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SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
One of the things I think that would retain players and even increase subs is something that has been talked about a lot on the forums but it seems to just slip back under the rock and never become a remote possibility.

MMO's that have smaller subscription bases and as a result less developer man hours to pace the community
need , have a real viscous cylce to contend with.

PLayers hop in and out of subscriber status as they await the next patch or update, only to grow bored of it and move on.

The solution for small MMO's is so plainly obvious it's almost painful to read post after post from lead developers directing the dev teams towards sinking their own game.

STO is still capable of success if at some point players had the abiulity to create holodeck type missions in a mission generator AND had a resource based territorial pvp endgame in addition to it's strike forces.

Eve online is very good at this, it's pve in comparison to STO is fairly generic and uninteresting, however it has continued to grow and prosper off it's very engaging and rewarding terrirtory control aspects.

Make a new quadrant, or two, throw some capturable sectors and let fleets build star bases and build small niche empires, allow wars and subterfuge to rule this separate aspect of the game and watch the money come in.

Many many players are all sitting around waiting for the next eve that has similar conquest mechanics but more action based combat and more forgiving learning curves.

whatever company can deliver that is going to take home the money its just that simple.
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Will suck....

    Sorry, was there more to this thread but the topic? UGC makes no sense, Cryptic has to pray to CBS to get approval on a ship design, but a mission requiring you to make cookiees with smoke grenades will be totally okay.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Agreed. There should maybe be two servers.

    The one we have now, and an additional one that resets every so many days/months or whatever.

    In the additional server you have a game of territorial war.

    Idk...it needs more thought than this but it would be fun to me
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I know UGC is far off, but when people create a mission, have it laid out like the fourms are.

    For example, you feel like playing a UGC mission, so you go to your holodeck and pull up some missions. They could be sorted by:
    1. Top 25 rated missions
    2. Ground combat or space combat
    3. which faction is the enemy.
    4. short duration/long duration.

    I don't think a seperate server would be the best idea in the world, simply becaue people woudl have to exit the game and log back into another server. Sounds like a hastle to me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Creovex wrote: »
    Will suck....

    Sorry, was there more to this thread but the topic? UGC makes no sense, Cryptic has to pray to CBS to get approval on a ship design, but a mission requiring you to make cookiees with smoke grenades will be totally okay.

    It worked well in city of heroes, you can make and publish your won stories and other players play them in a simulator.

    are they all perfect? no
    are some on par with a developer mission? yes

    adding in an architect system in this game would give both factions more to do, integrating it well would allow more resources to be allocated to the rvr you are wishing for in your sig............
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    The problems I see with UGC (user generated content) seem like hard ones to get around.

    1) How do you get a mission editor to the widespread user base that is easy to use, and that catches all the errors in the final result/product? Blizzard was good for this with their RTS editors, but an MMO is a much larger scale. And the editor would need to be much more complex in order to accomplish the kinds of things that posters in these forums seem to want out of the game. Not to mention the learning curve for the behind-the-scenes mechanics is likely pretty steep as it is.

    2) This game exists on servers run by Cryptic. If users generate content, then where will it be stored? The quantities of UGC that could be produced would take up alot of space and resources to keep around. How would the upkeep of the user generated storage medium be offset? Charge the users for the ability to generate content? Doesn't sound fair... Have it stored on the creator's end? But then how would you run it and have it be accessible by all the other players? How would you get it to mesh with the rest of the game that is running from the servers?

    3) How would you ensure the quality? How would you ensure that rewards for the UGC don't get out of hand? What if I were to make a mission with only 1 fighter ship which must be destroyed to complete the mission, and I set the rewards at 20k experience and markX gear?

    The only solution I could think of for 2 and 3 are to make a "Holodeck Mode" for the game, which would allow users to either temporarily upload their UGC mission to run from Cryptic's game servers, or would allow the users to use their own computer/server as a mini-server just to run the UGC instance for their party of friends. The UGC would not have to be considered in game "canon" as this would be considered a forray into the ship's holodeck. Essentially, the user/captain becomes the author of a "holo-novel". Such UGC would have to have no rewards beyond experiencing the content, in order to keep players from abusing the UGC model.

    The upside to this is that the posters with suggestions for improving the game would have a way of presenting their suggestions. And maybe UGC submitted to Cryptic could show them the possibilities we have been trying to explain. Cryptic might even want to have some dedicated server space for the "holo-novels" they think are really good (and maybe a Cryptic Points award for the author), making it available to a wider user base than the "download and try this one" word of mouth.

