
Roleplay mission tags (when selected, the number of people that can join the mission is increased to 20... because 5 people per instance doesn't make for a very good Fleet RP event)
PvP mission tags (When selected, two opposing teams on the same mission able to combat each other: capture the flag, mass combat, etc.)
Oh, what the hell, why not be bold and just open Cryptic's in-house mission editor and call it Foundry 1.0, finally ending the perpetual Beta.
It would be lovely to get a glimpse at that... (Taco...
My character Tsin'xing
So, while all of these would be nice (barring the last sentence, I'd rather not have to have a two-year degree to understand the editor) there are some specific reasons why we don't have some of these things.
I think we all know by now that the Foundry doesn't directly make money and doesn't get a huge amount of participation and therefor is unlikely to get a lot of development. So, in general, if Cryptic doesn't have it already built for their own work, they won't be making it special for the Foundry. That eliminates "Modern, Archaic, and Pre-Warp buildings & objects" unless they make some for official missions. They also do not really have the ability to do branching tasks, and I don't see them making that special for us.
The Guardian of Forever is owned by someone else, and had to be specially licensed for the one Cryptic mission it appears in. That's why it had to be removed from that map for the Foundry.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
What I was meaning was more like branching storylines that take you to different maps based on your choices, or choices that carry across maps. Which they and we cannot do currently.
Another example would be the ability to choose different subtasks to complete an objective, as in "Of Bajor".
Something like branching subtasks is possible to do in the Foundry, but it's ugly. I once spent hours and hours working on a scenario where you had two choices, to aid one group or another, and choosing one triggered changes that made it impossible to go back and also choose the second. Different sets of actors/objects got triggered depending on the initial choice. The experience was so exhausting and frustrating that I never completed the mission... or really wanted to, at that point. The basic logic worked, but enough other things didn't work that I wasn't satisfied with it.
A simple way to create A/B tasks (or an If..Then..Else construct) would greatly enhance mission construction for us and for the Devs alike.
I had a better experience with a couple choices for a mission ending. In one case you could take custody of the villain yourself or submit him to the klingons for justice. Another character you had the choice of putting in the brig or not. These choices occurred on a couple maps prior to the one where the resolution took place, but I set up the right triggers for that resolution with labeled dialog choices from an initial pop-up.
It wasn't seamless, and it didn't affect the action of the mission, but it got the job done (though more tools in this vein would be welcome.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I've seen it done, and when done right it's AMAZING. Some guy named Pendra put together a mission with ONE actual objective on a map, but in order to do so he created an environment where you couldn't simply walk to the objective. You had to deal with an intricate web of pseudo objectives to find the way to get to the real objective. This made multiple ways the story could go.
You can fake if-then-else with a logic structure that's more like: if A do X, if B do Y, etc.... It does not have a case else, but you can put in several cases.
The two things, I'd like most are, like Drogyn said, the ability to put these forks into the actual mission list, and the ability to toggle object states.
My character Tsin'xing
First: The Guardian of Forever is, basically, a character in "City on the Edge of Forever". As I've mentioned before, on other threads, individual components of an artistic work aren't copyrightable--only "completed works in a fixed medium" are. A lopsided talking doughnut-shaped rock is hardly a completed work.
Second: Harlan Ellison wrote the (first two drafts of the) script on commission--copyright belongs to CBS (as Desilu's legal descendant), not Ellison. It's called "work for hire" and is not a new concept.
Third: Ellison sued CBS for failure to pay writer's royalties from the episode, which is a common contract stipulation for Screen Writers' Guild members (they take a smaller commission in exchange for a percentage of royalties). His lawsuit (which was settled out-of-court) had nothing to do with the Guardian.
Fourth: The Guardian wasn't created by Ellison. Ellison's drafts included nine-foot-tall monolithic statue creatures called the "Guardians of the Time Vortex"... those characters were replaced with the Guardian of Forever in the third (final) draft by Roddenberry, Coon, and Fontana, written after Ellison left in protest.
Fifth: The Guardian, itself, was created and designed by Associate Art Director Rolland Brooks, because Matt Jefferies was out sick that week.
Lastly: The Guardian appears in numerous other Trek titles (both canon and licensed), completely unrelated to Ellison, including TAS: Yesteryear, dozens of novels, Last Unicorn RPG sourcebooks, the Trek09 tie-in comics, and of course, STO.
As an aside, Ellison is notorious for filing lawsuits against anyone and anything that might, possibly, be remotely connected to anything that Ellison might have had some creative input on, including 'Star Wars', 'I, Robot', 'Future Cop', 'In Time', CBS, and AOL. Notably, he's so successfully annoying that he always settled out of court for undisclosed amounts, despite never having won any of his suits. AOL, at the time (2004) stated in a press release that they agreed to settle "... just to get rid of him and be done with it".
So... unless someone can find a credible reference source contradicting the above:
I want my Guardian of Forever Foundry prop!!!!