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A question for the management and community
thegrandnagus1
Posts: 447 Arc User
So, I think we can all agree that we would like to see more content development for Champs. However, the unfortunate truth is the game simply has a small development budget, in comparison with Cryptic's other games, because it makes less money than Cryptic's other games. We don't have to like this, but it's just a simple truth.
However, here is my question: let's say the community could agree(for the most part, maybe a poll) on a certain type of content they would like to see. Could the devs or someone in the know figure out if the community spends X amount of money on zen that is transferred specifically to Champs, that they can justify developing that type of content?
And to the community, if the devs or someone in the know said they could get approval to develop X content if X amount of money is spent, would you actually be willing to do it?
However, here is my question: let's say the community could agree(for the most part, maybe a poll) on a certain type of content they would like to see. Could the devs or someone in the know figure out if the community spends X amount of money on zen that is transferred specifically to Champs, that they can justify developing that type of content?
And to the community, if the devs or someone in the know said they could get approval to develop X content if X amount of money is spent, would you actually be willing to do it?
Post edited by thegrandnagus1 on
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They need to make user made content an option. Maybe make dedicated servers a thing.
Compare populations of user made content enabled sandbox game to closed 'wait for devs to make content' game
Oh look no lawsuit.
Garry's Mod is hardly what I call a good example.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Considering Cryptic lost Atari $50 million in two years and Garry's Mod made $22 million in one year, I think it's a good example. Especially considering recent news:
Thinking inside the box only builds thicker coffin.
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Actually, it isn't a good demosntration because Garry's Mod isn't in control of the developers and if you allow players free reign over the game... well goodbye to anything sane. Cheaters and griefers would be the least of your problems.
It isn't thinking inside the box. It's actually looking at the box you propose compare to what already exists, seeing what's going on there, and taking note that allowing a bunch fo immature people loose on the entire whole will result in more damage.
And again if Cryptic is not making the game who gets the money? Your argument becomes highly invalid when you start balking about making money when in the end there would be no money to be made for Cryptic going that route.
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I could certainly get behind a kick starter type set up for some kind of paid expansion sized update
It would be an interesting experiment, for sure.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
I'd contribute.
@dr490nbr347hi / Playing since January 25, '11
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Wow you are incredibly short sighted. This game made to be user moddable would require it to not pretend to be an MMO anymore and sell a Buy once play forever license that allows for private dedicated servers. Money up front, maybe $22 Million dollars of it. Just like Gary's Mod.
Oh you can't fathom that because you already paid for the old limited less fun version of the game.
There's plenty of places, like Gary's Mod Tower where things are not ridiculous all the time. Things are pretty far on the purely stupid side in Champions Online if you listen in on some RP, so there's not much difference between Gary's Mod sand box goofery and Champions Online RP weirdness.
You are already judging tens of thousands of players you can't possibly know anything about.
That arrogance within your bubble of ignorance is blinding you to the potential this game and all those potential players could have.
They even said no to this when we offered to crowd fund the Foundry.
You really are playing the naivety card. You don't have to go far, YouTube has plenty of "monuments" to Garry's Mod and what people would make in free modding environments. The number of sex mod add-ons with Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim, or even Second Life, was just ridiculous, not to mention how many mods would give uber items, and then new mods to try to make items even more uber than those. If you gave free reign to development to the player base, the fact you under estimate how far players would go shows a naivety that is just unbelievable and makes me wonder if you are just trolling it that way and honestly believe that out of 10,000 players you don't believe that many would go that route, though I am betting that out of those 10,000 only a fraction would bother modding and of those modders a good chunk of them wouldn't bother with things like balance, decency or taste and would actually put up what many would consider juvenile or taboo.
Seriously, go take a dip in STO or Neverwinters Foundry missions, even some that are "highly rated" and then come back saying people would try to make quality. Hell, most of the Neverwinter ones complaina bout control of loot and tell players if they had the power they would be giving top quality items for their Foundry missions, or better. Then you have plenty of foundry missions that are either just designed to bypass systemst o get rewards quicker or just quick grabs, completely bypassing the reason the entire foundry is there.