    That is, if a UGC editor could be made to work...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Startruck wrote:
    One of the things I think that would retain players and even increase subs is something that has been talked about a lot on the forums but it seems to just slip back under the rock and never become a remote possibility.

    they have already said they want to look at doing UGC and some form of territory controlled end game for season 3, so its a huge possibility at the moment.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Briard wrote:
    The problems I see with UGC (user generated content) seem like hard ones to get around.

    1) How do you get a mission editor to the widespread user base that is easy to use, and that catches all the errors in the final result/product? Blizzard was good for this with their RTS editors, but an MMO is a much larger scale. And the editor would need to be much more complex in order to accomplish the kinds of things that posters in these forums seem to want out of the game. Not to mention the learning curve for the behind-the-scenes mechanics is likely pretty steep as it is.

    2) This game exists on servers run by Cryptic. If users generate content, then where will it be stored? The quantities of UGC that could be produced would take up alot of space and resources to keep around. How would the upkeep of the user generated storage medium be offset? Charge the users for the ability to generate content? Doesn't sound fair... Have it stored on the creator's end? But then how would you run it and have it be accessible by all the other players? How would you get it to mesh with the rest of the game that is running from the servers?

    3) How would you ensure the quality? How would you ensure that rewards for the UGC don't get out of hand? What if I were to make a mission with only 1 fighter ship which must be destroyed to complete the mission, and I set the rewards at 20k experience and markX gear?

    The only solution I could think of for 2 and 3 are to make a "Holodeck Mode" for the game, which would allow users to either temporarily upload their UGC mission to run from Cryptic's game servers, or would allow the users to use their own computer/server as a mini-server just to run the UGC instance for their party of friends. The UGC would not have to be considered in game "canon" as this would be considered a forray into the ship's holodeck. Essentially, the user/captain becomes the author of a "holo-novel". Such UGC would have to have no rewards beyond experiencing the content, in order to keep players from abusing the UGC model.

    The upside to this is that the posters with suggestions for improving the game would have a way of presenting their suggestions. And maybe UGC submitted to Cryptic could show them the possibilities we have been trying to explain. Cryptic might even want to have some dedicated server space for the "holo-novels" they think are really good (and maybe a Cryptic Points award for the author), making it available to a wider user base than the "download and try this one" word of mouth.

    That is, if a UGC editor could be made to work...

    Actually, it wouldn't require much space - if the UGC uses pre-fab parts (i.e. no modelling/texture creation on our end).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Startruck wrote:
    It worked well in city of heroes, you can make and publish your won stories and other players play them in a simulator.

    are they all perfect? no
    are some on par with a developer mission? yes

    adding in an architect system in this game would give both factions more to do, integrating it well would allow more resources to be allocated to the rvr you are wishing for in your sig............

    CoH is not a preexisting IP that need approval for every aspect of visual and story design. UGC will not do anything for STO.

    STO is decidedly not EVE or even EVE like nor will it be. The very Idea of contested space in STO is a huge question of canon stability. In spite of the wars waged in the ST universe borders are very VERY static. When they do change, which is infrequent, they do not shift on way or another drastically, comparatively. When it comes to political boundaries I am positive CBS will not concede to changing boarders determined by players.

    And then there is the decidedly PvE orientation of the STO population and Trekkers in general. You want to see STO go under? You want to see STO actually fail? Make STO a PvP centric MMORPG and you will see it crumble in a handful of months. PvP centrism in STO = STO's death.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I agree that STO is still very capable of succeeding, despite the community sometimes. I would point out though that EVE did not start strong, in fact they stumbled for a few years in the wilderness. Its only been in the last 3-4 years that they really have found how best to use their niche and build their way to a thriving MMO. As I pointed out before, other than the Atari re-release of EVE on shelves, when was the last time you wanted into a software retailer and saw a copy of the game on shelves?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I like the UGC on the holodeck model.. I wouldn't mind paying for the tools in the c-store or paying for storage of finished content if its reasonable... it would mitigate the boredom factor of grinding endlessly waiting for new content... and because they would be holo-deck based there would be no loot drops retained after the mission.. but u could use the items in the mission....

    If some content was deemed worthy it could be added to the actual game at some point but having a means of sharing & rating these holo-novels would be necessary....

    UGC is the Holodeck... Holo-novels are traded programs...

    Just how to deal with players holo-addiction now!!!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    The Devs have already said their working on the UGC system, and in Dan's last interview on Hailing Frequency he said they hope to have it ready by Season 3. People who dont like the idea of UGC dont have to play it if they dont want to; no one will make them.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Unless of course the UGC is freaking awesome, then they will have to play it :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    The Devs have already said their working on the UGC system, and in Dan's last interview on Hailing Frequency he said they hope to have it ready by Season 3. People who dont like the idea of UGC dont have to play it if they dont want to; no one will make them.

