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Cryptic Studios Retiring Foundry System for Both Neverwinter & Star Trek Online - MMORPG.com

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
edited March 2019 in News & Features Discussion

imageCryptic Studios Retiring Foundry System for Both Neverwinter & Star Trek Online - MMORPG.com

Sad news for content creators, Cryptic Studios has announced that it is retiring the Foundry system for both Neverwinter and Star Trek Online. The announced closure of the Foundries will occur on April 11, 2019. "This decision was not made lightly; the Foundry was a passion project for many of us." the blog reads. The cited reason for the closure is that "the legacy knowledge required to maintain the Foundry at our quality standards is no longer available".

Read the full story here



¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


Comments

  • Solar_ProphetSolar_Prophet Member EpicPosts: 1,960
    Translation: We're tired of our player base consistently turning out free content of a higher quality than what we charge people for.
    ZenJellyAsm0deus[Deleted User]MaurgrimPhaserlightOctagon7711Scotfoppoteegunklackerdoomexand 15 others.

    AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!

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  • britzbanbritzban Member UncommonPosts: 260
    This is the only reason I ever played Neverwinter was the foundry. I was thinking about reinstalling Neverwinter solely to play foundry missions and now won't bother with touching that game.
    Sovrath[Deleted User]Octagon7711MrMelGibsonmetareal
  • SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
    The Neverwinter Foundry was something I hoped would be like the mods that players turned out for campaigns in the original Neverwinter Nights. Sadly, they never quite lived up to what I'd hoped, at least when I played. Too bad. :(
    Mendelbartoni33gunklackerMrMelGibson


    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


  • PalebanePalebane Member RarePosts: 4,011
    edited March 2019
    Weird. I didn’t know it took a lot of extra legacy knowledge to maintain a game feature like this. Is this specific feature’s code that much diffferent than the rest of the old code when integrating a new patch? Anyone have specifics? Im curious and both links were super vague.

    Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.

  • TalaharTalahar Member UncommonPosts: 19
    Would have used the foundry more, if Champions Online had it available. But alas, it was never integrated there. Oh well.
  • Octagon7711Octagon7711 Member LegendaryPosts: 9,000
    I played a lot of Foundry quests and really enjoyed a lot of them.  Even played one on Neverwinter that was only available in another language which I didn't speak because it was so well done.  I had hoped more games would adopt this.
    aummoid

    "We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa      "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."  SR Covey

  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    Entirely too many people wanted to, or tried to, use the Foundry as a way to self-twink their characters.  I always thought that the players should work on the stories/layouts/opponents/puzzles, and let the game's staff assign loot/rewards to the module.  That would help keep some semblance of consistency and balance between rewards and difficulty.  More work for them, though, so a big 'no go'.



    SlyLoK

    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 22,986
    You don't allow moding when you want to run a game as a service which most MMOs more or less already are.
  • tawesstawess Member EpicPosts: 4,227
    the code base for the foundry was a carryover from City of Heroes IIRC (in parts at least) so there is actually a chance that they are telling the truth. That the last person who knew the code quit/got fired.

    SaltyDog79gervaise1

    This have been a good conversation

  • flizzerflizzer Member RarePosts: 2,454
    Wow, my favorite part of the game when I played.  I was hoping it would catch on and every MMO would have some system were players would be able to create content and add to the game
    Palebane
  • foppoteefoppotee Member UncommonPosts: 508
    At least for STO this is, & soon to be was, a pillar of STO.  Cryptic is continuing to shrink content options for players in an effort to guide us towards content that Cryptic wants.  This is without a doubt a negative for STO by Cryptic & not a positive nor is it a good indication of things to come for STO down the road.  In the near future there will be an increase in grind for what is left of content & Cryptic will add even more measures that are purchasable to ease that increased grind.  Heck, Cryptic on video even stated about the most recent pack that the combat tardigrade would be made account wide unlock too & that has yet to happen.  Cryptic is going to usher-in a type of maintenance mode for STO where less & less content will be added, more grind added, but also more grind alleviating methods added that will be purchasable too either by C-Store directly or by their gambling lock boxes all the while just rotating current content on a schedule.  Cryptic will plop-up some smoke screen about how the Foundry couldn't be maintained, but it could've been it is just Cryptic decided it wasn't worth the effort to do so.  It is really a shame, but I think STO will keep moving on even if it is a declining movement. 
    Solancer
  • DarkfyraDarkfyra Member UncommonPosts: 21
    Well...does that defeat the purpose of playing a D&D mmo or in the Star Trek verse?Shame I started watching TOS as a way to accompany my adventures and I won’t get to see fan made ones....
  • aummoidaummoid Member UncommonPosts: 82
    Wow, that's a big step backwards for the genre.

