Can TOR join on the user created content bandwagon ?

[Angedechu]

The rather average MMO ''Neverwinter Nights'' was praised for one thing, the addition of robust content editor.

 

Everquest Next will offer players a full content editor too.

 

The infamous ''other game'' is from a company that is usually very open to user-created content (Mods and maps for SC2 and SC) : it would not be impossible for them to release some sort of tool to edit content.

 

Could TOR join what is called in some circles (IGN, Eurogamer...) the next step in MMOs ?

 

As someone who used extensively fan-created content for others games, I'm very cynical about the probable quality of any fan-made flashpoint (cue to maps with a very phallic shape, or filled with 10 000 basic mobs that aggro at once, or have tastefully named mobs such as Darth Ihaveahugebulginglightsaberinmypants. )

 

Still, crummy content is content.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Angedechu

[Darth_Moonshadow]

Still, crummy content is content.

 

That's the same dangerous line of thinking that gave us Reality television.

[Elly_Dawn]

That's the same dangerous line of thinking that gave us Reality television.

 

Amen to that Moonshadow...

anyway user created content is far too easy to abuse, lets take for example that someone makes a level, and gives out a good reward for it in the form of a large sum of credits or equipment you can sell for a lot, the catch is you have to sit in this box for 15 minutes do nothing and collect your reward, so no, not a good idea at all...

[CaraExas]

Star Trek Online did it, its called the Foundry...in alot of ways it "saved" it. It took a couple months for it to get up and running. But there are some good stories in it...i like the idea.

[Elly_Dawn]

lol, that's funny cause the example i gave was based on my experience in the Foundry which i will shamefully admit i too exploited, but instead of credits i was farming Fleet Marks by sitting in a box doing nothing...

[Darth_Moonshadow]

Star Trek Online did it, its called the Foundry...in alot of ways it "saved" it. It took a couple months for it to get up and running. But there are some good stories in it...i like the idea.

 

Yeah, some. The rest is crappy fan fiction.

 

Trekkers are terrible writers.

 

Though to be fair, we have Revan....

[TheShadowzzz]

In my opinion I don't believe the people that would be willing to spend the time to create a half-decent or pretty good User-Created content would have enough invested to make their content something worth playing.

 

However the problem I see with this being implemented into the game is the rewards given to players who either make or take the time to complete these missions. As most content players do throughout the day is for the purpose of acquiring credits or commendations to acquire gear, it would make sense to think that players would want(or subsequently complain thereafter that there should have been) gear as rewards and it should be good gear worth the time.

 

I only see a few situations coming out of a User-Created Content System. (From the rewards/time required standpoint)

 

A.) I can see either a daily quest with mediocre to very minimal rewards for completing X number of user created missions or otherwise similar content. With no actual "drops" of significant quality (orange moddables or Artifact).

 

B.) The missions would actually drop significant pieces but they would need to limit the amount of drops per run to be equivalent to existing time to gear ratio (1piece per boss etc.) Essentially the gear would need to be limited to only dropping from bosses to prevent missions from being "Run this a million times because 66 blue moddables drop from every mob" kind of missions.

 

C.)Players could set up drop tables of sorts for their missions to represent the apparent difficulty of the mission however Bioware would need to limit either the access to the drops or the missions altogether(similar to weekly lockouts or a weekly limit like the F2P access to Warzones etc.

 

And I won't even go into the problem with XP on these as they would need to be seriously limited in the amount of XP gained from these, not so much so that it wouldn't be worth looking into at lower levels, but moreso that it would replace going to other planets and doing the class and planet storylines.

 

Just my two cents on the issue.

[Glumish]

As someone who used extensively fan-created content for others games, I'm very cynical about the probable quality of any fan-made flashpoint (cue to maps with a very phallic shape, or filled with 10 000 basic mobs that aggro at once, or have tastefully named mobs such as Darth Ihaveahugebulginglightsaberinmypants. )

 

I'm sure the people on RP servers will be able to create content with decent stories. Well, at least 1/4th of them.

 

As for the others, I sometimes question why they picked a RP server.

[ManiacDavis]

There are a lot of great examples of user created content saving or expanding games.

1.) Arma series with the DayZ mod

2.) Counterstrike was originally a mod for half-life

3.) Halo created Forge to create custom maps/gametypes

4.) Rift has some version of user generated content (never played it)

5.) DOTA was originally a warcraft mod spawning a whole new genre.

6.) Skyrim has a massive amount of user generated content expanding its lifespan.

7.) Homeworld 2

8.) GTA San Andreas

9.) Starcraft 2

 

There are many other examples but these are the first that come to mind. User generated content allows the developers more leeway in releasing content since the community is pumping out content.