    This.

    UGC is being developed for all of Cryptic's other projects (as far as we know). Not making the most of such a huge opportunity would be foolish.

    Hopefully, CBS sees us eye-to-eye on this one.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    castmodean wrote: »
    Unless of course the UGC is freaking awesome, then they will have to play it :)

    No they wont. They are completely free to choose not to enjoy it if thats what they want to do :o
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    No they wont. They are completely free to choose not to enjoy it if thats what they want to do :o

    People are completely free to ignore fun, new content developed by fellow players. :rolleyes:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    This.

    UGC is being developed for all of Cryptic's other projects (as far as we know). Not making the most of such a huge opportunity would be foolish.

    Hopefully, CBS sees us eye-to-eye on this one.

    I dont think CBS is going to be a problem. Lets use common sense for a minute: If CBS had to approve every UGC mission, the system would never work. Thats common sense, and Cryptic knows that as surely as we do. But since they ARE developing the system and Dan said they hope to have it in Season 3, then common sense would say Cryptic already knows CBS's stance on this.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    No they wont. They are completely free to choose not to enjoy it if thats what they want to do :o

    You're just saying this as part of a Ferengi anti marketing campaign....So is a subsidiary corporation of yours have distribution rights or something :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    People are completely free to ignore fun, new content developed by fellow players. :rolleyes:

    Exactly. There are some people who are opposed to the PRINCIPAL of UGC, and their entitled to their opinion. They are free to sit around bored after they finish all of the "official" content while I enjoy all of the UGC :o
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Startruck wrote:
    It worked well in city of heroes, you can make and publish your won stories and other players play them in a simulator.

    are they all perfect? no
    are some on par with a developer mission? yes

    adding in an architect system in this game would give both factions more to do, integrating it well would allow more resources to be allocated to the rvr you are wishing for in your sig............

    no it didnt, We players found every single little crack in the armor and used it to our advantage in terms of XP/Loot/AE Credits and dont even talk about Double XP weekends (where toons were going from lvl 1 to 50 in hours doing Jello shooters)........

    UGC system will be like a wildfire for 2 weeks, then nerfed into oblivion and tossed on the scrap heap of broken promises and failed dreams to be nothing but a ghost town (ok Building in CoX).

    There is no way the Devs in this game can do a UGC system that gives equal XP/Loot to Dev developed content without having to hire an army of sub-devs whos job it will be to play all said UGC and weed out the TRIBBLE, the exploits, etc. If they dont have the staff to generate more than 8 mission arcs in 6 months for the Klinks.....there is no way in H...E...Double hockey sticks they have the staff to cull thru the tsunami of junk a UGC will unleash.

    I think people who think the UGC will somehow be the end all be all are living in a fantasy just wishing for the day they can get their "inner Bard" on.............
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Buffalo-6 wrote:
    no it didnt, We players found every single little crack in the armor and used it to our advantage in terms of XP/Loot/AE Credits and dont even talk about Double XP weekends (where toons were going from lvl 1 to 50 in hours doing Jello shooters)........

    UGC system will be like a wildfire for 2 weeks, then nerfed into oblivion and tossed on the scrap heap of broken promises and failed dreams to be nothing but a ghost town (ok Building in CoX).

    There is no way the Devs in this game can do a UGC system that gives equal XP/Loot to Dev developed content without having to hire an army of sub-devs whos job it will be to play all said UGC and weed out the TRIBBLE, the exploits, etc. If they dont have the staff to generate more than 8 mission arcs in 6 months for the Klinks.....there is no way in H...E...Double hockey sticks they have the staff to cull thru the tsunami of junk a UGC will unleash.

    I think people who think the UGC will somehow be the end all be all are living in a fantasy just wishing for the day they can get their "inner Bard" on.............

    TBH, its pretty silly that people keep bringing up COH. EVERYBODY knows the mistake with COH's system, and the Devs arent going to make our UGC system something people can power level from. And really, it doesnt matter of you dont get as much xp or rewards from UGC. Its main purpose is to give you something to do when you run out of "official" content. Its really not that different from the holodeck in the shows: it was something people did for fun in their down time.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    TBH, its pretty silly that people keep bringing up COH. EVERYBODY knows the mistake with COH's system, and the Devs arent going to make our UGC system something people can power level from. And really, it doesnt matter of you dont get as much xp or rewards from UGC. Its main purpose is to give you something to do when you run out of "official" content. Its really not that different from the holodeck in the shows: it was something people did for fun in their down time.

