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Release the mission builder to the public

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Cryptic you need to halt all your attempts at creating new content yourselves and instead concentrate all of your development resources on building a system where users can create their own episodes, upload them to the server and invite everyone to try them out.

Find out what the players are cabable of. PVE Missions, PVP games, solo missions, raids, you would very soon have more content than anyone could ever finish.

The way STO is designed with its instanced zones seems perfectly suited for this.

And Star Trek itself lends itself to it.

For starters you would soon see every television episode built into the game as a mission. Imagine being able to play an entire series of DS9 or TNG as a set of missions.

Now that would be something worth paying a subscription fee for.
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Architect mission grind...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    While a fun idea it is not really realistic. It is thier servers and they would have to bug test and implement every new build that a fan posts. And that would probably take more time then actually building new stuff themselves.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I'm all for users created content but this is too soon IMHO : there is no way to produce high quality episodes with the limited gameplay mechanics we have right now. I'd rather see them add minigames, a diplomacy system and *then* work on a story teller / mission architect.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Given some of the player names and ship names...Cryptic would have to hire a small army of people to QA the results, in order to provide us with decent material. I can just imagine a mission where Picard is missing...and you break in to find him and Riker making out on the holodeck.

    Or investigate a planet where giant genitalia are attacking people.

    Or defeating squads of klingons looking for shurbbery, with names like Ker'Mit or Pi'Geh

    Honestly...while it sounds good on paper...it would probably be ridiculous. I'd prefer to leave it to the professionals, than a bunch of armchair mmo developers.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Strombonni wrote:
    Given some of the player names and ship names...Cryptic would have to hire a small army of people to QA the results, in order to provide us with decent material. I can just imagine a mission where Picard is missing...and you break in to find him and Riker making out on the holodeck.

    Or investigate a planet where giant genitalia are attacking people.

    Or defeating squads of klingons looking for shurbbery, with names like Ker'Mit or Pi'Geh

    Honestly...while it sounds good on paper...it would probably be ridiculous. I'd prefer to leave it to the professionals, than a bunch of armchair mmo developers.

    For reasons like this, I doubt Cryptic would be able to get permission for fans to make episodes.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    other down side to this it would give the gold spammers away of making easy missions for grinding.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I would be in favor of a monthly or quarterly contest. submit your idea best idea wins, and let them do the actual creation from our ideas and put it in game as a special mission, naturaly it will scale to the players level so everyone could enjoy it
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I am sure you would get a load of rubbish created, but it wouldnt get played much.

    The good content would become the popular content. Through word of mouth or through a rating system.

    The buggy content wouldnt get played either, no need for Cryptic to waste resources with QA and bug testing of user content. The users will do that themselves. Cryptic just have to QA the mission builder itself.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Muppetier wrote: »
    I am sure you would get a load of rubbish created, but it wouldnt get played much.

    The good content would become the popular content. Through word of mouth or through a rating system.

    The buggy content wouldnt get played either, no need for Cryptic to waste resources with QA and bug testing of user content. The users will do that themselves. Cryptic just have to QA the mission builder itself.

    CBS isn't going to care that no one is playing bad content - they'll blow a gasket just because it exists.

    This idea has some huge implementation hurdles.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    NinetyNine wrote:
    Architect mission grind...

    This.

    It's already been done. Guess no one has played CoH/CoV?

    Player generated content won't hit STO for awhile yet...IMO.

    And if/when it does, NinetyNine is right, it will be 1 mission that people grind.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    LF bubble team! pst!


    Seriously, while there were some amazing player-created missions in the CoH architect, I think the game quality dropped exponentially after the XP farms became the "only way to level." Players would hit max level and have no idea how to play their class, have no desire to do anything that required thought, and expected everything to be as easy as the XP farms were. It's the reason I left.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    salion2 wrote: »
    For reasons like this, I doubt Cryptic would be able to get permission for fans to make episodes.

    I feel a bit bad, now, as my response was something of a downer.

    Let me say, I think it would be better if
    1. Cryptic focused on their tools, to make it so they can generate a greater variety of missions more quickly,
    2. Allowing an in-game mechanism for players to submit ideas. Not just a big block of text, but a form where they can submit structured ideas.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Users created content, if handled poorly, can lead to disaster, and a lot of players know that and are worried about such a feature. I'd like to reassure them.

