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Foundry Call to Arms - Article by Starbase UGC

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  • captpfdenniscaptpfdennis Member Posts: 156 Arc User
    Look what I started. B) When I originally posted that article over at StarbaseUGC, it came from a nostalgic look back at how Foundry began, and how much interest there was in it. I think we'd all love to see Foundry get there again. Right now, Foundry is more difficult to use, but it is certainly not impossible. My biggest gripes are with the map transition bug in Preview, and the reward bug, as half my missions no longer qualify. Apart from that, I'm still in Foundry working. I don't particularly mind the amount and type of assets we're limited to, as imagination can make up for what's lacking in most cases. I guess that if you don't go in looking for exactly what you dreamt up, you can make do with what is possible. Foundry is creativity, compromise, and hard work. It's a labor of love, and you have to want it bad enough.

    That being said, it is up to us, as much as it is up to Cryptic/PWE. Some of the Foundry's decline had to do with waning interest on the part of authors who simply moved on to other things. New players are coming in and trying Foundry. Some will get frustrated and some will persevere. We can do things to keep Foundry in the public eye. The Foundry Roundtable has been carrying the water for all of us. Let's help them out. I'm currently planning on bringing back a version of either BitesizeUGC, to review missions, or PrimetimeUGC, an animated podcast made with Foundry. Anyone can come over to StarbaseUGC and post on our site. Review a mission, write up the review and post it. Make trailers for your mission and post them in the STO forums and/or StarbaseUGC.

    Advertise, advertise, advertise. If Foundry is everywhere, it can't go unnoticed. Ok. That's my personal pep rally.
    Go forth and create/play Foundry missions.
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  • trennantrennan Member Posts: 2,839 Arc User
    The I want everything for free crowd needs to dial it back a few RPMs... We don't seem to have a dedicated Foundry developer. But we also seem to need one if we want anything significant to happen. Apparently, all those key sales are not generating enough revenue to justify a Foundry dev. So unless Foundry itself has some sort of direct monetization, don't hold your breath for anything to change.

    Oh... and by the way... Foundry Authors are not supporting the game. They are using a resource Cryptic created for those who want to tell their own Star Trek stories. Foundry is not carrying STO anymore. Lockboxes and fluff items are. And they use seasons and expansions to promote those. Supporting STO means SPENDING MONEY on STO. And what people spend money on is what gets prioritized.

    IF we really want Foundry to be given any sort of priority, then it needs to be something that generates revenue, otherwise it will remain a tertiary feature and will only get dev love every once in a while, when they can spare someone for a couple of hours, if that, to apply a band aid to an arterial wound. That is the reality. So stop wanting every bloody thing for free. Be willing to pay for what you like.

    Oh I'm not saying it should be for free. I have no problems paying for the Foundry. But, if I'm paying, I better not have any limitations on what I can do. That's the main thing. I can work with the limitations we now, since it's free.

    Besides, even if they monetized it, say zen per month/year like someone posted. Or even when to Zen for project number purchase and asset purchase. I'm fine with that. It would give me a reason to use the Zen market more than I already do. OR even to play the game more than I do.

    I use to play a lot. Now, meh, I'm to the point I can't even login and Dil farm. Between the "friendship is magic" story line, and the over reliance on DPS for everything. I've found the game to have become very boring. Granted I know Cryptic isn't to blame for the story. That's all on what CBS will allow, which I find insulting to Star Trek, as there is no contention at all between the Factions.

    The Foundry is the get away to that. Which is why I advocate it needing some serious love. I don't use it for the farms people make. I actually play the missions, even make some myself. I have some I can republish that I made years ago. But, I just gave up on doing so. Like most here, the Foundry is a bit to aggravating to use. Seriously, one of the maps I have started is a house that people can use. I have the idea in my head, can even see how I want it to look. But, finding assets that work and placing them is just not worth the aggravation. This is a thing from playing and DMing for Dungeons and Dragons. I enjoy creating such things. But hell, pen and paper, is far easier to use than the Foundry.
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  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    The I want everything for free crowd needs to dial it back a few RPMs... We don't seem to have a dedicated Foundry developer. But we also seem to need one if we want anything significant to happen. Apparently, all those key sales are not generating enough revenue to justify a Foundry dev. So unless Foundry itself has some sort of direct monetization, don't hold your breath for anything to change.

