Sorry to see it go. I know people put a lot of work into them. I hope some authors/players do some play thru videos of the missions on YouTube so the stories aren't lost forever.
Nothing will be lost. All created missions are going to be preserved and kept.
And how pointless is that? No one will ever get to play them, it's like saying your pet dog is still there in the pet cemetery except in this case you can't even visit the grave.
Foundry sounds so Age of Coal, you know a place where they would make Kar'fi Coal-fired Warp Vessels. Update to current standards would be to an Enhanced Holodeck Simulation Suite.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Well then. The foundry was the only reason I had for maybe playing again someday, so that's the end of that. I do appreciate the in-depth explanation at least.
The stories I spent many hours crafting will be gone, so I'm just going to post their names here for preservation and in the hope that maybe someone reading this remembers having fun playing one of them. I had a lot of fun making them.
Of Morals and Ethics
Of Terror and Darkness
Time's Eye
Crimes of the Many
Imperfection
The Forgotten Battle
Epohh's Day
A big thanks to everyone who helped out with Crimes of the Many - it has to be one of if not the biggest collaboration in foundry history, with over 50 different players filling out dozens of cells in Facility 4028 including prisoner profiles and custom NPC's. For that mission I have been immortalized in a TVTropes page.
So long, and thanks for all the reviews. I had some good laughs reading them.
Don't let your own excessive spending blind you Matt .
Cryptic is developing a new game (Magic the Gathering) . That means new staff (for a time) and that means that both Cryptic and PWE are contributing $$ towards that effort in different ways .
PWE through actual cash, Cryptic through shuffling around talent (like our former EP and Maria Russou) + through tightening the belt (see the 'conspiracy theory" of 'no more moniez for Foundriez') .
It is said they considered every possible way of keeping the Foundries open, but I haven't seen this one mentioned. Volunteers.
I haven't seen crowdfunding or monetizing mentioned either .
If they hired a dev for Foundry & PVP maintenance - it could start the ball rolling again with improvements over time .
Not that I have such foolish expectations ... , so let's file this under 'conspiracy theories' then ?!
It is said they considered every possible way of keeping the Foundries open, but I haven't seen this one mentioned. Volunteers.
I haven't seen crowdfunding or monetizing mentioned either .
If they hired a dev for Foundry & PVP maintenance - it could start the ball rolling again with improvements over time .
Not that I have such foolish expectations ... , so let's file this under 'conspiracy theories' then ?!
Yes, every possible way *small print* every way refers to the 1 way they considered which was to ignore the problem till it dies.
My Idea: Make the foundry p2p. Make new foundry missions free to play in a revision phase, then after some time, if they recieve good ratings, they move into the ZEN-Store's foundry tab. People who want to play the mission have to pay for it. Not tons, mabye 200 ZEN per missions or so, which is like $2 roughly. Half of it goes to cryptic, the other half goes to the mission author or someting like that.
There is your way to monetize the foundry. I would gladly pay that to play good, smart missions other then the usual pew-pew.
Well then. The foundry was the only reason I had for maybe playing again someday, so that's the end of that. I do appreciate the in-depth explanation at least.
The stories I spent many hours crafting will be gone, so I'm just going to post their names here for preservation and in the hope that maybe someone reading this remembers having fun playing one of them. I had a lot of fun making them.
Of Morals and Ethics
Of Terror and Darkness
Time's Eye
Crimes of the Many
Imperfection
The Forgotten Battle
Epohh's Day
A big thanks to everyone who helped out with Crimes of the Many - it has to be one of if not the biggest collaboration in foundry history, with over 50 different players filling out dozens of cells in Facility 4028 including prisoner profiles and custom NPC's. For that mission I have been immortalized in a TVTropes page.
So long, and thanks for all the reviews. I had some good laughs reading them.
*Waves* Yeah I honestly don't know how much longer I'm going to last, I already only pop in every few weeks or so on average. Maybe it'll be every new mission or so at this point to play (seldom as they are at this point).. As I mentioned in earlier posting I'm not sure if anyone to blame is on payroll anymore but somewhere in the distant past there was definitely a huge leadership failure and this has near gravely wounded the game. I'll add those missions of yours to my foundry bucket list! Farewell Voporak, it is regretful I never got to really set some things right after these years, but I wish you well out there!
Cryptic is developing a new game (Magic the Gathering).
*heavy sigh* Oh yay. The Foundry got deep-sixed in favor of MtG. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Yet *another* fantasy game. Like there aren't enough of those already in existence.
I guess I'll keep playing STO until it dies, and hope for the eventual creation and release of STO v2.