To misquote Yahtzee, "You have to wade through a bunch of s@(t first before you actually find a gem of a well made mod from the collective player base."
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You want to talk about youtube?
Champions Online's most viewed video is a ten minute play through from five years ago.
Gary's Mod users have made a full length feature film with at least a hundred thousand more views.
Where's our feature film?
Nobody said they'd make quailty, they's have fun making the things they make and some people would have fun trying it out. Some people would be dedicated and surpass all others.
You've also not answered the question; How does this benefit Cryptic and make them money? If other people are making content for them, then there is no money to be made for Cryptic. Considering Bethesda and Valve tried that greedy route of making modders mods charged and it bombed so hard that Valve and Bethesda had to conduct full refunds not more than a couple of days later, I don't see Cryptic making any money off this venture.
And quality and fun generally go hand in hand. A mod designed to troll people is only fun to the trolls, aka see Garry's Mod.
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If you are only looking for someone to argue with, don't bother reading any further. But if you legitimately want to know, the simple fact is people who are still playing a game are more likely to spend money than people who aren't still playing a game. Pretty obvious, right? But the truth of the matter is that after someone plays through all of the official content, and there's nothing else, they are probably going to just get bored and leave. But if there is player made foundry content, that person might just stick around. And they might decide to create a new character, and buy a new costume or power or something. And that is money Cryptic wouldn't have made if that person left.
I am personally proof of this, because one of the reasons I've played STO as long as I have is the foundry. It's cool to know that there is always a new mission I have never played before, every single time I log in. They might not all be great, but some of them are, and some of them are the most fun I have had playing that game, period. And because I have stuck around as long as I have, I have bought many ships that I wouldn't have otherwise. So yes, the foundry makes Cryptic money simply by keeping some people around that would have gotten bored and left otherwise. It might not be a ton, but if it is enough to justify the development cost, then it's worth it.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
The Valve/Bethesda plan to charge for mods failed because it was for a game that relied on free mods for years, so modders openly shared their code and assets with each other. I can recall at least one story where a paid mod had integrated code from a free mod, but the free modder got zero share of the revenue. If they establish a market for paid mods at the launch of a game, maybe they'll see better success, because everybody will be starting out with both free and paid mods in mind. It would be interesting to see how mods are licensed, and which open source licenses (BSD, (L)GPL, Creative Commons) might be preferred.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Currently they have a try before you buy, pay you to play option and have to provide content updates to keep the customers they have active while they continue to support a development team, for Taco Bell and whiskey maybe, but support a team they must.
If they had a product that they could sell outright for $50 or $10 to x number of customers, and those customers made content that made the game more fun and popular, then x number of new customers may become interested and also buy the game. Then they would have a new cash stream. What they got is a limited tiny box of options that many many people get bored with and complain about eventually. It's the tiny box they get angry over.
Cryptic could fill a big hole in the game business: Super Hero Sandbox.
I guess others might have that market, for what it's worth.
The inability to destroy a tree with all the power to take down a Megadestroid is pretty lame. A mod could change that and the world would suddenly be alive until you blast it. Those stupid cars all jammed up on top of each others model in MC? Could be fixed by one of us instead of persisting for 5 years. Same with that Crack in the landscape in City Center that shows the void below the map. New characters in the same old maps? It's a mod.
Infinite Q? whatever, everything can be had for $10 to $50 and/or a mod, if you want to play that way.
We do that already, we don't need grounds. We brew with whole bean oAo
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Estimates look a bit low, $200 for 'deep' crafting system?
Oh I guess you can get it for $36 and the rest is the time it takes to install and test it.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Pretty much. Contract or no, the IP holder can pull or refuse to renew no matter how profitable. SWG and WAR both lost their license not because they were not making money but because the companies refused to renew, because of other prospects on the horizon.
