I never tried the STO version but I did spend some time running Tipa's re-creations of classic EverQuest zones in NWO. My review of those experiences, particularly Tipa's "Newfallen" dungeon, positively gushes:
"It was great! At the end, when you get the chance to review and rate the Foundry you've just completed, I gave it five stars. For an old-time EQ player the nostalgia factor is through the roof. The physical reconstruction of Befallen is exemplary"
Tipa herself used regularly to review Neverwinter Foundries on her own, much-missed blog, West Karana. I loved reading those. Probably more than I would have loved playing them. The standard, as you'd imagine, was variable but there were gems to be discovered.
I'm a lot more familiar with EverQuest II's simplified take on the idea. There are nine posts tagged "Dungeon Maker" on this blog, dating back to when it was introduced as part of the controversial "features expansion, Age of Discovery.
I really liked the Dungeon Maker. I used it a lot when it was new and for quite a while afterwards. I made three full dungeons, all of which were quite silly and rather jolly. They were fun to make and run.
They didn't take long to put together. I don't think any of them took me much longer than a Sunday afternoon. They were quick to run, too. I published them all in-game and they got some play but most people had their mind on something more than cute dialog and silliness when they opened that Dungeon Maker window.
As Telwyn put it in a post about the closure of The Foundry:
"Sadly MMO players being what they so often are, min-maxers to the extreme, exploits were found and the system was heavily nerfed reward-wise... Players also made pits full of monsters that you could easily slaughter with ranged attacks from safety above as a way to speed farm experience."
Almost exactly what happened in EQII. From my own post on the latter days of the Dungeon Maker:
"The dungeons gave no loot per se, only a special currency, but the mobs you killed inside them did give xp. Very good xp. At least, it turned out it was very good if the dungeon-maker stuffed a few rooms with high-value, weak mobs, all piled up to be AE'd.
The most efficient mob slaughterhouses quickly rose to the top of the Dungeon Creator rankings and for the longest time almost all you could hear in /lfg was people forming groups to speed-run them. They had no story, no dialog, no script, no entertainment value of any kind. They were the definition of repetitive tedium but they were efficient so people did them. Over and over and over again."
It may not have mattered all that much when all games were offline and single player. If you want to cheat yourself, go ahead, knock yourself out. Who cares? In the context of a persistent shared space, though, where, whether you like it or not, elements of competetive play exist, such behaviors have an impact that can't be ignored.
In every case I've seen, developers, who one might, at best, call naive or optimistic, introduce systems and mechanics that experience and history should tell them will be exploited. And they are. Abusively, repeatedly and shamelessly.
Over time, if left unattended, these systems become a running sore. Some players gleefully indulge but far more grimly accept. When the widely-accepted understanding is that efficiency comes from doing something dull, repetitive and meaningless, that becomes the meta.
The demographic that enjoys and employs the tools in the way the developers intended - the creatives who put their own time and energy into making what they believe to be entertaining content and the explorers who consume it - find themselves heavily outnumbered by the achievers, who simply want to find the shortest route to the biggest reward.
At its worst, as happened in EQII, the exploits threaten to become a black hole that sucks the life out of the entire game. At which point the nerfs begin.
The developers always try to save their babies and they always fail. A succession of revisions incrementally reduce the attractiveness of the game mode, irritating both those exploiting it and those who want to see it gone, alike. Ever-resourceful, players find a way around the roadblocks. The nerfs intensify. Eventually the entire mechanic is reduced to a rewardless shell. That solves the problem: no-one makes any more content, no-one consumes any. Game over.
In EQII, I can confirm the Dungeon Maker died long ago, at least as a practical source of experience or reward. Holly Windstalker's Producer's Letter from December 2014 gives chapter and verse. It's still there, should you want to see it. I ran one of my dungeons just now and it still works. You just don't get anything for doing it except the pleasure of my so-called jokes. Other than that, the Dungeon Maker's mostly used for storage these days. You can stash a lot of house items in a Dungeon Maker dungeon.
I don't know if The Foundries in the two Cryptic games reached that nadir of decline before Cryptic pulled the plug. I don't play either game often and on the odd occasion I do I certainly don't visit the leaderboards to see if anyone's made any new dungeons lately.
The reason Cryptic give for closing The Foundry doesn't have anything to do with misuse or exploits, anyway. All that was dealt with long ago. It's merely that there's no longer anyone left working for the company who knows how the thing works. I imagine very few players are using it any more, either to entertain themselves or others. If it was still popular it would be worth training someone to keep it going.
Player-created content is an excellent idea in theory. It gives everyone more to do and it costs the company less. Unfortunately, players are, as always, their own worst enemies. There's no hope whatsoever that a substantial number won't ruin things for themselves and everyone else if they get the chance.
All of which sugests to me that game developers should think harder before introducing these systems and take much greater care to close all the loopholes beforehand. Yes, I know players will always find exploits no-one thought of but in most cases they're finding ones that anyone could have thought of. And should have.
Gaming has an incredible wealth and depth of talent just waiting to be tapped. No need to outsource or pay - all the resources you need are already there, playing the games, and they'll work for free. In fact, they'll probably pay you.
SOE/DBG's Player Studio shows how a more successful iteration can work. It, too, has had its problems, especially in recent times but it's still there, hanging on, and now Daybreak seem to be ready to blow some of the dust off and hang out a fresh shingle.
Maybe the Dungeon Maker will never make a comeback. Maybe submissions to Player Studio will continue to pile up and process slowly. It's still a better outlook than The Foundry's going to see, more's the pity.
As Wilhelm points out in the comments at TAGN, maintaining legacy systems can be a trial and an expense. On the other hand, closing them down can make you look a little desparate. Here's hoping Cryptic's parsimony doesn't signal the beginning of a trend.
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