Well, after all this discussion, the reality is still that the Foundry is going down. It's not going to come back, so saving the missions means nothing.
All I can say is I'm glad I cut my losses and stopped working on the Foundry 6 years ago. I had a lot more ideas, so I could have probably created a couple dozen more missions. Unfortunately, even back then it was clear that Cryptic's commitment to the Foundry was questionable. The editor broke and went down after every update and sometimes was down for months. On top of that, they made it very challenging for missions to get played, simply because no one even knew about them.
Even today finding missions past the "Top Rated" list is clunky--the search is sort of hidden up there, requiring a button click to make visible. Probably most players don't even realize there is a way to find other missions, thus the missions don't get played. Once upon a time missions showed up in sector space, but then that went away too. So, then we hear that no one played Foundry missions? Well, the poor Foundry mission UI certainly didn't make it easy for players to do so.
I don't agree that the Foundry couldn't have been monetized, or made a larger part of the game. There were ways it could have been done. The problem is no one at Cryptic had any idea what to do with it. But really that's all water under the bridge at this point, too.
I will say going forward I will not consider playing any of Cryptic/PWE's other games. There are plenty of games out there for me to devote my time to. I know they probably won't miss me, but it's all I can do.
I'm just astonished at how many systems experts we have in this thread.
And how many of you, exactly, have ever applied to work at Cryptic? They've been seeking systems programmers for years for this game, it's been on their website right along. I'd think all of you who know exactly how to solve the Foundry issues with just one or two dedicated software engineers would have been actually doing it, for pay, rather than just sniping from behind your keyboards.
Or was my first assessment correct, and all this ignorance is in fact spilling from people who never coded a line in their lives, and wouldn't know a NAND gate from a Nancy strip?
I find this funny in a outlandish way. A person need not know how to fix something to know what is needed to fix it. If i have a flat tire and need it fixed i either call a tow truck send the car to a shop and know that a grease monkey is needed to fix said tire issue. That or knowing how to fix the flat my self i can see that i need a jack and a tire iron to remove the busted tire and replace it with a new one.
Analogies are always flaed:
But imagine due to a construction flaw, the cars tire will always go flat every week. Repairing the construction flaw would cost the same as buying a brand new car. Would you buy a new car, or keep fixing the flat tire every week? What if you don't have the money for a new car. But maybe you could get a used car, and the money you don't spend on repairing flat tires each week, you could use to eventually buy a dishwasher and a freezer.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Actually, Lord of the Rings Online handles two versions of one area in the game, namely Isengard. One is pre destruction and the other post flooding. What you interact with depends on the context of how you get there.
In a way we sort of have that kind of thing already in-game with Defera and Risa. Here you just beam down into the different context Instances. In a more limited sense we have a different view of part of New Romulus in 'Blood of the Ancients'.
'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.'
I think it's time this thread is closed. There's too many posts going round in circles. Too many conspiracy theories being dreamt up. It is being suggested that such n such is next. Yes it is a major blow. But the decision was not taken lightly. EVERYTHING was done to try and find a viable solution which has taken over a year. Every avenue was explored. We should be thanking the dev team, Kael etc for doing all they could to try to make things viable. So from me Kael, Al, Thomas, Jeremy, Jesse, Jette EVERYBODY Thank you for all you did,
Even some of the best foundry content such as the Purity series had the writing and level design quality of “Divide et Impera”
That is totally wrong. There were great many foundry missions that were way better than any Cryptic content up to date. Better in writing, design, small details and overall Star Trek atmosphere. Not Cryptic's cookie cutter kill five mobs, scan five things (dealing with the fifth Borg dynasty) rinse and repeat boredom.
We even implemented Voice Overs for a foundry mission. It was pretty neat.
Sure there were the stupid grinders and the ever present Test Mission Blahs, but those are ever present in every UGC in every game.
Anyway, as the Foundry sunsets, I will also sunset my STO activities by a glorious spamming of the uninstall button.
