Recently, we asked the MMORPG.com community for the burning questions they wanted to ask Neverwinter's Lead Producer Andy Velasquez. We took the best of the best and sent them on with the answers fresh on the page today. See what Andy has to say about one of the most anticipated titles for the coming year.

BadSpock:

Q: What are the restrictions on player count for Foundry created content?

Andy Velasquez: Hi BadSpcok. I’m not really sure what you mean by “player count.” If you’re asking how many people can play content created by you with the Foundry, there is no limit. We also plan to have a ranking system for the Foundry, making it easy for players to find the highest-quality player created content quickly. If you’re asking about the maximum size of a party that can run through Foundry content, the answer is five. 

Read more of our Neverwinter Community Q&A with Andy Velasquez.

So you just sent them foundry questions?  That is all well and good, but you might have mixed it up a bit.  The big question of course was never asked, how is the game going to be funded?  If it is funded as a typical PW game forget it.   

When he said you cannot control the quest chain in a foundry game that was a real turn off.  Seems like the foundry is going to be very limited.  You just use the pieces and parts they give you, not what you design.

here you go in case you all missed this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pn7iU4EwTc

25 min vid all about this, in more depth than the couple questions spock asked....

Originally posted by Betaguy

here you go in case you all missed this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pn7iU4EwTc

25 min vid all about this, in more depth than the couple questions spock asked....

Damn! That looks really great. I spent countless hours on NWN1 making my own "missions" and I cant wait to get my hands on this stuff. I just hope the advanced side of mission making isnt too simple, it does not have to be unrealistically complex taking into account this is an MMO, but I hope I get enough sort of unique details in, like making really dark horror maps etc.

Originally posted by Kuinn

Originally posted by Betaguy

here you go in case you all missed this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pn7iU4EwTc

25 min vid all about this, in more depth than the couple questions spock asked....

 

Damn! That looks really great. I spent countless hours on NWN1 making my own "missions" and I cant wait to get my hands on this stuff. I just hope the advanced side of mission making isnt too simple, it does not have to be unrealistically complex taking into account this is an MMO, but I hope I get enough sort of unique details in, like making really dark horror maps etc.

Yeah that looks really good, looking forward to beta more than ever after seeing that.

Originally posted by adam_nox
Surprised there's no housing, you'd think with the foundry in place, much of the same technology could be employed to design your own place. 

You can design your own place, but it will simply be a foundry mission and not technically "player housing". So you could use it for RP and such, but its not like you would be able to store items there.

---

Andy Velasquez: Foundry authors can certainly chain quests together into epic campaigns. However, we will not restrict access to later quests in any given campaign based on requirements to complete earlier quests. That’s because we want to allow users to explore Foundry content on their own terms, as freely as possible.

Think of it like an approach to buying a season of a TV show on DVD. While most people will start from episode one and watch the following episodes consecutively, there may be others who want to skip to episode 10, for example, because that was the “good one.”

That being said, within a given quest, the Foundry author can be more restrictive and have NPCs only offer players certain dialogue options or only open doors based on whether or not a monster has been killed, an item has been collected, etc. So that element of control and direction from the author’s perspective will be available.

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If I'm making a campaign, wouldn't gating my content be the desired result? I don't want people skipping to "the good part". If people don't want to play through the first few missions, then they don't play my missions, I don't get hits, and I look bad as a creator. It should be my job to make sure the entire campaign is fun. You know, just like real developers.

If you can't restrict access to missions or even store variables between them, then that part about "chaining" quests together isn't entirely true. There is nothing that links them at all other than the author putting "Part I" and Part II" in the title or possibly specifying a recommended order. You can't actually chain quests together. You can only imagine that they're chained.

EDIT: I just watched the video. I like what I see. You could almost make an entire campaign in a single mission, although I doubt you'd be able to put save points or really make it long enough.

 Wow, everything in the editor and forum here but multi-quote. Let me answer some things:

Originally posted by Ozmodan

So you just sent them foundry questions? That is all well and good, but you might have mixed it up a bit. The big question of course was never asked, how is the game going to be funded? If it is funded as a typical PW game forget it.

When he said you cannot control the quest chain in a foundry game that was a real turn off. Seems like the foundry is going to be very limited. You just use the pieces and parts they give you, not what you design.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Not only was the game already funded by PWE over a year ago, it got additional funding it did so well with awards at convention after convention while in a pre-Alpha state! 