    See, and thats where we differ, the whole just pass the time thing.

    If I am going to do something game wise, then I expect to earn something for it. I'm not talking about power leveling because frankly you can get to end game in STO in about 2 weeks of game play Fed side by just doing mission arcs and patrols. I know this because I just did it on a Fed Tac, no pvp, no explore, no DSE's (if I could help it) and no fleet actions.

    for any UGC system to be viable, it has to at least meet the XP/loot pace of Dev content otherwise it will fail, and fail huge. Face it, if everyone was a uber mission designer, we already be working in the game industry. In my experience with other UGCs, most of what is generated is junk. The canon brigade will come un-glued over some of the stuff that will be generated, and the spell-checker will implode under the weight of text that makes no sense =)

    This will end up as a massive waste of limited resources that could better be spent on other things like.....functional hand and space scanners for Klinks.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Buffalo-6 wrote:
    See, and thats where we differ, the whole just pass the time thing.

    If I am going to do something game wise, then I expect to earn something for it.

    And thats fine. You can be bored when you run out of official content, while I will be having fun doing UGC. Some people forget, but the very reason we play games in the first place is to be entertained, just like watching TV or a movie. As long as I am entertained, thats good enough for me. But again, your free to sit around and be bored when you run out of official content if you dont think UGC is worth your time :o
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    And thats fine. You can be bored when you run out of official content, while I will be having fun doing UGC. Some people forget, but the very reason we play games in the first place is to be entertained, just like watching TV or a movie. As long as I am entertained, thats good enough for me. But again, your free to sit around and be bored when you run out of official content :o

    well in my mind any UGC should enhance the existing content, not be a substitute for it. Your contending for a substitute, and thus to be viable it must meet the XP/Loot pace or in the current vernacular, meet the risk/reward scale of current content.

    If as you said I want entertainment for entertainment sake, then I'll read a book or watch the plasma. I game for entertainment AND the challenge and thus the reward for said challenge. I suspect I am not alone in that respect.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Buffalo-6 wrote:
    well in my mind any UGC should enhance the existing content, not be a substitute for it. Your contending for a substitute, and thus to be viable it must meet the XP/Loot pace or in the current vernacular, meet the risk/reward scale of current content.

    False. I dont want a "substitute", and the Devs have stated UGC will not be a substitute for official content. Unfortunately however, the Devs are not able to make new content fast enough to keep more gamers from running out of official content. With that in mind, I want UGC to have something to do, like the characters in the shows used the holodeck when they werent on official missions :o
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    False. I dont want a "substitute", and the Devs have stated UGC will not be a substitute for official content. Unfortunately however, the Devs are not able to make new content fast enough to keep more gamers from running out of official content. With that in mind, I want UGC to have something to do, like the characters in the shows used the holodeck when they werent on official missions :o


    Thats fine, but I contend that if said UGC does not meet the Risk/Reward threshhold, it will fail. And a system of the size of a UGC that fails will be considered a massive waste of resources.

    Hell, I'd love to be proven wrong, but with the track record to date, I cant see it working.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Buffalo-6 wrote:
    Thats fine, but I contend that if said UGC does not meet the Risk/Reward threshhold, it will fail.

    It cant be more "fail" than having nothing to do when you reach the end game :o
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I just hope that if UGC comes to be its better than some examples I've seen in the past.
    It should allow for multi-responses in conversation, plot -line twists and basically the ability to produce a mission or episode just like what we play ingame now.

    Hopefully if it is designed to be a seriuos UGC creator it will keep down down some of the silly missions I ran in CoX.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    It cant be more "fail" than having nothing to do when you reach the end game :o


    looks like we are going to go round and round making the same argument. We will have to agree to disagree.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Roach wrote: »
    I just hope that if UGC comes to be its better than some examples I've seen in the past.
    It should allow for multi-responses in conversation, plot -line twists and basically the ability to produce a mission or episode just like what we play ingame now.

    Hopefully if it is designed to be a seriuos UGC creator it will keep down down some of the silly missions I ran in CoX.

    It wont. It cant do things that the current game system cant do. If it did then they will have had to engineer an entire new game engine, and that seems like something they cant and wont do. If the game engine could do multi-plot stuff, we would have seen that already.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Buffalo-6 wrote:
    looks like we are going to go round and round making the same argument. We will have to agree to disagree.

    So you think that having UGC to do at end game, even with no "uber loot", is WORSE than having NOTHING to do? And looking at it from a Klingon POV, you think that doing a PvE episode made by a player once you have ran out of the whopping 8 that the Devs have made in the past 6 months is worse than having no more official episodes to do?
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