    The revenue from active authors either paying for content packs or project slots probably would not be sufficient (even to a near degree) to pay for the salary of a new hire. The best you can hope for here is tweaking development priorities (because the Foundry is being directly monetized, and bringing some money in) but it doesn't change the low-priority status overall because Foundry authors contributions (realistically) would probably never exceed revenue from other sources.

    There still needs to be a stronger argument for why the Foundry should be treated as a significant feature in STO (because that's what it is, or at the least could be with just a little more work in a couple key areas. Namely: search UI and bug fixes.)
    Oh... and by the way... Foundry Authors are not supporting the game. They are using a resource Cryptic created for those who want to tell their own Star Trek stories. Foundry is not carrying STO anymore. Lockboxes and fluff items are. And they use seasons and expansions to promote those. Supporting STO means SPENDING MONEY on STO. And what people spend money on is what gets prioritized.

    To be frank, that's not true. Foundry authors support the game by providing STO with free content development. You can monetize that as compared to the cost of equivalent Cryptic mission development, weighted by playtime. That supplements Cryptic's own effort and reliably occupies lulls in the natural cycle of development. That help keeps Foundry players interested in the game over the long term both by providing them with more stuff and stuff they wouldn't necessarily see from official output. Some may also form greater emotional attachment with a Foundry author's characters or series than with official plot lines (connecting them to STO in a way that Cryptic wouldn't have been able to do on their own.) And I can report this to be a thing from both reviews left on my missions and reviews I've left on other people's missions. The directly affected stat: player retention rate, which results in more revenue for Cryptic through their continued expenditure by players who (without the Foundry) would have drifted off for lack of content or variety in content or suffered burn-out..

    The way to make more out of the Foundry is to refine what's already there. Namely, make it easier for players in the general community to find Foundry missions, make it easier for players to find specific types of Foundry missions, touch up player rewards (it's somewhat obtuse now, at least), and make sure the editor is accessible as possible through critical bug fixes. Plus, our usual community events and spotlights.
    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!
  • ashstorm1ashstorm1 Member Posts: 679 Arc User
    You could monetize the foundry in other ways, but it would have to be rewarding to the author. For example they could charge 100 zen (arbitrary amount) to publish a mission, but the author would receive 1000 dilithium (arbitrary amount) for each play through, in addition to any tips. This would encourage better created content, the better the content is the more rewarding it will be. The review section must enable a reply to the reviewer. It is grossly unfair to allow someone to comment anything they like with no possibility of a response from the author. Costs to publish and rewards received would have to be calculated correctly to make it pay for the authors and Cryptic. There may be minimum limits imposed to ensure it's not a beam in scan and finish mission, and probably you could only receive the reward from a first play,

    Worth thinking about I suppose although it will never happen.

    That could be an idea, IF it is guaranteed the mission will publish on first try, and not only after two-three tries like it does now and then. I've experienced instances where my publish progress was stuck and needed to be manually restarted. Nobody wants to pay 100 zen per upload attempt while not being sure it will work... <.<
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    Personally, I think the foundry should have no rewards attached. For the player or the author. That way it becomes strictly about authors who want to tell stories and players who want to experience them. That really should be incentive enough. It would ensure that no foundry content can be exploited at all for any reason, which would mean that repeat plays would be the result of people liking the story enough that they want to experience it more than once. Like watching episodes of one of the shows multiple times because you like it...

    I think the tip system as now provides sufficient recognition between player and author. Plus, any attempt to remove it would require dev time better spent anywhere else in updating the Foundry and fixing bugs. Rewards for the player has to be a given. This is an MMORPG, anything you do that the devs want to encourage is given a reward. Remove existing rewards from the Foundry (again, requiring more dev time) and that's a statement through game design that the Foundry isn't to be encouraged.

    That's just not a winning formula. What you can't do is make the Foundry so lucrative that grinders and other forms of exploits can provide a significant income to players. But, anything less is fine and helps give the Foundry some recognition in context of episodes and queues. We see this with folks caring about the rewards qualification issue not only for the effect that has on top 3 but the incentives that are on offer too, as small as they may be. A few hundred/thousand may not ultimately matter, but the gesture of rewarding the player for playing the Foundry is symbolic enough to have impact.