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The Champs IP is definitely a great asset for Cryptic, because superheroes are as popular as they have ever been in pop culture. The only question at this point is whether this game can*(see below) ever truly recognize that value, or if it will take Champs 2. Fortunately for Cryptic, since they own the IP they could theoretically make Champs 2 any time they want(assuming PW let them).
*And by "can", I don't mean what they *could* do *IF* they had a big budget to work with, I mean what they "can" *actually* do with the resources they have.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Le me be clear up front: I *wish* they would just invest a bunch in this game, add a bunch of new things, advertise, and get a bunch of new players. That is my first choice. Everybody understand that point? If so, read on.
However, this game doesn't exactly have the best reputation. It's "first impression" has pretty much been made in the market. So even if they did invest a bunch in this game, it still would not make a *huge* splash, at this point.
At this point you're probably wondering a few things:
1) If they won't invest in this game, why would they invest in a sequel?
Well, a sequel would effectively be a new game, and they are always investing in new games before they actually see the payoff. And because of this game's not-so-stellar rep, investing in a sequel *might* actually make more marketing/financial sense.
2) If this game doesn't have a good rep, why would someone be willing to try a sequel?
There are many reasons. First and foremost is the obvious marketing tactic of "we took all the lessons we learned from Champs 1 and made Champs 2 even better!" Second, there is also a social element to starting a new game when it first launches, where everyone is on an equal playing field and no one has been at end game for years with all the best gear. Finally, a new game would have either a new engine, or much newer version of the engine this game has, meaning they would be able to advertise all of the cool new things that the sequel will have that weren't in the original.
Of course, it goes without saying that some people wouldn't want to play this game or it's sequel, regardless of the reasons I just mentioned above. But you can name any game on the market and there are some people who don't want to play it, so that means pretty much nothing.
In closing, I repeat that I would prefer they simply invest in this game and make it as great as it can be. Unfortunately, I don't really see that happening. I have a feeling that if they are going to invest in a superhero game using the Champs IP, it is more likely to be a sequel.
And here is the best part: you don't have to agree with anything I said. Just because you may have a different opinion does not mean I'm saying you are wrong. But conversely, just because you may have a different opinion does not mean I am wrong either. We are both equally "right", regardless of what our opinions are.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
This is where a Foundry could be infinitely helpful. From even just a fraction of the veteran community that still participates, I know we could get some really great content.
As I recall, however, the lack of a Foundry in CO is not from insufficient resources, but from insurmountable technology.
Yeah every time we ask the devs "Hey can you do this?" they go "No" .
We ask "why the hell not?" they go "Its a tech issue".
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I don't think "tech" is the problem. Champs shares the same engine as STO and NW(I know, different versions, etc), but the point is that this engine supports the foundry...or else it couldn't be in STO and NW.
Now, there is a difference between something being *possible*, and something being hard to do. I just did a search and couldn't actually find any dev quotes about the foundry in Champs, but as I recall the issue is that it would take a huge amount of time to tag all of the assets in this game for use in the foundry, and since this game has a pretty small team, they can't devote that time to that project when there is no direct monetary correlation.
But if someone has an actual quote to the contrary, I'd love to read it so I can have a better understanding.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Seriously the devs of old favorite line used to be "its a tech issue!" no matter the question.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
This is oft misguided notion. Neverwinter's engine is far removed from Champions engine as STO's engine is far removed from both of those. You have three generations of different engines and tweaks, and one of the issues was that none of the objects in Champions were tagged for the Foundry, the other being there are no maps created. There might be some core things that are similar but saying they share the same engine is not accurate anymore.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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was wondering when this was going to remembered.
Someone found the front page of the Foundry in CO files.
However we don't have the assets tagged.
STO's team took a year to get their Foundry to work. It goes down with each of the larger updates, as they have to adjust things.
Hey, lack of updates is a bonus at that point. Unless all the modded assets also have to be added in, in which case, more work.
so some good/some bad.
when we got the resource limit increase.
TT's comment was along the line of "Radioscience managed to find the file, while digging."