    1) Too many missions would be terrible junk stories

    Have no fear ! Users created content comes with a rating system, search engine with keywords and usually the company doesn't have to check all the content. They may decide to check the best ones, selected by the players. I'm quite confident the community would rapidly make a website with the very top rating stories listed.

    2) CBS would never allow such stories

    Jack Emmert already said that they are planning to release a mission creator eventually for STO : I don't think he would say that if CBS wasn't ok with it.

    3) User created content = farming, this almost destroyed COX

    True, but there are many ways to prevent farming. For instance, you can limit the amount of XP earned by playing such missions and limit the rewards on a once a day basis : the first UCC you play will give you XP, but the other ones won't until tomorrow.

    4) The community doesn't have to produce content for free, this is Cryptic's job !

    Many trekkies love to write fanfics, some are excellent. I'd like to create stories myself, I find it a very fulfilling experience. Furthermore, this does not mean that Cryptic wouldn't work on content themselves. But imagine that they are working on a new faction, for instance Romulans, designing new ships, new skills, a new main PVE storyline. While you wait for this major expansion, it would be cool to find new stories to play for your admiral who is bored to days farming the same dailies over and over.

    5) A story teller would allow things you'd never have

    Imagine a team of 5 or 6 holonovelists from the US, Germany and France, working together on a full season, bringing you 24 interesting stories translated into the three languages of STO. One new episode a week, just as the TV show except that YOU are the hero. Frankly, isn't it worth it ? I know I would be delighted to work on such a project and trust me, I'm not alone.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I've played user/public created content before. 99% of it is TRIBBLE honestly.

    There a REASON why none of us work in the gaming industry.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Stuck wrote:
    LF bubble team! pst!


    Seriously, while there were some amazing player-created missions in the CoH architect, I think the game quality dropped exponentially after the XP farms became the "only way to level." Players would hit max level and have no idea how to play their class, have no desire to do anything that required thought, and expected everything to be as easy as the XP farms were. It's the reason I left.

    Remember, the original plan was not to have any rewards in the Architect missions. Then there were tokens. Then somewhere it became an XP fest.

    NCSoft messed up big on that one.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    i love the idea of people creating Missions

    just
    - put in a ratings system for user created missions (quality, canon, story, action)... so you can see if the mission is any good before you accept it.
    - if it is a real bad mission you can put it on ignore forever and vote it down
    - if it gets a lot of low ratings Cryptic can delete it by simple filtering
    - clearly say in the info that the mission is user-created content and cryptic is not going to support the content...
    - optional: put in the useraccount of the creator for bug reports
    - tell people what is forbidden storywise and give the players an option to report the mission if it does something evil... like using story parts from Stargate or whatever...

    we can bug test those missions ourselfs and if the majority finds a mission acceptable (max rating from 1000+ players or something, Cryptic may even take a look at the mission and implement it as a Sidequest with it's own planet.

    Should be no problem to implement another *random missions sector* on the Galaxy Map.
    Oh and make one for klingons too please !
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Strombonni wrote:
    Given some of the player names and ship names...Cryptic would have to hire a small army of people to QA the results, in order to provide us with decent material. I can just imagine a mission where Picard is missing...and you break in to find him and Riker making out on the holodeck.

    Or investigate a planet where giant genitalia are attacking people.

    Or defeating squads of klingons looking for shurbbery, with names like Ker'Mit or Pi'Geh

    Honestly...while it sounds good on paper...it would probably be ridiculous. I'd prefer to leave it to the professionals, than a bunch of armchair mmo developers.

    Damn. you gave me quite a few ideas for my next rpg gamemastering evening. thanks.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Later,after the game itself giets some work.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Delazure wrote: »

    5) A story teller would allow things you'd never have

    Imagine a team of 5 or 6 holonovelists from the US, Germany and France, working together on a full season, bringing you 24 interesting stories translated into the three languages of STO. One new episode a week, just as the TV show except that YOU are the hero. Frankly, isn't it worth it ? I know I would be delighted to work on such a project and trust me, I'm not alone.

    Oh man that would be awesome. Player created holo novels. Like someone said there would have to be a rating system. Perhaps Holo novels could be an addition to the crafting system. Creating them for Energy Credits. Price would be preset on popularity and length to prevent players from charging to much.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Even if we did get a player-generated content system, it'd be a massive undertaking. There needs to be server infrastructure to support it. There needs to be an interface for people to make stuff. There needs to be an interface so people can browse and select things that have been created.