It worked like this:
- Someone made the appropriate sound clips.
- You assigned a unique ID number to every clip, which was the file name.
- I made an app that converted this ID number into a barcode of a sort. Something like IiiIIiiIiiII.
- You copied this barcode into the appropriate textbox as the first line.
- Finally, the app was monitoring the screen during play. Whenever a properly formed barcode showed up, it loaded (locally or from the internet) and played the sound clip with the ID number from the barcode. There was maybe a 1 sec delay.
There was one mission like that and it worked pretty well.
I think it's time this thread is closed. There's too many posts going round in circles. Too many conspiracy theories being dreamt up. It is being suggested that such n such is next. Yes it is a major blow. But the decision was not taken lightly. EVERYTHING was done to try and find a viable solution which has taken over a year. Every avenue was explored. We should be thanking the dev team, Kael etc for doing all they could to try to make things viable. So from me Kael, Al, Thomas, Jeremy, Jesse, Jette EVERYBODY Thank you for all you did,
You mean brush it under the carpet and hope it gets buried?
I vote we keep this thread open, then we can update it with any new developments and it gives a single place for folks to voice their displeasure/agreement. Not everyone has seen the news yet, I have at least two members who are on long term deployment overseas, when they come back to this they will not be happy I can tell you.
I agree, there should be obviously a place where people can talk about this.
For a lot of people, removing the Foundry is like sweeping a rug from under them. It was a key part of their game life. And damn, realizing that all the missions you made are going to be lost, probably forever, is really, really difficult.
The emotional investment in user-generated content will be even higher than it is for characters you played for many years.
I guess if people get too angry and can't stay within the forum guidelines, their posts will have to be moderated in some way, but that doesn't have to mean the thread needs to go. This is too big of a deal, to hard of a hit, to be hidden away. A dedicated thread for the topic is a good thing.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Somtaawkhar, kick back, relax, drink tea, watch TNG, take a chill pill or something. You go on like that and you will end up with an ulcer and multiple heart attacks before you turn 30. Not a nice prospect.
Your past experience doesn't worth anything in this context because it is experience with other people, not with me. You took an incorrect assumption based on your prejudice. And please spare me of a long winded explanation why you think you are correct. You don't know me, you don't know how I think and any foray into that personal territory will boil down to all sorts of dumb fallacies.
On the other hand, your generic interpretation of the Star Trek Atmosphere is quite accurate. Yes, the missions that I talked about nailed all those notions you mentioned much better than the "official" content. Like the Star Trek vs Necrons, the Star Trek vs Tyranid.
In the Grim dark future of STO's 25th century, there is only war!
For the most part i did not take part in the foundry only on random playing of it every now and then.
I am upset it is going to get cut as it was a bonus to this game that kept people playing and providing me more chances for player interaction.
Likewise I like the missions that have been cut from the game making it in my view all the poorer for the loss.
Not everyone likes all the missions or quests or exploration or the foundry we will all disagree on these points.
What i am seeing in this thread is people are upset people wanted the missions and foundry and they are not getting to keep them. For some to have the chutzpah to trash peoples view of a loss and call the cut items garbage and good its gone. Simply is more than i have words to express.
If you hold the view that it was a cancerous growth and glad its been cut out then congrats you are getting your wish accept that and move on. There is no need to heap insults upon injury to the people that feel a loss.
'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.'
It worked like this:
- Someone made the appropriate sound clips.
- You assigned a unique ID number to every clip, which was the file name.
- I made an app that converted this ID number into a barcode of a sort. Something like IiiIIiiIiiII.
- You copied this barcode into the appropriate textbox as the first line.
- Finally, the app was monitoring the screen during play. Whenever a properly formed barcode showed up, it loaded (locally or from the internet) and played the sound clip with the ID number from the barcode. There was maybe a 1 sec delay.
There was one mission like that and it worked pretty well.
Man, that is quite clever. I would have loved to have had something like that in some of my missions. Now I'm sad I won't get a chance to try that.