(Just so you know, I'm a fan of both sci-fi *and* fantasy books. But it seems that there have always been far more of the latter than of the former. I guess because it's easier to write a bad fantasy book than it is to write a good sci-fi book.)
Has there been official word of the rewards going to those who did Foundry missions early on that got broken due to updates? This question seems to be getting ignored a lot.
@stormstryke2 It hasn't been ignored. I've made some inquiries, but haven't gotten word back yet.
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Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I am disappointed with this decision on a number of levels. I believe that it is one of the most unique features that any current games offer. While modifying a game has become more commonplace in recent years—it’s rare that such a feature comes with the ability to share your new stories with friends and those who are yet to be. It gave those who wished to create stories a platform to do so, and it is something sorely lacking in most modern media – It is (or was) a modern day reinterpretation of:
I am disappointed that there will be future fans who will never get the opportunity to tell their own stories – and if they do it will be in some other world. It seems that in the future, this world will be a darker place without many of the voices who used to have a place here.
In the past, I had written various episodes for the Foundry under older accounts I no longer use. I enjoyed the anonymity and the Genesis and exploration of the Creative Process and it gave me the lens to view the lore in ways that don’t really get much exploration these days. I will miss that experience, and I am sad that other people will never get the chance to share it—This is a step in the wrong direction. This trend to simplify and remove complexity seems to lead to blander experiences and I fear the spark of originality that powered many of the best Foundry adventures will be lost forever.
While its nice that they are giving away some souvenirs, a Khan tchotchke seems like an empty promise – especially considering what Genesis was designed for.
Ultimately there are a number of positive influences in the context of the stories and the development of the characters that were explored and I think removing one of the most vital aspects of player involvement weakens the IDIC narrative that is central to Star Trek.
I hope that at some point this decision can be reconsidered, because once something of value is lost it is almost impossible to recreate.
Well, I hate to say this but we are down to 22 people online tonight, I don't remember it being that low since DR and we were a much smaller fleet. Normally we have around 75 online on a Friday evening and up to 12 in Discord, today 22 online and 2 in Discord and I'm not even playing STO atm.
Honestly, i've not logged on at all in a full week, and I'm not even missing doing so. Most fortunately, there are still many other things out there that can still hold my interest.
So... what I want to know is what is Cryptic going to do to fill the content void that the Foundry mitigated for them? They've said that there process isn't changing, so now the long wait between official content drops will be felt by everyone, not just those who never bothered to try Foundry missions because they weren't official yet still complained about content not coming fast enough.
After the 4/11, I suspect that a significant number of players will simply not bother logging between content drops, once they've finished the last one. At least the foundry presented an OPTION for people pursue in the interim periods. The rest of the game is nothing but a collection of grindfests, and while some may like it, it has been my experience that when an MMO becomes too much of a repetitive grind, people start leaving in droves. And the removal of a feature that mitigates an MMO's grind or default lack of content, those droves are a lot bigger.
Removal of the foundry may not have an effect on other systems or features. But it will have an effect on the people who play those other features or systems. No removal of anything from this game has happened in a vacuum, with no extending effects. Look how the removal of exploration caused many people to react. And people ket saying, Foundry can serve as a replacement for exploration. And a lot of people bought that BS line. Now the Foundry is going away as well, with nothing planned to replace it.
So again, Cryptic: How do you plan to fill the coming content void?
To be honest in my opinion I don’t think that the devs intend to fill the void.
Having been with star trek from the start of its first launch, I have listened to the answers to questions and statements made by the dev team now As well as the ones no longer there for the most part and I find myself perplexed in a way regarding this.
If I am to take it at face value there is no talent left in the dev team capable of maintaining the code for the foundry. There is no longer a budget for the foundry again looking at face value.
As for content in general why some would say the cuts of missions are for the best and some will be polished to return with a higher standard. But the return of the missions is on hold for at least to me undetermined future date. If it has been given a date I am unaware of it.
But as to me being perplexed is that telling us as players you no longer have the talent to handle this legacy old code then how do they intend to maintain the game itself?
As for the missions how small is the team to not have a backup trained person that could finish and update the missions?
I remember being said that the foundry had no budget and the maintaining and improvements to it was the result of one dev in the off hours as personal time.
So when did it suddenly gain some budget and cutting it off the game will free up that for other projects? Has the person volunteered to work for free on something else?
At what point do we stop taking the devs word at face value that the game has years to go. Yet I was here when told for 9 months or there about that “No we have no plans to go free to play”. Why all the time it was work on turning the game to a ftp model and when it launches the devs said we wanted to go free to play all along.
