Author Topic: No More Foundry Envy!  (Read 7279 times)

Xev

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No More Foundry Envy!
« on: March 04, 2019, 04:39:28 PM »
CO players no longer need have Foundry Envy. Unfortunately it's not because You're getting it - We're losing it!

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11102923
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MyriVerse

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2019, 06:04:15 PM »
Don't know much about it, but it sounds like it could have been a great addition for CO.

Shame.  :gonk:
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Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2019, 06:44:47 PM »
Think: CoH Architect

I tried it when first playing the same way I did Architect - for farming. XP, loot. Unlike Architect I wasn't very good at it. Probably the biggest drawback was the starting contacts... Why oh why Foundry authors choose to put contacts in the laggiest (bandwidthwise) spots like .. ESD and the Academy... I'll never understand.

Endeavors are STO's latest grind. STO was already a total grindfest. I mean.. this is the off-season for me and I have had tons of playtime and I can still grind away all day and never Push all the Grind Buttons that exist in the game - not even a large fraction. I always think of that old Airplane! movie sequel with Shatner.. "beeping and flashing and BEEPING AND FLASHING" due to there is always some button flashing and telling me to push another button.

Annnnnnnyway, since Endeavors rolled around I re-found the Foundry and it has had been really, really, great. As mentioned... there are already tons of farming buttons begging to be pushed in STO. For example, if you want your Rep to go any higher, which is a very common desire, you have to commit to clicking buttons daily for months. So, anything to make the latest STO farming ...endeavor easier and more fun, sounded good to me. And it was good! It was great. And I thought.. wow.. how can they let this go on? Due to if you don't use the Foundry then Endeavors can sometimes be a big pain in the @ss. Maybe not today.. Maybe not tomorrow.. But the Endeavor system is built so that it takes YEARS to complete.. You're gonna have plenty of crappy Endeavor days in-between, I know - based on the fact that I didn't use the Foundry for them at first. And then... I thought I was experiencing more STO genius.. Endeavors are all about (timesinking..) experiencing more of the game, in concept - well... what's the FOUNDRY??? A significant part of the game... GENIUS! I thought.. I mean, they took the road so high that I didn't get it at first. Why Not use the Foundry for Endeavors when it's helpful/handy/desirable/even possible? It's PERFECT.

lol.. wrong.. But you have to admit that I gave them a lot of credit! I mean... in my experience with STO it is a pretty generous game. I thought "wow, if this is what they're willing to do to get me to use the Foundry, they Must be geniuses.." when it comes to giving. The Foundry didn't give us a place to do All of our Endeavors but it sure did take the Pain in the Ass factor right out of them. Now, with this blow to the Foundry, for the first time, Endeavors feel like a time-sinking grind being forced on us.

A lot of people think the Endeavor system is what killed the Foundry (but in both games..?). It was my first thought, too. Now I think that at the very least, Endeavors put a spotlight on the Foundry. No one can dispute that the fall of the Foundry came at the time when it was serverwide gaining popularity - maybe the most it ever had - very likely the most it ever had, since I started playing a few years ago. It could have credited its popularity to Endeavors and STO could have used that momentum to justify supporting the Foundry and add the success of the Foundry to their list of things the Endeavor system brought back to life. But, they didn't. They're not the geniuses I thought, in this case.

My personal experience aside - I feel for the authors. The Foundry is always going down after one patch or another.. and then the authors who may have been right in the middle of a project can no longer work on it at all. It's easy to tell how frustrated and bummed out it makes them when they log on to find out it's down again. Now it's *really* down..

Players poured hundreds of hours and lots of heart into the Foundry. (You can get Dilithium, as Tips, from players, too! How is that for a fun grind, if making mishes is what you're into?) Even though I didn't use it a whole lot until Endeavors rolled around its awesomeness is obvious.. I mean.. you can make your own mishes and/or play ones other players made... For a few more days, anyway.