Edited August 13, 2013 by ManiacDavis

[Aries_cz]

Well, NWN was never thought of as "MMO", it just allowed multiplayer for few people, just like Dungeons and Dragons, so I would not use that for comparison.

 

Also, player generated content is easily abused (someone is bound to make mission "click here for full Kell Dragon" or "go here for bajillion credits") so there would need to be ridiculously complex system for checking all new created content before integrating it.

 

Second, BW said (regarding possibility of Dragon age 3 toolset, but it applies here as well) that the problem of releasing SDKs for their newer games is that they do not own the engine, so it is always needed to have lengthy negotiations with the owners of engine and of course, paying the owners significant sum of cash.

[ManiacDavis]

Second, BW said (regarding possibility of Dragon age 3 toolset, but it applies here as well) that the problem of releasing SDKs for their newer games is that they do not own the engine, so it is always needed to have lengthy negotiations with the owners of engine and of course, paying the owners significant sum of cash.

 

"The basic HeroEngine source code license is $75,000 with a 7% revenue share" Source: http://www.heroengine.com/heroengine/licensing-options/

 

I am pretty sure Bioware/EA was able to negotiate a more favorable deal. Either way, the hero engine developers are getting paid their % no matter what. Creating new content, or expanding Bioware's development base to consumers should be completely within the bounds of the license. Of course this all depends upon the contract language which we will never see.

 

However, the development cost to implement a user interface that could be used by players to generate any content is outside the reach of the current development team and it is highly unlikely that EA would fund such an endeavor to expand the development team.

Edited August 13, 2013 by ManiacDavis

[Kellorion]

Amen to that Moonshadow...

anyway user created content is far too easy to abuse, lets take for example that someone makes a level, and gives out a good reward for it in the form of a large sum of credits or equipment you can sell for a lot, the catch is you have to sit in this box for 15 minutes do nothing and collect your reward, so no, not a good idea at all...

GAH, My eyes! They Burn!

[TechbotAlpha]

City of Heroes (RIP) was one of the first to pioneer user created missions, something most people either forget or don't know. It's still one of the things I miss most about it. And that game was running on an eight year old engine. Modern MMOs simply have no excuse =/

[Suromir]

City of Heroes (RIP) was one of the first to pioneer user created missions, something most people either forget or don't know. It's still one of the things I miss most about it. And that game was running on an eight year old engine. Modern MMOs simply have no excuse =/

 

and it was also the first abused and exploited. For a game as old as it was. They should have just let people do what they wanted. I enjoyed leveling characters in the shiny-new-exploit-friendly user created missions...since the grind otherwise was no fun anymore.

 

but their reaction to the abuse was like a childish tantrum tbh.

 

They ended up making it so the missions just weren't worth running.....those that do it for the story are a vaaaast minority.

 

they needed to find a better balance of time vs reward in the user created stuff instead of making it pointless for all but a small niche of an already small niche fanbase

[uniz]

neverwinter has gotten it right with their player made content. having actually played this said content I can tell you a few things.

 

the person making the content has NO Zero Zippo input as to what loot is dropped. that includes coins, boss chests and etc. many flatly state to not complain about the loot drops because they have no control over them. the game sets it automatically to what the solo boss encounters are for that level.

 

this player made content actually levels up to your level. so you can play it at 20 as well as at 60.

 

there is a minimum level for such content.

 

players upon completion gets to vote on the content, give brief feedback and there is a option to "tip" the maker too.

 

there are dailies for completing the content with rewards depending on your level

 

most if not all content is story driven and I have to say those I have played were very well done. players put a lot of time and effort in the ones I have completed. the best one was where at the beginning you killed off your "group".

 

they are solo content but I think a few were for groups.

 

sadly this is the only redeemable quality about neverwinter as the ui is beyond clunky.

 

I could see something like this being very popular in this game if done correctly. the question is will the hero engine be kind to allowing such to work.

[Quraswren]

SNIP...

 

 

Still, crummy content is content.

 

I can only hope we never see what your asking for.

 

Crummy content is still content... What a terrible line of thinking.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

That's the same dangerous line of thinking that gave us Reality television.

 

/signed

I love that this is a thread suggesting user generated content, but admits from the start that it's terrible.

 

So here's a terrible idea, but let's do it anyway.......

 

um no.

[DarthMaulUK]

Star Wars Galaxies offered this with players being able to create their own missions and content, then invite friends to try it out.

 

It's nothing new, its just publishers and developers just dont think outside the box. When you release a theme park MMO, they soon forget that they need to churn out regular content to keep players happy. Hence why so many MMOs have just fallen flat on their face.

 

WIll SWTOR offer it? Who knows but the game engine probably says otherwise.

[Andryah]

That's the same dangerous line of thinking that gave us Reality television.

 

Indeed.

 

Why is it that some players want an MMO to morph into their own personal playground of desire? There are games that fulfill the OPs desire.. and if that's what you want... by all means play them.

 

Play an MMO for what it offers you. It's game, not your career or life long goal.

[Andryah]

It's nothing new, its just publishers and developers just dont think outside the box. When you release a theme park MMO, they soon forget that they need to churn out regular content to keep players happy. Hence why so many MMOs have just fallen flat on their face.

 

Well... if it's been done for years now by other MMOs... then it's clearly not thinking outside the box in any way.

 

Protip: MMO companies are businesses. As businesses, they want to be profitable and grow over time. Bending a game completely off it's design philosophy to attract sandboxers is a recipe for disaster. The audience for sandbox is small as a percentage of the MMO player base. It's bad business to try to go after it as though it was a large percentage of the player base, especially when a few veteran MMOs already have that market pretty well locked.

 

Themepark, broad appeal, flexible access, more casual MMOs is where the volume of players is these days.

 

And the old tired argument that giving players the ability to create content > then developers creating content is inaccurate in the extreme. Players that can't be bothered to pace themselves through content in an MMO are not players that have the patience to create or play their own content. This is all just soapboxing for complaint about content. The problem is the fast-food MMO generation, not the content.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Andryah

[Mistress_Ivi]

Half-life, wait no... Quake 1 ... wait no, what was before those ... well, whatever. Point is, for as long as I can recall playing shooters and sourced out games in general, players have been able to incorperate their own mods. Those single player games that have huge followings, or strategy games that are discountinued (like LOTR:BFME) have modding communities that actually boost the game quite nicely.

 

Now, with an MMO... something along the lines of player created clothing, weapon designs, maps, flashpoints and potential daily areas all have HUGE potential to be exploited - unless - you have some kind of "Workshop" ... if anyone plays on Steam, you'll find it actually works. In some cases, the weapons and skins created for the games supplied do actually get placed into the game(s).

 

Awesom map made? Boss only has 1 HP? Well... EA can take the map, kill all the locals, replace with client 2's boss + art + specials ... and boom. Playermade and ready for LFG tool under a new category of "Indie flashpoints" - no epic reward, just standard basic comms or something... but it'd let players make flashpoints that are really hard (a challenge, for some) or operations etc... and those the dev's really love, they can "pay CC" for and incoperate into their "official" releases.

[TUXs]

No....please. I once believed in player created content...until I played it. Too many people think they're better at creating it than they truly are. Most player created anything simply sucks.

[Callaron]

Well, NWN was never thought of as "MMO", it just allowed multiplayer for few people, just like Dungeons and Dragons, so I would not use that for comparison.

 

Also, player generated content is easily abused (someone is bound to make mission "click here for full Kell Dragon" or "go here for bajillion credits") so there would need to be ridiculously complex system for checking all new created content before integrating it.

 

Second, BW said (regarding possibility of Dragon age 3 toolset, but it applies here as well) that the problem of releasing SDKs for their newer games is that they do not own the engine, so it is always needed to have lengthy negotiations with the owners of engine and of course, paying the owners significant sum of cash.

 

He wasn't talking about Neverwinter Nights the Bioware game, he was talking about "Neverwinter" the MMO that PWE/Cryptic Studios came out with earlier this year.

As for abusing the toolset in that game, not very likely - it has restrictions up the wazoo to prevent that kind of stuff.

Much to the chagrin of people that want to exploit it, you should see the complaints about the rewards some time.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Callaron

[Andryah]

No....please. I once believed in player created content...until I played it. Too many people think they're better at creating it than they truly are. Most player created anything simply sucks.

 

Total agreement with you on that TUXs.

 

Take our average daily forum cross-section of players.... now give them control over content... would we really expect anything other then soil + water = mud? followed by mud slinging and epic mud fights?

Edited August 13, 2013 by Andryah

[Callaron]

they needed to find a better balance of time vs reward in the user created stuff instead of making it pointless for all but a small niche of an already small niche fanbase

 

Neverwinter (and I imagine Star Trek) has learned from that though, while the rewards were crappy for user created content itself, there was also a daily for doing user created quests.

So they had some pretty good control over the rewards.

Also, users have zero control over the rewards - and quests pretty much have to be a minimum length to qualify for the daily.

Rest in peace, Mission Architect!

Edited August 13, 2013 by Callaron