Update: the auto-republish cycle is continuing. Missions are coming back online slowly. I recommend searching for your own missions and giving them a play as they come back up. Make sure to report any bugs on the forums.

For those who haven’t been following Tribble, the Foundry is receiving a number of updates with Legacy of Romulus. These updates went live today, but of course the Foundry is going through its usual cycle of republishing. Here’s BranFlake’s official post:

Jolan tru Captains!

The team and I wanted to let you all know about some important information about the Foundry and the launch of Legacy of Romulus.

Currently, while we republish all missions made prior to launch, all access to the Foundry is off. This includes editing and playing. Once the republish process is complete, we will allow access to playing Foundry missions again. When we do, the ability to review missions will be temporarily disabled.

We hope to have editing, playing and reviewing back up very shortly, and will provide updates in this thread as they become available. Also, we will be delaying this week’s Spotlight on the Foundry until reviewing is back up.

Thanks again, and we’ll see you in-game!

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

All pretty standard.

After the break, I’ll have the patch notes for Foundry with a few explanations of what exactly some of the additions are based on my Tribble testing.

continue reading…

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon with guest-host djf021.

Listen to it here, here and here:

Subjects:

New Foundry Assets – 2:46
Removal of costume import/export – 18:18
How to prepare for Legacy of Romulus – 23:54
Foundry Rewards – 1:08:49
Covering controversial subjects – 1:25:19
Minimalism in mission design – 1:42:20

Missions:

Conjoined by DenizenVI – 41:31
Infintesimal Frontier by Dixonium – 42:35 (apparantly everyone really loves this mission)
Beneath the Skin by P_Sutherland – 43:40

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman (Absent this week), Hippiejohn and Greendragoon with guest-host Paxfederatica (aka @NCC-89471).

Listen to it here, here and here

Subjects:

Neverwinter Follow Up
Feedback disparity? – 0:01:37
Better ways to access the Foundry in game – 1:12:48
Challenge #7 – 1:11:07
LoR: What will we see in the Foundry? – 1:25:33
Monetization bug – 1:39:36

Missions:

A Time to Search by Lincolninspace – 0:37:20
The Interwarp Experiment by AstroRobLA – 0:56:10
Infintesimal Frontier by Dixonium – 1:01:54

Other notes:

In our discussion of how to better integrate the Foundry into the game I forgot one thing: Holodecks! We should be able to check a box that will make that mission available from any holodeck in the game.

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon.

Listen to it here, here and here:

Subjects:

Minor Foundry News – 2:50
Neverwinter Foundry – 26:36
Social Map NPCs – 1:15:42
Foundry Updates – 1:02:35

Missions:

Tribbling the Borg by dalolorn – 17:48
Desperate Reflections by Nebular – 21:00

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon with guest-host Bluedarky.

Now available courtesy of cerberusfilms as well as Soundcloud and drogyn’s YouTube channel.

Also with more detailed show notes!

Subjects:

28-Hour Foundry Author’s Academy Mission Contest – 1:48
What we’ve been working on – 4:30
Legacy of Romulus Beta Impressions (and especially what it means for the Foundry) – 29:57
Cryptic’s exploit response – 1:09:08

Missions:

Relics by Kirkfat – 19:17
Crouching Tygokor, Hidden Demon by Captain_Revo – 24:41
The Rising Phoenix by H20rat – 26:44

Other notes:

Here’s the site where people can help H20rat out with his medical expenses: gofundme.com/valentine
We wish him well!

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon with guest-host Bazag.

In Episode 11 we discuss bugs, super heroes, Romulans, Crystaline Entities and much more.

listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:
Broken Mirror by Radkip
Time the Enemy by Havraha
Finding Lascaux by Gulberat
A Radio Blast from the Past by Telatheus
In a Mirror Lightly by wolfpack12c

Other notes:

Little later than usual this week. I got distracted by the Legacy of Romulus beta. No Foundry additions from tribble to report so far, sadly.  On the plus side, we should have better audio quality from now on!

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon.

In Episode 10 we discuss alternative ways of using the player in Foundry missions, the guys help Drogyn brainstorm for his upcoming mission and more.

Listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:
Klingon Academy’s Khamlet by MolotovZav
KDF Spotlights
Depths of Nukara Prime by P_Sutherland
The Sky Above, The Clouds Below by Malize

Other notes:

I did get a good idea through our brainstorming, so look for that mission soon(tm).

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon. Our guest this week is Skydawn.

In Episode 9 we discuss tropes, what we envision for the Romulan Foundry, using minor canon events and more.

Listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:
In the Shadow of Midas Part 1 – by greendragoon
General Rebellion – by CaptPFDennis
Captain Revo’s five-part mission series (Begins with Worst of All Worlds)
Operation Demon Storm – by Eurrsk (greedragoon got the mission name slightly wrong)

Other notes:

We do actually have an answer now on the Foundry for Romulans, it came out the day after we recorded. Essentially we will be able to make exclusive missions for Romulans, but not at launch. For a while they’ll be limited to Fed or KDF mission listings.

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman , Hippiejohn and Greendragoon. Our guest this week is Woody_Valley.

In Episode 8 we discuss Romulans… a lot, KDF costume options, the next Foundry Challenge, realism in writing and more.

Listen to it Here or Here

Missions discussed (high-rated, highly played missions for a change):
First Cause, Then Effect by RogueEnterprise
Captain Revo’s five-part mission series (Begins with Worst of All Worlds)
and Markhawkman was able to play some Neverwinter Foundry missions!

Other notes:

We do have the disadvantage of recording before the ask Cryptic came out, so keep that in mind.

If you have a topic you?d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman (absent this week), Hippiejohn and Greendragoon. Our guest this week is CaptPFDennis.

In Episode 7 we discuss tricks to make one ship destroy another on queue,  custom map-building, the Foundry Challenge winner and more.

listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:
Depths of Nukara Prime by P_Sutherland
Legend of the Inspector General by Malize
Sink the Bismark! by drogyn1701
Remains of the Daimon by CaptPFDennis
Hero of the Empire by RogueEnterprise

Other notes:

The reveal is out. I made sure to post in the Ask Cryptic about whether the Romulan Faction will have Foundry functionality. Hopefully dstahl will pick that one to answer.

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a  guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman (who joined us a little late), Hippiejohn and Greendragoon. Our guest this week is Duke of Rock.

A little late this week, but I had a lot of RL stuff going on. In  Episode 6 we discuss creating KDF missions, using canon characters, advertising your Foundry mission and more.

listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:
Damocles’ Mirror by DangerOne
In Name Only by GaryGnu
Never Count a Gorn Out by Maziken
Torg’s Treason by uncle2fire

Other notes:

I was correct this time, the transporter/TOS assets patch went live this Thursday.

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon.

I have to apologize for the audio quality, my laptop on which I record the show had somehow filled up its hard drive and did not record any of the audio, so we were stuck with the backup recording on the main computer, which picks up rather a lot more background noise. I got rid of the most egregious of it, but there are still a lot of mouse clicks, so bear with us, we’ll be back to much better quality next week.

Anyway, in Episode 5 we discuss story techniques by way of Star Wars and Babylon 5, NPC names, a mission by one of the devs and more.

listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:
Various Challenge #6 Entries
Infinitesimal Frontier by dixonium
Qo’nos Noir by JTFrost (Crypticfrost)
Desperate Prey by djf021

Other notes:

We mention a dev who is suffering from cancer. We did some checking after the show and it is indeed H20rat. We wish him well and if anyone would like to help him out, go here: gofundme.com/valentine

Also in a previous show I said I would go count the number of custom costume slots. It’s 50 by the way.

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building and other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon with special guest Admiral Murphy of Foundry Files.

In Episode 4 we discuss Foundry faux pas, custom NPCs, the “Bioware Approach,” and more.

listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:

Preservers of the Nevara by geoff484
Allegiance Series by Chicochavez
Grazorak City by Woghd

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn (who was snowed out and unable to join us) and Greendragoon with special guest Castmodean.

In Episode 3 we discuss more changes in fleet marks, bugs, mission titles, social maps, and more.

listen to it here and here:

Missions discussed:

By Any Means by SupremeLegate
A Minor Skirmish by HeraSeven
Relics by Kirkfat
Pieces of Hate by captnurntumber
The Arrival by Snapshot_9
12th Honor Guard: Episode 1 by Kuckles
Krios Falling by Alien du Jour

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

This is an advice column I wrote back in 2010, and it seems it is no longer available when searching StarbaseUGC, even though WordPress still has it in my list of posts. I still believe it to be generally good advice, and I thought I would repost it:

I check my reviews often. I like to know whether or not people like my missions. I’ve gotten every kind of review you can think of, but lets go back in time to one day in 2010, when I had just a few missions out (the Foundry was in its infancy) and overnight I had received a few bad reviews. It got me thinking about how to respond and react to “bad” reviews. I offer the following as an advice column for Foundry authors (with examples and a certain amount of humor, I might add). Other experienced authors should feel free to add anything I miss in the comments.

continue reading…

Welcome to the Foundry Roundtable, a weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon.