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It's not me saying it, it is the actual developers:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=17589311&postcount=5
As he said, that does not mean every feature get's ported to every game(which is obvious, or we wouldn't be having this discussion). However the point is, the 3 games DO share the SAME engine, although that does not mean they all work exactly the same.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=196621&highlight=foundry+tech
(Nostalgic to see so many old names in that thread that are gone now...)
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8029451&postcount=48
So as I said originally(a few posts up), all 3 game share the SAME engine. And yes, as I acknowledged, they use different versions. However, saying that it is "not accurate" to say they use the same engine, when the actual developers say that, is 100% false.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Well, it's about as accurate as saying that the Vampire Bloodlines Engine could run say Left 4 Dead content. While technically both engines are the Source engine, Left 4 Dead's engien is so far removed that I doubt the Bloodlines version could load things up. Just like there are currently assets in both Neverwinter and STO I doubt would even function if plugged into Champions at this time. For instance, Champions does not have any tech that orients a model to the ground, but both STO and Neverwinter do.
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Of course you can't copy/paste things from one game to another. No one said you could. However, Taco did in fact confirm that at least once a year they sync up all 3 games to the same branch of code. That's much more than can be said about the examples you just mentioned.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
The last time I asked about the engine being upgraded, TrailTurtle said there were no such plans at this time on the subject and this was last year when they released the Mechanon event. Call me skeptical since we've yet to see anything bleed down to Champs of all the improvements and better chat functionality, for instance, from the sister games.
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Who are you replying to? No one was talking about Champs getting an "engine upgrade". It seems like you are replying to things that no one was even saying.
But for the record, here is what just happened:
1) a few posts back, I said that all 3 of Cryptic's games share the same engine, but different versions.
2) You decided to quote my post directly, and say that was "not accurate anymore".
3) Then I provided quotes from the a dev, confirming exactly what I said.
So what, exactly, are you disagreeing with?
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
That merges in Cryptic's source code repository have bugger all to do with what features get implemented in what game.
The lack of Foundry tagging in CO's asset library is a known issue. That doesn't, however, explain other engine-level features that aren't implemented in CO.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Who said otherwise? Who said that Cryptic's code branch merges *do* decide what features get implemented? No one. See, that's exactly what I'm talking about: replying to things nobody actually said. It makes no sense.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
But you are saying, according to Taco that the code gets merged at least once a year. Which means that certain improved functions from one game that are shared across games should appear in their fellow games, but they don't. Both STO and Neverwinter have a much better chat interface to Champions, yet Champions is still using the same buggy chat interface we've had since launch.
Again,c all me skeptical, but such merger of code would at least see some bleed down of improvements, not bugger all.
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I'm not saying that, he is. But sure, "I'm saying he's saying it"...because I'm telling you he said it. Whatever.
He never said that, and I never said that. In fact, he specifically said that just because they sync the codes, that does *not* mean specific features will be shared. See, you are replying to things no one actually said.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Except when you change the root code, it would mean they would have to go through and update much of the code in such mergings, otherwise you end up with bad calls and a lot of fatal errors. So, it still makes no sense.
Example: See Kitchen Sink Patch 1, 2, and 3.
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It's actually a really long post, so you can read the rest here:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=13463431#post13463431
There was also a post from Captain Geko which I can't find, but he basically said the engine will do what they make it do, but some things are harder than others, and some things they simply don't WANT to do.
So, foundry for Champs? Yes, it IS possible. However, it is not likely, for various reasons.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Ok, it makes no sense to you. That's fine. It makes no sense to me either, because I'm not a developer or a programmer and I'm not familiar with their code or their systems. But beyond us not understanding it, are you saying he's wrong? That he's lying? What is your point other than that you don't understand?
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Well, I am just stating it to you, they've not always been on the level with us before. While Taco does talk a lot and he tries to explain things, and keep relations going, it can still very much be a the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. And he obviously can't be negative about the company, if he wants to keep his job.
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Just to be clear, are you saying he doesn't know what he's talking about? Or that he is intentionally misleading us? Just clearly state what you are implying. Why beat around the bush?
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends