Anyone who plays the game for a few days or peeks in the forums knows that one of the biggest pitfalls of this game thus far is lack of amazing content. Many of the planets are small and "unexplorable," you cannot visit much of your ship interior, outposts architectures aren't very impressive, etc, etc. Yeah, I know, it's just been released. But, still, it's suprisingly not very "massive-feeling" with it's limited content. I'll be honest, probably the only real reason I'm still playing is because I want it to succeed and be a good, solid game eventually--that, and I can almost lose myself in the Star Trek RP with my imagination while playing.
But, rather than simply complaining about it, I thought about what could be done with this to make the game better, as nothing would make me happier than to finally see a great STO game realized...
To sum it up in a phrase: "user-generated content."
Probably one of the smartest moves Cryptic could do would be to create a feature-set that allows for users to create their own content and somehow share it with everyone: from ships (external modeling, interior layout, etc) to planets and outposts. If they could churn out a utility similar to something like QERadiant (shout-out to my Quake-engine level creators!) that allowed for players to create planets (complete with scripts, effects, and textures), ship interiors, etc, Cryptic would have rediculous amounts of amazing content overnight at their disposal. They've got to have something internal polished and working well--how hard would it truly be to release a limited form of it which, while protecting their IP, would allow for us to create awesome environments to share with everyone? Put
us to work!
Yeah, I know the "sharing with everyone" part becomes very difficult, and there's no way I could personally understand the complexities of development on a game I didn't help develop, but the game would change overnight if Cryptic figured out how to make the concept work with their design. For example, rather than making user-generated stuff live immediately somehow (which is admittedly difficult, but could be accomplished with some new "Uncharted Space Exploration" system), it could go through an official submission process. Perhaps, after a quick looksie by a Cryptic team member to confirm it meets some basic level of asthetic standard, it would be placed on the test server they're alledgely setting up, and have other players test and iron out the bugs prior to it being released in a content patch--could even allow for players testing it to vote on which should be accepted in release thereby nearly completely removing Cryptic from responsibilities of testing and QA verification--let us do the work! We're eager to help!
After all so many here, like me, would LOVE an opportunity to make this a better game and add new content. I'd love to be able to design a new ship and matching ship interior, to create a huge planet to explore, to create new life-form models to inhabit these worlds, etc. And to see them actually put into the real game via a content patch for others to truly explore new worlds--I'd probably wet myself!

Thoughts, comments, flames?
- DarkGrudge
Comments
As far as player created content for Star Trek. I cant see that happening due to the fact that its one of the largest franchises for movies/tv there is besides like star wars or something. Or at least used to be. I cant see them or trekkies being down with this lol.
But this is just my opinion.
As far as trekkies not accepting it--we are the trekkies that'd be designing the content! As mentioned in my OP, if it goes through a submission process, the "bad" or "non-fitting" ones could be screened out effectively.
...just my thoughts anyway.
Edit* wow I just used epic, I don't think I have ever used that before. should I be worried? *
As for what you suggest. Its possible, but like everything else, 50% of the people would whine and cry about it, but its not a totally bad idea, especially if people will be double checking it and making sure it fits into the star trek universe nicely. If thats the case then even i could agree to it. but it would have to be really watched.
good god are you kidding me? trekkies are responsible for some of the most heinous fan-fic imaginable. They'd eat this chance up.
Yeah, I fully agree. I don't want the floodgates to open and let even more bad, non-Trek, TRIBBLE to filter into the game. But, a simple voting mechanism while it's on the test server on "how-trekky" it is would suffice. After all, all you'd really have to check for is if it uses main characters, impacts the time-line negatively, or otherwise intrudes on the over-all story progression. That and just make sure the new stuff looks cool enough. It'd be pretty easy to spot things like this, I'd think.
I wouldn't underestimate those who have the talent for this--I've seen some amazing maps and content in previous games that are on scope with those here.
I also would like user created content very much. You may want to post this request in this thread :
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=102017
A dev posted there and said he finds it handy and well organized. Your suggestions wouldn't go unnoticed. I also asked for players created content along with more diplomacy and more puzzles solving in the exploration missions.
There are good chances to get players created content in STO because Cryptic already said that they want it. In this interview for instance, Jack Emmert said :
http://www.playhard.ru/Article.aspx?id=3836
Furthermore, I asked him about that during the last chat :
http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Gaming/Star-Trek-Online-Live-Chat-Transcript/td-p/91426
A lot of players are worried about the side effect of players created content to the game. Indeed, in COX, a large amount of those missions were XP farming galores used to level up ultra fast and to get rich in no time, destroying both the fun and the economy. Strong anti-farming measures were taken and the game is now slowly recovering. But there is no reason to be afraid of that, because there are many ways to prevent large scale farming. For instance the players created missions could get only moderate XP rewards and only the FIRST players created mission of the day would give you XP. You can play them all day long but get XP only once a day. It's just one example.
Errr may I have the Romulan version for my holodeck pretty please
Players generated content doesn't mean Cryptic won't create PVE content.
The players created content would be sorted and rated by the players as in COX. I tried it lately and I was able to find an hilarious US political parody, then a dark hardcore lore mission in less than 5 clicks. A few searching features and you're all set.
As for gaining XP from UGC, i can see that being either SEVERLY limited, or non existant. I'd play UGC for story, not leveling.
Same here. I'd like to work on a story arc too, with others players.
My wet dream : a team of holonovelists from USA, Germany and France working together to produce a 24 episodes season translated into the three languages with one new episode every 2 weeks. That would be neat.
*Raises hand to volunteer*
I would be happy doing these episodes even if there was no loot or Skill Point award, or if the awards were only presented once a day no matter what mission you ran. Making it feel like an Academy training mission or the Holodeck. I hear CBS is not on board with the idea, citing IP concerns.
Ouch this would hurt. Any official source for that, or is it just rumors ?
*Cackles* I'm all on board for this.
I think you miss the point--it's about the fun of creation and adding to the game. Plus, it gives the advantage of having others who do like to do this stuff give those of us who don't something more to do!
Even if XP/Merit/etc isn't given from these, I'm sure people would still explore them for grins.