If you meant something else (beside doom saying of course,) please clarify.

Also, it's been mentioned (including exploit worries doing a 1-second quest  for a lot of XP based on other quests "finished") and those who want to skip individual; episodes of an entire quest series (that was just mentioned here, hello...), that one module's outcome cannot influence another module and they are self- sufficient. However, you can group missions in a foundry series, and I saw the quests included in the group ranked in whatever order (or re-order) you wish.

Just a few links that are posted on their own forum news site:

PAX Prime Awards from MMOHut and OnRPG September 7, 2012
PAX Game of Show From MMORPG September 4, 2012
ONRPG/MMOhut?s Award for Neverwinter September 4, 2012
Neverwinter earns ?Best MMORPG? at Gamescom! August 30, 2012
MMOBomb Awards for Neverwinter August 24, 2012
Neverwinter An International Hit July 19, 2012
E3 Wrap Up June 18, 2012
PAX Best of Show on MMORPG! April 24, 2012
PAX Gameplay Trailer April 24, 2012
Neverwinter Dazzles TTH April 23, 2012

  

 

Orginally posted by Kuinn

Originally posted by Betaguy
 

 

here you go in case you all missed this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pn7iU4EwTc

25 min vid all about this, in more depth than the couple questions spock asked....

 

Damn! That looks really great. I spent countless hours on NWN1 making my own "missions" and I cant wait to get my hands on this stuff. I just hope the advanced side of mission making isnt too simple, it does not have to be unrealistically complex taking into account this is an MMO, but I hope I get enough sort of unique details in, like making really dark horror maps etc.

I know they will have this. It will be awesome!

Originally posted by adam_nox

Surprised there's no housing, you'd think with the foundry in place, much of the same technology could be employed to design your own place.

Actually, player housing has nothing to do with the Foundry. The Foundry (while it does have access to components you can design games with such as: rooms, details like furniture, etc.) is for game module making in an instanced environment. It neither allows nor does it post in a open world location or persistent instanced world where player and guild housing is.   If you go over to the Neverwinter forums, they have mentioned this is on  their future wish list though (the seventh post of this thread.) 

Originally posted by bezado

I hope they allow us in the options to turn off NPC highlighting, because if you notice in other videos the crosshair when you move your mouse over any NPC will take on a blue hue or aura around them for interactions. I hate to run through a city and every NPC highlights blue as you move past them, takes away immersion for me.

I've seen the Foundry test world when they preview it in the videos. All those NPC's don't have that annoying blue light behind them, thank the game gods.

Hope this helped!

I just have to say that I was excited by Neverwinter when I first heard about it, being someone who scripted and built worlds in the original NWN. NWN2 was a failure due to them using Granny to export animations (a very expensive tool), so when I heard of Neverwinter, my hopes rose again.

Then my hopes got crashed when yet another company got bought out and their vision skewed by those that purchased them. Now Neverwinter is going to be a PoS F2P MMO and nothing like what it was intended to be, a tool for players and DMs to craft their own adventures and worlds using the toolset.

No thank you.

Dear game veteran, sorry I used such a big word.  Monitize means how they will fund the game.  Basically how the item shop interfaces with the game.  PW is well know to be abusive in this area, that is why the caution.  Hard to be in any way optimistic about a PW game because of that.

will this be using the same engine they use for their other games ?

I hope not as there is somthing i just dont like about it..

Originally posted by Betaguy
I was excited when I opened this Q&A hoping there would be some new info, then I was sadly let down...  All these have been answered and in even more detail in the videos on youtube from the company. Nice job at trying tho, B for effort.

I find reading over every interview is so not worth my time. I now wait a few weeks before open beta starts for any MMO I like and just watch a bunch of vids on youtube and I am caught up. Devs are restricted on what they can say and its not the interviews falt. Why ask questions that wont get answered.

Originally posted by Arshoon

...Then my hopes got crashed when yet another company got bought out and their vision skewed by those that purchased them. ..

What are you talking about? Atari loosing the rights over NW is the best thing that could happen to the game. The way Atari was going was the same way as Daggerdale. PW gave a big budget to NW and allowed cryptic freedom to do what they wanted to do with game. That is why Crytic can afford to delay the release for polish as they have enough funding now.