Now the same people are not there I understand that but at what point do I not take the words at face value that we are not going to close, or shut down? (Paraphrase as you like)
Cryptic's own admission that they don't have the talent to maintain their own code is more troubling than the removal of content. The removal of content has been ongoing and pervasive. Actual mission content ripped out, relegated to secondary status, or hidden where they hope people will forget about it so it can get ripped out later. So removing the foundry is neither new nor, unfortunately, surprising. It is just par for the course.
The code was written, 6 years ago. That's not a long time. If you're 14 and just starting out in the game that's a long time, but for the rest of us, that's not long at all. And they have outright stated they don't have the talent to maintain it, and that no one who worked on it is with the company any more. They don't have a programmer who has been there more than 5 years. That's troubling. It's no wonder that they can't introduce a feature without a dozen other bits in parts of the game that are almost wholly unrelated breaking. The spaghetti that must make up this game's codebase is assuredly terrible. And it's only going to get worse. Bits breaking and not getting fixed. Features that are announced and never implemented. Or implemented but only ever half work. For example, I still can't purchase the tier VI account-wide reputation "discount" and have it work on other characters on my account and that was "implemented", what, six months ago now?
I hope this is a wake-up call to the way they do business and for the way they handle employment because their retention is terrible. They claim STO is profitable, but it's not going to be and cannot last ten more years like this. For many people the foundry is that thing where you play one or two missions and some are ok but most are mediocre. But there are whole fleets that are made up of people who use the foundry as a framework for their role-play. This decision is going to affect STO's bottom line now. Today. And the fact they don't have the capacity to maintain their own code today means that this is only going to get worse.
Unfortunately, this is a case of where I hope rather than believe that they will learn from this PR disaster and implement changes that will lead to improvements.
For a while the devs had the first mission of every episode open and players could take different paths which helped lower the repetition, with the foundry on the way out something like that is needed again. In fact, without the foundry some of the endeavors become impossible to complete with the rapid advancement this game has which results a lot of characters reaching endgame with less than a quarter of the episodes done.
And yes, I know you can skip some of the missions. The problem is that the skip system itself is so buggy it is pretty much non-functional if you have to traverse more than a few missions or at most a single whole episode. Even some of the missions in the "available" tab that supposidly lead to areas where the endevors can be completed cannot actually be started (they go to the tracker without any way to actually enter the missions), the Kobali stuff is a good example of that.
Comments
And how pointless is that? No one will ever get to play them, it's like saying your pet dog is still there in the pet cemetery except in this case you can't even visit the grave.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
The stories I spent many hours crafting will be gone, so I'm just going to post their names here for preservation and in the hope that maybe someone reading this remembers having fun playing one of them. I had a lot of fun making them.
Of Morals and Ethics
Of Terror and Darkness
Time's Eye
Crimes of the Many
Imperfection
The Forgotten Battle
Epohh's Day
A big thanks to everyone who helped out with Crimes of the Many - it has to be one of if not the biggest collaboration in foundry history, with over 50 different players filling out dozens of cells in Facility 4028 including prisoner profiles and custom NPC's. For that mission I have been immortalized in a TVTropes page.
So long, and thanks for all the reviews. I had some good laughs reading them.
I feel very much the same. They aren't remotely caring of their player base.
I decided to rant and rave, see if I caught some of your ire
Don't let your own excessive spending blind you Matt .
Cryptic is developing a new game (Magic the Gathering) . That means new staff (for a time) and that means that both Cryptic and PWE are contributing $$ towards that effort in different ways .
PWE through actual cash, Cryptic through shuffling around talent (like our former EP and Maria Russou) + through tightening the belt (see the 'conspiracy theory" of 'no more moniez for Foundriez') .
I haven't seen crowdfunding or monetizing mentioned either .
If they hired a dev for Foundry & PVP maintenance - it could start the ball rolling again with improvements over time .
Not that I have such foolish expectations ... , so let's file this under 'conspiracy theories' then ?!
Yes, every possible way *small print* every way refers to the 1 way they considered which was to ignore the problem till it dies.
Yes, I'm bitter lol
Holy Grail of Gamification is Addiction | 5 Ways to Accomplisch | and the Psychology of Freemium
There is your way to monetize the foundry. I would gladly pay that to play good, smart missions other then the usual pew-pew.
*Waves* Yeah I honestly don't know how much longer I'm going to last, I already only pop in every few weeks or so on average. Maybe it'll be every new mission or so at this point to play (seldom as they are at this point).. As I mentioned in earlier posting I'm not sure if anyone to blame is on payroll anymore but somewhere in the distant past there was definitely a huge leadership failure and this has near gravely wounded the game. I'll add those missions of yours to my foundry bucket list! Farewell Voporak, it is regretful I never got to really set some things right after these years, but I wish you well out there!