    All this would need to be created from scratch. Even if the STO devs decide to do this now, it's not gonna happen overnight.

    When City of Heroes did this, it took them months to make - they were working on it for the better part of a year.

    And no, they can't just borrow the CoH system. The Architect stuff in City of Heroes was made by Paragon Studios, not Cryptic Studios... the group of former Cryptic devs that moved over to the new company when the game was sold.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    To this public?

    Oh boy....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Player created content in an approved and structured manner would be great and something STO could benefit greatly from. I cannot encourage this enough.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    ZenBrillig wrote:
    Remember, the original plan was not to have any rewards in the Architect missions. Then there were tokens. Then somewhere it became an XP fest.

    NCSoft messed up big on that one.

    I would be fine with there being no rewards, but I would like to see it. Sure, a lot of them might be TRIBBLE, but I have enough faith in Trek's general fanbase to think that there would be a number of them that were better than anything in the game so far.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Strombonni wrote:
    Given some of the player names and ship names...Cryptic would have to hire a small army of people to QA the results, in order to provide us with decent material. I can just imagine a mission where Picard is missing...and you break in to find him and Riker making out on the holodeck.

    Or investigate a planet where giant genitalia are attacking people.

    Or defeating squads of klingons looking for shurbbery, with names like Ker'Mit or Pi'Geh

    Honestly...while it sounds good on paper...it would probably be ridiculous. I'd prefer to leave it to the professionals, than a bunch of armchair mmo developers.

    This made me laugh. Thanks!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Umm - folks - this was added in Star Wars: Galaxies last year.

    They have a very clever system - you obtain 'story elements' within the game in the builder tutorial. After that they drop in suitable places (you might get a Jabba story element on Tatooine). Then they have some pretty smart templates you can drop the elements into (including talking NPCs to intro the adventure). You then package it and can give the package to other people or sell it on the market. The 'elements' ensure there is nothing that needs external rating for suitability.

    You can also save it, make copies, rate it, run it etc.

    Works really well.

    Oh yes, they also have very nice player housing (maybe our starships will have the same function one day).

    So - it is possible - even a game with very little dev support like SWG nowadays managed to implement it as a free upgrade.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    If a system could be in place, where if I create content it can loaded up by me and played offline and tested, then sent in and be reviewed, then yes, otherwise I just see all the issues in the making, beyond the lulz. Server coming down every 2.1853 seconds for another Picard/Worf Bloodlust make out session or what not. But if they got some people to go through and review then determine loot rewrds, then go for it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Oh god, please don't release the mission builder. I'd never leave my house for sure, then. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Muppetier wrote: »
    Cryptic you need to halt all your attempts at creating new content yourselves and instead concentrate all of your development resources on building a system where users can create their own episodes, upload them to the server and invite everyone to try them out.

    Find out what the players are cabable of. PVE Missions, PVP games, solo missions, raids, you would very soon have more content than anyone could ever finish.

    The way STO is designed with its instanced zones seems perfectly suited for this.

    And Star Trek itself lends itself to it.

    For starters you would soon see every television episode built into the game as a mission. Imagine being able to play an entire series of DS9 or TNG as a set of missions.

    Now that would be something worth paying a subscription fee for.


    I would agree to this only if Cryptic had an employee or two in chrage of collecting submissions, and then choosing the best of the bunch. Most of what people come up with will be TRIBBLE quite honestly, but there will be some truly gifted talent out there which will shine through. Those should be the mission implemented.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    If a system could be in place, where if I create content it can loaded up by me and played offline and tested, then sent in and be reviewed, then yes, otherwise I just see all the issues in the making, beyond the lulz. Server coming down every 2.1853 seconds for another Picard/Worf Bloodlust make out session or what not. But if they got some people to go through and review then determine loot rewrds, then go for it.

    Did you see what I posted above? Doesn't need to be submitted for approval with this sort of system.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I'd be interested in it. I have a lot of ideas down for a Trek fanfic, but I'm making no progress because I find it hard to stare at a screen of text for too long. That, and my writing skills aren't too amazing... I'm more into creative design, and something like this would help me get some ideas out for review by a community of peers.
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