I don't know how it works on Neverwinter but from the sound of it they're gonna get hammered even worse than us and I feel groinkicked. We used to pine away for the Foundry when I played CO.. I used Architect a Lot in CoH...

*shrug*

The Foundry seems like an obviously awesome resource but yet according to that link, it's not a part of what they think makes the game great. I bet the people whose pride and joy was making mishes would disagree. I do. It only took the Endeavor system (one of many, many, many STO Grinds) to blow the dust off of it and make it as popular as it probably ever was.. Too bad they didn't choose to run with that.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2019, 06:53:46 PM by Xev »
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Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2019, 06:26:18 PM »
Player made mishes don't have to be spectacular to be popular. They just have to be...popular. Take this Architect mish from CoH, for example..:



The thrill of this mish was to gather up as many mobs as was possible and efficient and melt them as fast and efficiently (and spectacularly, for self bonus points) as possible. I *loved* it.. and played it often.

Running Architect mishes was pretty similar to what the Foundry is, today, in STO. The main difference is... rewards. We had a reason to run Architect missions. They paid off! And they were fun.

For example, there were some days when I just wanted to fight in a crowd of bikini clad babes with bunny ears. No problemo! Just hit up Architect. I farmed garagefulls of Salvage and bought some (most?) of my best mods with it - Architect paid off. There were also Epic Mishes...'deep story' mishes.. All kinds of mishes from/for all kinds of players.

This is the entrance to Architect with me showing off in a screenie that I am very happy didn't get lost along with most all of my others that I'd managed to not lose until recent years (thanks to this forum and me storing the pic online for posting purposes).




See that little stat screen in the bottom right with realtime customizable data monitoring? Remember those? Man I wish I had one of those in STO.. That little screen and creative use of INSPS were two things I really missed after CoH.

Anyway.. I don't know how Authoring goes, because I didn't Author mishes in either game, CoH or STO, but, as far as Playing Architect/Foundry mishes goes - they're pretty similar. The main difference is that CoH made Architect mishes relevant to ... everyone, rather than just the Authors themselves and a few people wanting to level or maybe farm their daily limit, and, a handful of Mish Geeks - Mish Geeks, being, players that can never play/run enough mishes.

When Endeavors came out.... the Foundry was about as popular as Architect.. Maybe even more. I mean, if you weren't using it - it was probably because the idea just hadn't occurred to you yet/no one had given you the idea. It's too bad that STO can't find a way to capitalize on this accidental popularity. That's what I was trying to say, before.

Someone mentioned yesterday that they've been playing since Beta and never used the Foundry and won't miss it when it's gone. I was.... similar to this. If it weren't for Endeavors then I likely wouldn't miss the Foundry as much except for the fact that tossing away the ability for players to make and run their own mishes seems sad. But, all you have to do to the Foundry to make it popular is to make it relevant to a wider base. Endeavors prove that. Architect proved that. The Foundry accidentally got made *real* popular recently with Endeavors.... It's too bad they can't do something with that! I'd luv to have Architect back... Foundry's pretty much the same animal.
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FlyingCarcass

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2019, 10:48:33 PM »
I saw the news about STO/Neverwinter losing their player-created mission feature yesterday and find it to be very lamentable (though I haven't played either game). There really is a dearth in newer games allowing their players to create custom content to extend replayability while providing a creative outlet for folks that enjoy making new adventures (personally I loved playing around with MA, even made two related story arcs, the "Adventures of the Space Marines"... good times).

MyriVerse

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2019, 02:02:31 PM »
Especially in Neverwinter's case. IMO, the primary thing Neverwinter should be known for is player-created content, considering its history. IMO, you shouldn't even be able to call it Neverwinter unless there's player creation capability.
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Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2019, 06:39:26 PM »
IMO, you shouldn't even be able to call it Neverwinter unless there's player creation capability.

Iirc..... and I have to dig way back.. the original Neverwinter, which, was the Internet's first graphical MMO... had a mish creator.