    Where I think Cryptic could do better here is providing a more clear breakdown of what the Foundry rewards, maybe through an introductory "here's what the Foundry is for folks who are newer to the game" blog accompanying the next major community event...which I may have just volunteered Roundtable to write if Cryptic's interested.
    I couldn't find anywhere on the Starbase UGC site that let's me upload mission reviews, trailers etc.

    Links (I think, haven't tried posting yet):
    http://starbaseugc.com/index.php/category/ugc-reviews/
    http://starbaseugc.com/index.php/category/ugcmissions/
    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!
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    The post I directly replied to suggested something that would grossly destabilize the Dilithium exchange and promote exploitive use of the foundry. and was intended to suggest that the UGC development should be incentivized by a 1000 unit dilithium payout PER PLAYTHROUGH. That would be too easy to exploit.

    Yeah, that sort of thing would be very destabilizing. If Cryptic's feeling adventurous and want to provide more incentives they could try to do something without a resource value like a Foundry event token (account bound) that you get an amount of based (in part) on mission playtime (ie. scaled like Dilithium is now). You can then trade in these tokens for items which haven't yet found a place in the game (but we have in the Foundry.) For example:


    -Scientist Jacket
    -Hazari uniform
    -Ocampan uniform
    -Other variants of flower accents (head)
    -Hierarchy cuffs
    -Fur accessories
    -Bandolier (simple strap)
    -Salt vampire hairstyle
    -X3 prototype (off variant of Daniel's suit)

    With a balance of, say, ~25-50 tokens awarded per reasonable Foundry mission and item costs in the 250-1,000 range, depending on how much they unlock (so, basically scaled like Risa favors). They could also throw in officers (boffs or doffs) and admiralty cards relevant to notable missions, spotlights, or just playing to a Foundry community in-joke (which players don't need to get themselves to appreciate the nod). For example:

    -Kimala (Midas)
    -Okeg's double (Purity, this would be another double)
    -Amanda Barclay (One Too Many)
    -Admiral Bobo (A.B. Goes to War)
    -Irla (The Hundredth)
    -Admiral Aaron clone (AA series)
    -Ji'Goro clone (SSF series)
    -Lt. Tardigrade (there's going be a series once we get a certain NPC...)
    -Zero
    -Generic Cruiser
    -Ask'kaar Battleship
    -Ibi Frigate

    This could be an ongoing repository too, with new spotlights introducing new officers/cards (when fitting, which would serve as something else an author can aspire towards beyond spotlights) and miscellaneous uniforms and uniform pieces that aren't right for the c-store, lobi store, mission rewards, or reputations (but could still serve a function here to incentivize players.) The scale of the development also doesn't seem beyond reasonable reach (we just need new tokens rewarded by missions, a new tab in the event store, items added to that tab, and doffs/boffs/cards made.) Double token Foundry weekends could also be added to the calendar.
    Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
    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!
  • gman1647#3999 gman1647 Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    I'm a new player (level 26 with my only character so far), and I played a Foundry Mission the other day. I really liked it. It was a cool story and a fun episode. As I progress in the game and finish more of the main content, this seems like a good place to extend the game content. (The mission I played was the featured mission for the month, Spawn of Medusa). I hope it is supported and continues to be part of the game.
  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,248 Arc User
    Personally I think that any system that locks things behind a pay wall for Foundry authors (or locks the Foundry itself behind a pay wall) is only gonna kill the Foundry. Since what you can do in the foundry is very limited (unlike Elder's Scroll or Fallout you cannot change the gamemechnics or code via the Foundry).

    While they is probably ways to monetize the Foundry limiting what authors can do is not a viable long term option there.

    That said I do like Duncan's suggestion for additional rewards for the Foundry.
  • rogueeenterpriserogueeenterprise Member Posts: 299 Arc User
    azrael605 wrote: »

    Some of my favorites.

    First Cause, Then Effect

    Parallel Intentions

    The Crossing series

    The Hundreth

    Anything by roguenterprise.

    Thanks for the shout out! A lot of other good picks in your list too.

    That said, this is a complex issue, tough for us to know as armchair game devs what the best course to follow is. I'm not sure monetizing authors directly is the best route because there just plain aren't that many of them to sustain things.
  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    It's been years since I used the Foundry, the one completed mission I have took far longer to produce than I had anticipated and I just didn't have the patience to finish polishing it up after publishing it, much less start on a whole new mission. I also have an issue in that most of the stories I come up with would require combat that involved incapacitating an enemy rather than killing or destroying them, which simply is not possible in the Foundry.