In Episode 2 we discuss the change in Foundry rewards, top asset requests, going back and working on old missions, and more.

listen to it here and here

Missions discussed:

Whats done in Darkness by BrantPreas08
And End to It Once and For All by Alfanx01
The Space Race by Wan5 (some of us actually played it this week)
Trojan Horse by Kirkfat
Return to Armageddon by Bluedarky
Once and Future Queen by Nepherim

After the jump we’ve included some screenshots of two of the maps we mention as requesting assets from.

continue reading…

Introducing the Foundry Roundtable, a brand new weekly podcast dedicated to Foundry missions, mission building other UGC issues starring Foundry authors Drogyn1701, Markhawkman, Hippiejohn and Greendragoon.

Click here or here to listen to the Foundry Roundtable.

In this show we discuss the import/export costume feature, interior creation, ratings, and more. And Star Trek Online Community Manager PWE_BranFlakes stops by to wish us well and have a chat about the spotlight system.

Missions discussed:

Crucible of Battle War Series by drkfrontiers
Operation Tripwire by thissler
Nine of Deep Space and others by Captain_Revo
Spectres: Episode 6 by hippiejohn  and other contest entries
King for a Day by CaptPFDennis (the new one I forgot the title of)
Honour in Delivery by Woody_Valley
The Space Race by Wan5

and many more.

This is the first of many podcasts we intend to do and we plan to include guests from all around the STO community with an eye toward the Foundry.

One note is that we’re all fairly new at this, so forgive us any extraneous noise or poor microphones. We’ll work the kinks out over time.

If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover or would like to be a guest-host, e-mail us at FoundryRoundtable@live.com or follow us on Twitter: @FoundryRoundtab

So looking through today’s Ask Cryptic, and there was one Foundry related question, and guess what? It was mine!

Q: (drogyn1701) Would you ever consider allowing Foundry authors to submit KDF missions to become “official content” with XP rewards in order to flesh out the KDF side and create 1-51 PvE level progression like the one Cryptic created for the Federation.

Dstahl: This is one of the goals of developing our Foundry Spotlight feature. In addition to being able to flag specific missions for rewards, we also will be looking into the ability to “copy and freeze” specific Foundry missions so we can do exactly what you are describing. We will maintain the credits/tips for the author, while giving us a safe copy that isn’t subject to the author revising it further.

Noice! Not a new idea as many of you have pointed out, but a good one. So get workin’ on that Cryptic!

Both editing and playing Foundry missions became an impossibility for about eight hours Wednesday afternoon and evening. People began noticing the Foundry had gone offline about 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (6:30 p.m. GMT). A short time later PWE_BranFlakes made this post in the Federation News Network section of the official forums.

Hi Captains,

The Foundry for Star Trek Online is currently unavailable. The team is aware of this and will provide updates to this thread as they become available.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

UPDATE #1 (1:37pm PDT): This applies to both editing and playing Foundry projects.

BranFlakes later said the team was working to bring the Foundry back up with a target time of 7 p.m. Pacific Time, which was later revised to 8 p.m., though he warned that it could be either earlier or later.

Reports started coming in about 8:30 p.m. that the Foundry was back online. BranFlakes updated his thread on the official forums sometime later.

UPDATE #4 (9:08pm PDT): The Foundry for Star Trek Online is now available for use, including both the editing and playing of projects. If you see any irregularities with any of your missions (which you shouldn’t), please send me a PM with your mission name, project code, and what’s wrong. I will not be able to respond to PMs, but I will pass along the information to the team.

Also on Wednesday, at least two people reported entire maps missing from their Foundry projects. A hitherto unknown dev called “isomorphism” made this post:

I really appreciate your prompt report. An operational problem caused sudden Foundry data loss that affected a fairly random selection of projects. With the information you provided, we were able to very quickly isolate the issue.

We’ve been working on repairing this issue all day. When we bring the Foundry back online, your project will be totally intact.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and the scare of seeing all of your hard work mysteriously missing.

I encourage all authors to check their missions. As BranFlakes stated in his thread, anyone who experiences any problems should PM him with the mission name, project code and what’s wrong. It may also be prudent not to publish anything important for a day or so to make sure all the problems have been ironed out.

 As I was goin’ over
The Cowrk and Ke’Ri Mountains
I saw Captain Ferel, and his money he was countin’

I first produced my pistol, and then produced my Bat’Leth
I said, “Stand and deliver! Or Fek’Lhr he may take you!”

My second new mission in as many weeks is now live!.

Mission Name: Raktajino in a Jar
Author: drogyn1701
Level: 16+
Start: Ganalda System, Eta Eridani Sector Block

Summary: Taking a Ferengi captain’s stash of gold-pressed latinum sounds like great idea, right? Think again! Accused of murder most foul, you must navigate treacherous females, the Ferengi legal system and the psychotic filled prison to get free of the mess you created.

A fairly quick story mission with a mix of talking and combat.

Made for the Gates of Sto’vo’kor Ferengi contest!

Some pictures after the break:
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