I saw the news about STO/Neverwinter losing their player-created mission feature yesterday and find it to be very lamentable (though I haven't played either game). There really is a dearth in newer games allowing their players to create custom content to extend replayability while providing a creative outlet for folks that enjoy making new adventures (personally I loved playing around with MA, even made two related story arcs, the "Adventures of the Space Marines"... good times).

It's a great feature. Its been completely underutilized in STO otherwise I'm sure it would have seen more use up to now. Endeavors proved that.. As soon as they came out, people *flocked* to the Foundry. That was a total accident on STO's part. We can only imagine what'd happen if they put effort into raising its popularity. I mean, the ability to create your own mishes/play player made mishes, seems like a pretty powerful tool to me. Something worthy of bragging rights, even.
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Brou

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2019, 03:25:46 PM »
Oh, well.
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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2019, 10:51:49 PM »
Is anyone really surprised? I'm not. I dont like the direction they are going with sto. Considering the players have made far better missions then pw nowadays.
One day the Phoenix will rise again.

Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2019, 03:24:31 PM »
Oh, well.

Humph

Is anyone really surprised? I'm not. I dont like the direction they are going with sto. Considering the players have made far better missions then pw nowadays.

: D
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Thunder Glove

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2019, 09:33:33 PM »
Console STO and console Neverwinter never even got the Foundry, and I was looking forward to it.  I loved creating missions in CoH's Architect, and wanted to do the same for these games.

Instead, I got "We're removing hundreds, possibly thousands of missions and quests from our games because we fired all the people who knew how they worked, but don't worry!  We here at Cryptic pledge to continue adding new content at the rate of one mission every three or four months, which should more than make up for the loss.  As long as you keep playing for the next few centuries."

Really, player-created content should be the direction of the future, allowing everyone to make missions for favorite games rather than just modders with specialized tools.  A steady stream of player-created content is what keeps games with these sluggish update schedules alive, and I'm sorry I never got a chance to try them out.

Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2019, 10:15:31 PM »
I'm playing some Foundry mishes right now that are all from the same author. I can choose different races to fight, I can easily choose to fight them in the air or ground or both and in waves, I can choose easy fights, hard fights, some big mobs, small crowds of small mobs..

Just think of all the Accolades that covers.. Endeavors, too.

If I could farm them for something sellable then there'd be another plus, and, another reason to use the Foundry.

The Foundry can be extra cool, because, it doesn't have to follow the rules so much.. I think there is even a warning somewhere about that. I miss my Architect Bunnies, sometimes.. You'd have never found them in the main game. Only in Architect.

AH well.. anyway. You either get the coolness of your favorite game (which it is, to some) having mishes made up by the imagination and needs of the players themselves, or, you don't.

Now that I'm actually using the Foundry I can say for sure I will miss it and can see it's a loss for the game when it goes. I mean, it's like Architect. Either you appreciated Architect or you didn't, same kinda thing. People lived in Architect.. And other ppl probably never used it.

I've been trying to wean myself off of (the thing they want to remove due to it isn't a big enough part of STO) the Foundry when doing Endeavors but I just can't do it. The Foundry mishes are fun.. to the point.. and they can also take the 'worry' out of getting Endeavors done. So I used the Foundry again, today.. And then I did some Randoms.... which, had I ran them first, they would have fulfilled my Endeavor requirements for the day just by running *them*.. Last time, though, that I depended on Randoms to do that... I ran a ton, as ever, and somehow never could get the fights I needed. That's what I mean by "takes the worry out".

Anyway, whatever..

The Foundry may not have all the bells and whistles that they want it to have and may not be as integrated as it should be, but, unlike *all* of the rest of CO (oops) STO, including the login screen, I have yet to crash in the Foundry.......