I agree with previous statements that the way to make your voices heard is through monetary means. As a business, Cryptic and PWE will notice a sharp enough drop in profits. If a business does not make a product you want to buy, or a service offering you desire is no longer offered or meeting your need, then the only way a business will take notice of that is if the profit margin takes a hit.
For a MMO business, a decrease in logins, purchasing ships, etc., will hopefully make said business take notice. That said, perhaps the numbers were crunched, and it was determined that if the less than 40% (or whatever percentage) of Foundry authors/users were not the cash cow of Z-Store purchasers, then perhaps those numbers indicate the loss of those players would not hurt the bottom line. If so...then so be it.
As for me, with the loss of the Foundry, my revenue stream for this game is closed. I'm sure I'll log in from time to time to check out new content, but the primary attraction of this game for me is gone. The ability to create my stories, and see the stories of others kept me coming back. The new ships kept me interested in creating new adventures with those new ships for me and my friends. Without that, I have no reason to spend money on the game.
I'd suggest others who feel similarly take the same approach. The bottom line is the only way dissatisfaction with a service will be felt.
C. Cryptic is actively working on several of them(Weston is going back and fixing the cutscenes and other animation problems like people standing on chairs)
Well he's going to be busy, but at least it's something.
-The 100,00 fleet admirals things is typical MMO separation of gameplay and story. Wow, ESO, GW2, all have this exact same thing. How do you expect a multiplayer game with a story to play out?
Because it is indicative of a poorly thought out progression system from day one. What they should do, and could still do it, is make the maximum rank Captain and possibly a higher rank for fleet leaders although I care not about the latter point. This is the reason you don't see 10 million Dovakins running around Tamriel.
That's easy to explain! It's a simple fundamental change to the game development approach. Skyrim is a SINGLE PLAYER RPG, not an MMO. It's like asking why there's only one High Summoner in Final Fantasy X or X-2. For plot reasons, Yuna is the only person alive with the power to fill that role. Yes, she does that in FFX-2, though in a different way and for different reasons.
As for me, with the loss of the Foundry, my revenue stream for this game is closed. I'm sure I'll log in from time to time to check out new content, but the primary attraction of this game for me is gone. The ability to create my stories, and see the stories of others kept me coming back. The new ships kept me interested in creating new adventures with those new ships for me and my friends. Without that, I have no reason to spend money on the game.
I'd suggest others who feel similarly take the same approach. The bottom line is the only way dissatisfaction with a service will be felt.
Comments
All I can say is I'm glad I cut my losses and stopped working on the Foundry 6 years ago. I had a lot more ideas, so I could have probably created a couple dozen more missions. Unfortunately, even back then it was clear that Cryptic's commitment to the Foundry was questionable. The editor broke and went down after every update and sometimes was down for months. On top of that, they made it very challenging for missions to get played, simply because no one even knew about them.
Even today finding missions past the "Top Rated" list is clunky--the search is sort of hidden up there, requiring a button click to make visible. Probably most players don't even realize there is a way to find other missions, thus the missions don't get played. Once upon a time missions showed up in sector space, but then that went away too. So, then we hear that no one played Foundry missions? Well, the poor Foundry mission UI certainly didn't make it easy for players to do so.
I don't agree that the Foundry couldn't have been monetized, or made a larger part of the game. There were ways it could have been done. The problem is no one at Cryptic had any idea what to do with it. But really that's all water under the bridge at this point, too.
I will say going forward I will not consider playing any of Cryptic/PWE's other games. There are plenty of games out there for me to devote my time to. I know they probably won't miss me, but it's all I can do.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
But imagine due to a construction flaw, the cars tire will always go flat every week. Repairing the construction flaw would cost the same as buying a brand new car. Would you buy a new car, or keep fixing the flat tire every week? What if you don't have the money for a new car. But maybe you could get a used car, and the money you don't spend on repairing flat tires each week, you could use to eventually buy a dishwasher and a freezer.