    We definitely need the bugs fixed, but after that new features would go a long way to saving the Foundry.
    Lifetime Subscriber since Beta
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  • starfarerthetastarfarertheta Member Posts: 740 Arc User
    azrael605 wrote: »
    ...
    Some of my favorites.

    First Cause, Then Effect

    Parallel Intentions

    The Crossing series

    The Hundreth

    Anything by roguenterprise.

    First Cause, Then Effect was one of the first foundry missions I've played. Definitely a classic. :)
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    > @sirsitsalot said:
    > Sorry... but this would not encourage better content... It would just be a easy dilithium farming exploit, With one account, I could create a short, throw-away mission and spend 100 Zen to publish it. Then with another account, I could play it over and over until I hit my daily dilithium refinement cap. Then I could turn around and sell that RD for Zen on the exchange. Talk about throwing the RD:Zen exchange rate totally out of whack... We'd see it hit 500:1 in a day, and you know deep down I'm right.
    >
    > And those who want nothing to do with the foundry now will certainly not want anything to do with it when that happens. Because by playing any foundry content will have the potential of keeping Zen costs as high as they can go on the DZ exchange. That means fewer people buying stuff on the C-store.

    Lolwut? Do the math on that properly—while you theoretically could do that, it wouldn't be remotely profitable. Zen already averages a 250:1 exchange rate, but even at 125:1, roughly the rate it was when I joined the game in 2013, you'd pay 100 Zen and get 8 back for your trouble. Nobody would bother.

    > @sirsitsalot wrote:
    > Personally, I think the foundry should have no rewards attached. For the player or the author. That way it becomes strictly about authors who want to tell stories and players who want to experience them. That really should be incentive enough. It would ensure that no foundry content can be exploited at all for any reason, which would mean that repeat plays would be the result of people liking the story enough that they want to experience it more than once. Like watching episodes of one of the shows multiple times because you like it...

    You want to kill the Foundry in a day? Go ahead, remove mission rewards. You'll see play rates go through the floor, and next thing that happens is Cryptic removes it altogether because their metrics say virtually nobody is using it.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
    — Sabaton, "Great War"
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  • ashstorm1ashstorm1 Member Posts: 679 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    starswordc wrote: »
    > @sirsitsalot said:
    > Sorry... but this would not encourage better content... It would just be a easy dilithium farming exploit, With one account, I could create a short, throw-away mission and spend 100 Zen to publish it. Then with another account, I could play it over and over until I hit my daily dilithium refinement cap. Then I could turn around and sell that RD for Zen on the exchange. Talk about throwing the RD:Zen exchange rate totally out of whack... We'd see it hit 500:1 in a day, and you know deep down I'm right.
    >
    > And those who want nothing to do with the foundry now will certainly not want anything to do with it when that happens. Because by playing any foundry content will have the potential of keeping Zen costs as high as they can go on the DZ exchange. That means fewer people buying stuff on the C-store.

    Lolwut? Do the math on that properly—while you theoretically could do that, it wouldn't be remotely profitable. Zen already averages a 250:1 exchange rate, but even at 125:1, roughly the rate it was when I joined the game in 2013, you'd pay 100 Zen and get 8 back for your trouble. Nobody would bother.

    > @sirsitsalot wrote:
    > Personally, I think the foundry should have no rewards attached. For the player or the author. That way it becomes strictly about authors who want to tell stories and players who want to experience them. That really should be incentive enough. It would ensure that no foundry content can be exploited at all for any reason, which would mean that repeat plays would be the result of people liking the story enough that they want to experience it more than once. Like watching episodes of one of the shows multiple times because you like it...

    You want to kill the Foundry in a day? Go ahead, remove mission rewards. You'll see play rates go through the floor, and next thing that happens is Cryptic removes it altogether because their metrics say virtually nobody is using it.

    I'll admit, the very first thing that i check upon completing a Foundry mission is how much Dilithium it rewarded me (if any, that is... I'm looking at you, recent Foundry "No Reward" Glitch ! >:O) Yeah. Removing Foundry rewards is a bad idea at any rate.
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