The authors make good mishes. The fights are fun. People are having fun. It's useful. It's cool. Why cut it. They can't be *that* strapped for resources if they had time for that fluffy downgrade of a Character Creator, and, I think all of STO would give up at least 1 mish per new mish making cycle if that's what it took to keep the Foundry going.

*shrug*

We'll think what we think and they'll do what they'll do I'm just saying what I think and I think it stinks something as cool as the Foundry will just *poof* so there, neener, neener.. and more neener.  : )
« Last Edit: March 12, 2019, 04:41:47 PM by Xev »
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Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #12 on: March 12, 2019, 05:34:27 PM »
I meant to say all of STO... when it comes to crashing.. above. CO never crashes on me. If it does it's so rare I don't remember it.

STO on the other hand.. depending on what patch we're on, there's always a degree of crashing. Usually when swapping characters a 'lot' and when swapping from Ground to Space a 'lot'. I've even had the login screen crash on me while I was Bio-ing.

The one place I never have had STO crash on me is the Foundry. The thing they say they don't know how to support. Well, I say, it's not any more broken, there, than anywhere else - as far as Playing the mishes goes.

On the subject of them not knowing how to support the Foundry. Can they not learn? And then record and store that knowledge somewhere..? What happens when the person who knows how spaceships work quits?

Do we gain and lose features based on who's working this week?

I wanna end off by saying I'm not trying to build up the Foundry into this big huge thing. I had given up on using it when I first started playing and didn't even pick it up again until now that these Endeavors are around. I see a lot of people in Zone saying "I never even used the thing".

On the other hand, it's a Mish creator and place to play Player made mishes. Period. You either get it or j00 don't.

The Foundry was one of the first things I tried in STO. I couldn't figure out how to make it work like Architect for me, so, I gave it up. Due to that experience, I can easily see why people who's first Mish Creator experience was in STO, wouldn't ... get it. And why they wouldn't come back.

I bet the authors get it. There must be active authors otherwise a plethora of excellent Endeavor mishes wouldn't have immediately cropped up.

Anyway.. I don't want them to drop everything and ruin all their grand plans for the game, and, it's their game. I just play it.

I Do hope the Space person is feeling healthy and they're paying them well/keeping them happy.. I sure wouldn't wanna log in one day to find out they don't know how to work on it anymore.

Although, some might just say...

Oh, well.


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Mistress Bloodwrath

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2019, 02:07:25 AM »
Awww.... that sucks. I mean I understand the abuse that player created content causes sometimes, I've seen real cool stuff made on occasion.

Just sad no one will ever experience my old Return of the Attack of the Kill Skuls arc. I made it just a little while before Paragon was axed.

Castegyre

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2019, 07:46:08 AM »
I can't think of a reason to play NWO now. Even the nostalgia of playing NWN on AOL isn't enough.

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #15 on: April 24, 2019, 12:42:59 PM »
Kinda, at a complete loss as to why they thought this was a good call, but it is what it is. Oh well, I couldn't stick with STO and NW anyway.
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Xev

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Re: No More Foundry Envy!
« Reply #16 on: April 25, 2019, 01:40:35 AM »
Awww.... that sucks. I mean I understand the abuse that player created content causes sometimes, I've seen real cool stuff made on occasion.

Just sad no one will ever experience my old Return of the Attack of the Kill Skuls arc. I made it just a little while before Paragon was axed.

I think it sucks, too.

The person who was my go-to Endeavor mish Foundry author got the max donation (100..) of dil (nearly!) every time I ran one of their mishes there towards the end. Man those things were great for what they were.. Very to the point. Nice for when you wanna just get your Endeavors done and go to bed, for example.

Accolade chasers are going to have a lot harder time, now.

*shrug* It's a mish creator within an MMO with a lot of active players. Would you rather have one, or not. If STO never had a mish creator and came up with one tomorrow they'd probably call it the most amazing thing that ever happened to the game, but, instead we're throwing it away due to no one wants to update it as needed.

There's way crazier stuff going on in the world but, yeah, it sucks, I think, too.
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