In a way we sort of have that kind of thing already in-game with Defera and Risa. Here you just beam down into the different context Instances. In a more limited sense we have a different view of part of New Romulus in 'Blood of the Ancients'.
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.'
That is totally wrong. There were great many foundry missions that were way better than any Cryptic content up to date. Better in writing, design, small details and overall Star Trek atmosphere. Not Cryptic's cookie cutter kill five mobs, scan five things (dealing with the fifth Borg dynasty) rinse and repeat boredom.
We even implemented Voice Overs for a foundry mission. It was pretty neat.
Sure there were the stupid grinders and the ever present Test Mission Blahs, but those are ever present in every UGC in every game.
Anyway, as the Foundry sunsets, I will also sunset my STO activities by a glorious spamming of the uninstall button.
It worked like this:
- Someone made the appropriate sound clips.
- You assigned a unique ID number to every clip, which was the file name.
- I made an app that converted this ID number into a barcode of a sort. Something like IiiIIiiIiiII.
- You copied this barcode into the appropriate textbox as the first line.
- Finally, the app was monitoring the screen during play. Whenever a properly formed barcode showed up, it loaded (locally or from the internet) and played the sound clip with the ID number from the barcode. There was maybe a 1 sec delay.
There was one mission like that and it worked pretty well.
For a lot of people, removing the Foundry is like sweeping a rug from under them. It was a key part of their game life. And damn, realizing that all the missions you made are going to be lost, probably forever, is really, really difficult.
The emotional investment in user-generated content will be even higher than it is for characters you played for many years.
I guess if people get too angry and can't stay within the forum guidelines, their posts will have to be moderated in some way, but that doesn't have to mean the thread needs to go. This is too big of a deal, to hard of a hit, to be hidden away. A dedicated thread for the topic is a good thing.
Your past experience doesn't worth anything in this context because it is experience with other people, not with me. You took an incorrect assumption based on your prejudice. And please spare me of a long winded explanation why you think you are correct. You don't know me, you don't know how I think and any foray into that personal territory will boil down to all sorts of dumb fallacies.
On the other hand, your generic interpretation of the Star Trek Atmosphere is quite accurate. Yes, the missions that I talked about nailed all those notions you mentioned much better than the "official" content. Like the Star Trek vs Necrons, the Star Trek vs Tyranid.
In the Grim dark future of STO's 25th century, there is only war!
I am upset it is going to get cut as it was a bonus to this game that kept people playing and providing me more chances for player interaction.
Likewise I like the missions that have been cut from the game making it in my view all the poorer for the loss.
Not everyone likes all the missions or quests or exploration or the foundry we will all disagree on these points.
What i am seeing in this thread is people are upset people wanted the missions and foundry and they are not getting to keep them. For some to have the chutzpah to trash peoples view of a loss and call the cut items garbage and good its gone. Simply is more than i have words to express.
If you hold the view that it was a cancerous growth and glad its been cut out then congrats you are getting your wish accept that and move on. There is no need to heap insults upon injury to the people that feel a loss.
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.'
Man, that is quite clever. I would have loved to have had something like that in some of my missions. Now I'm sad I won't get a chance to try that.
"No matter where you go...there you are."
For a MMO business, a decrease in logins, purchasing ships, etc., will hopefully make said business take notice. That said, perhaps the numbers were crunched, and it was determined that if the less than 40% (or whatever percentage) of Foundry authors/users were not the cash cow of Z-Store purchasers, then perhaps those numbers indicate the loss of those players would not hurt the bottom line. If so...then so be it.
As for me, with the loss of the Foundry, my revenue stream for this game is closed. I'm sure I'll log in from time to time to check out new content, but the primary attraction of this game for me is gone. The ability to create my stories, and see the stories of others kept me coming back. The new ships kept me interested in creating new adventures with those new ships for me and my friends. Without that, I have no reason to spend money on the game.
I'd suggest others who feel similarly take the same approach. The bottom line is the only way dissatisfaction with a service will be felt.
My character Tsin'xing