    I wonder how much of that decision was really about legacy knowledge, how much was about developers trying to force players back into the studio's Official Content, and how much was about them being tired of trying to keep a lid on troll-created content.
  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,015
    aummoid said:
    Wow, that's a big step backwards for the genre.

    I wonder how much of that decision was really about legacy knowledge, how much was about developers trying to force players back into the studio's Official Content, and how much was about them being tired of trying to keep a lid on troll-created content.
    I don't think any of it was about forcing players back into Official Content.

    Free to Play games need players to "stick around" so that they can buy some "one off" item at the very least. Anything that keeps players spending a dollar here and there is good.

    So the more content that keeps a player playing the better.

    I can easily see it not being a focus and thus their problem with their system not fitting into new iterations of their game.

    Also the whole "troll content" could be an issue as well though I seem to remember them having a voting/rating system.
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  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    Sovrath said:
    aummoid said:
    Wow, that's a big step backwards for the genre.

    I wonder how much of that decision was really about legacy knowledge, how much was about developers trying to force players back into the studio's Official Content, and how much was about them being tired of trying to keep a lid on troll-created content.
    I don't think any of it was about forcing players back into Official Content.

    Free to Play games need players to "stick around" so that they can buy some "one off" item at the very least. Anything that keeps players spending a dollar here and there is good.

    So the more content that keeps a player playing the better.

    I can easily see it not being a focus and thus their problem with their system not fitting into new iterations of their game.

    Also the whole "troll content" could be an issue as well though I seem to remember them having a voting/rating system.
    I'd have liked to see them monetize the Foundry differently.  Rather than 'buying' the building blocks to construct new content, maybe they could 'lease' the better modules, upload that content to a server and charge $1 for a character to run this content.  That could either pay a one-time specific 'content creation fee' of $10, *or* split the 'run charge' with the content creator.  A mechanism like this could give the developer/publisher some revenue, as well as encourage the development of quality user-generated content.  That *could* have been a win-win-win for company, content creators, and players.  Easier to pull the Foundry feature entirely, I guess.



    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • illriggerillrigger Member UncommonPosts: 8
    They're almost certainly telling the truth - Zeronius Rex (former STO producer Maria Rosseau) was pretty much the sole owner of the foundry code, and had been for quite a few years. When she left to take the Lead Producer position on MTG in 2017, it started to have issues pretty much immediately, and has been less and less stable with each patch. Sad to see it go, but this stuff happens when you put too much of a system under a single person for too long.
    PalebaneLokeroSovrathLiljna
  • SamhaelSamhael Member RarePosts: 1,498
    Yup, if the developers don't document their programs properly, it's hell for a replacement to try and figure out. (and I really doubt they'd pay enough for someone with those skills/gifts)

    Still, things could get worse for Cryptic... they could re-hire Emmert!
  • Nhisso13Nhisso13 Member UncommonPosts: 74
    Cryptic and PWI are trash companies. They disgust me. Champions online is all but dead, and now sto and nw will follow. P.o.S. game devs should be a thing of the past
  • dralchdralch Member CommonPosts: 10
    edited March 2019
    Well I guess they do not want players to play the game as the community updated the founder missions. The game just got a whole lot less interesting. I would bet this has something to do more with the fact that people in STO would use the foundry missions to do the new endeavor system as a lot of stuff was made easier to find thanks to player created content. I wounder if this is going to be like before when you notice a spike in less players, if so they have only them selves to blame
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,101
    In City of Heroes when they introduced these missions that players created some created missions where one could get huge amounts of experience with little to no danger....ahh humans.
    Chamber of Chains
  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342
    ...forgettable feature gets forgotten.
    [Deleted User]
  • dralchdralch Member CommonPosts: 10

    cheyane said:

    In City of Heroes when they introduced these missions that players created some created missions where one could get huge amounts of experience with little to no danger....ahh humans.



    Not the case in STO for leveling the main story missions til 50 then red alert weekends
  • NildenNilden Member EpicPosts: 3,916
    Gdemami said:
    ...forgettable feature gets forgotten.
    Oh you mean the feature people are saying they played the game for? The feature that let players make thousands of hours of original content for the game?

    Do you not want more content? In both the form of playing it and building it?

    I wonder how many missions this forgettable feature had in these games?

    I wonder how many more hours of enjoyment people got out of this forgettable feature?

    Just L O L

    InteritusGdemami

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