This is something Cryptic must get right. This tool must be decently powerful!
Maps:
Maps must be fully customizable. Though Preset maps (like DS9, Starbase One, etc) are nice we have to also be able to customize the layouts of our maps to a great extent. Basically like in the GREAT WarCraft III editor where you can "paint" the objects to the map and make it have a unique feel.
This goes for ground and space. If I want to put a planet down give me a huge list of the available planets, let me select it, then let me put it down where I want it to be. Let me pick a hallway and let me "draw" where it leads.
Give me enough options to truly be able to make a map my own. Like if I want to make an outdoors map give me all those crazy buildings and statues. Give me as many options as possible so the customization of the maps can be great.
At the same time, again, have a selection of preset maps too so if we want to have a UGC thing happen in DS9 we don't have to recreate it. Though we could if we wanted to.
NPC Control:
Control over NPCs,friendly or enemy, must be vast.
I want them to do what I want them to do. I want to be able to script them and do actions from making them walk a specific path, to making them shapeshift, to making them say what I want them to say, etc etc etc. The list goes on.
I must have full control over placing enemies and allies. Everything NPC!
Let us even control enemy stats. It doesn't seem we're going to get rewarded anyways (too abusable) so why not let me customize the stats of a Vulcan Love Slave to be in the Q power area? :P
The more control over the NPCs we have, from their actions to abilities to stats, the better the stories we can make and the more immersive we can make it.
Real Character Controls:
Hey now this is a big one. If we want let us CHANGE what character someone is (kind of). Like if we want to disguise our character. Maybe there will be a cutscene that an author wants to play out while your character is frozen or watching from afar.
Maybe our UGC takes place in the past and everyone has to wear an Original Series uniform! Maybe everyone needs to be human for this UGC.
Maybe you play some UGC where you're transformed into a chair. Who knows! :P
The point is let us control the real player characters to some extent. This would be limited to avoid abuse (and I'd think any UGC would have an "ESCAPE" button to just leave at any moment).
Environmental Controls:
From rain, to fog levels. Maybe you're under fire and you shake from time to time. Simple idea.
Make it CRAZY GAME friendly:
UGC often has non-sense crazy games that are just for fun. Things which don't even attempt to make sense or follow any lore.
Like maybe there's a UCG of hide and seek. Maybe a minigame crazy festival like Uther Party from WCIII UGC or maybe a crazy STO version of Tower Defense.
These should all be possible. They're fun, have insane replay value and add to the experience.
DIFFERENCIATE LORE UGC and JUST FOR FUN UGC:
Some people, for some crazy reason, don't like crazy games that make no sense (I love them). There should be two sections to browse for these UGC games. Games that the authors attempt to stick to the lore and be serious. And then just a section for everything else.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something.
UGC is to many people the epitome of replayability. Though not all of it will be of quality (some just trash) if there's enough community support and if the tools are strong enough you've got yourself the potential to have incredible amounts of content and replayability added to whatever medium.
To me if Cryptic gets it right THIS is when stuff will get interesting. I'd look forward to making my own stories in it too.
Also as a side note... I don't care if there's ZERO reward for this. UGC is often stupidly fun for me.
Comments
It would let me create environs and situations from scratch to film, and (ideally) let me script all the action right down to weapons fire.
If you think about it, the UGC system itself is really half of that, its only a matter of hooking it into the Demo system, and adding controls for character actions/pathing, which you would need anyways for making missions.
that would be a shame.....
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The solution is pretty easy: either dont allow people to level from UGC, or make UGC leveling reduced from normal leveling.
Seriously though the Starcraft 2 map editor is so powerful you can make an fps, a puzzle game, an open world sandbox game. And oh yeah, in case you don't know starcraft 2 is an rts for it's base game. All those other things are strictly fiddling with the UGC.
It would also keep people from locking themselves in the holoshed at lvl 1 and emerging RA lol
What you say is irrelevant. The thing about the UGC stuff is that it'll be so dynamic, content rich and fun that you won't care that there's no reward.