*heavy sigh* Oh yay. The Foundry got deep-sixed in favor of MtG. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Yet *another* fantasy game. Like there aren't enough of those already in existence.
I guess I'll keep playing STO until it dies, and hope for the eventual creation and release of STO v2.
(Just so you know, I'm a fan of both sci-fi *and* fantasy books. But it seems that there have always been far more of the latter than of the former. I guess because it's easier to write a bad fantasy book than it is to write a good sci-fi book.)
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I am disappointed that there will be future fans who will never get the opportunity to tell their own stories – and if they do it will be in some other world. It seems that in the future, this world will be a darker place without many of the voices who used to have a place here.
In the past, I had written various episodes for the Foundry under older accounts I no longer use. I enjoyed the anonymity and the Genesis and exploration of the Creative Process and it gave me the lens to view the lore in ways that don’t really get much exploration these days. I will miss that experience, and I am sad that other people will never get the chance to share it—This is a step in the wrong direction. This trend to simplify and remove complexity seems to lead to blander experiences and I fear the spark of originality that powered many of the best Foundry adventures will be lost forever.
While its nice that they are giving away some souvenirs, a Khan tchotchke seems like an empty promise – especially considering what Genesis was designed for.
Ultimately there are a number of positive influences in the context of the stories and the development of the characters that were explored and I think removing one of the most vital aspects of player involvement weakens the IDIC narrative that is central to Star Trek.
I hope that at some point this decision can be reconsidered, because once something of value is lost it is almost impossible to recreate.
Honestly, i've not logged on at all in a full week, and I'm not even missing doing so. Most fortunately, there are still many other things out there that can still hold my interest.
To be honest in my opinion I don’t think that the devs intend to fill the void.
Having been with star trek from the start of its first launch, I have listened to the answers to questions and statements made by the dev team now As well as the ones no longer there for the most part and I find myself perplexed in a way regarding this.
If I am to take it at face value there is no talent left in the dev team capable of maintaining the code for the foundry. There is no longer a budget for the foundry again looking at face value.
As for content in general why some would say the cuts of missions are for the best and some will be polished to return with a higher standard. But the return of the missions is on hold for at least to me undetermined future date. If it has been given a date I am unaware of it.
But as to me being perplexed is that telling us as players you no longer have the talent to handle this legacy old code then how do they intend to maintain the game itself?
As for the missions how small is the team to not have a backup trained person that could finish and update the missions?
I remember being said that the foundry had no budget and the maintaining and improvements to it was the result of one dev in the off hours as personal time.
So when did it suddenly gain some budget and cutting it off the game will free up that for other projects? Has the person volunteered to work for free on something else?
At what point do we stop taking the devs word at face value that the game has years to go. Yet I was here when told for 9 months or there about that “No we have no plans to go free to play”. Why all the time it was work on turning the game to a ftp model and when it launches the devs said we wanted to go free to play all along.
Now the same people are not there I understand that but at what point do I not take the words at face value that we are not going to close, or shut down? (Paraphrase as you like)
The code was written, 6 years ago. That's not a long time. If you're 14 and just starting out in the game that's a long time, but for the rest of us, that's not long at all. And they have outright stated they don't have the talent to maintain it, and that no one who worked on it is with the company any more. They don't have a programmer who has been there more than 5 years. That's troubling. It's no wonder that they can't introduce a feature without a dozen other bits in parts of the game that are almost wholly unrelated breaking. The spaghetti that must make up this game's codebase is assuredly terrible. And it's only going to get worse. Bits breaking and not getting fixed. Features that are announced and never implemented. Or implemented but only ever half work. For example, I still can't purchase the tier VI account-wide reputation "discount" and have it work on other characters on my account and that was "implemented", what, six months ago now?
I hope this is a wake-up call to the way they do business and for the way they handle employment because their retention is terrible. They claim STO is profitable, but it's not going to be and cannot last ten more years like this. For many people the foundry is that thing where you play one or two missions and some are ok but most are mediocre. But there are whole fleets that are made up of people who use the foundry as a framework for their role-play. This decision is going to affect STO's bottom line now. Today. And the fact they don't have the capacity to maintain their own code today means that this is only going to get worse.
Unfortunately, this is a case of where I hope rather than believe that they will learn from this PR disaster and implement changes that will lead to improvements.
This is a sad, sad day.
And yes, I know you can skip some of the missions. The problem is that the skip system itself is so buggy it is pretty much non-functional if you have to traverse more than a few missions or at most a single whole episode. Even some of the missions in the "available" tab that supposidly lead to areas where the endevors can be completed cannot actually be started (they go to the tracker without any way to actually enter the missions), the Kobali stuff is a good example of that.