Yeah, I guess let them. They'll just cap sooner, which means nothing right now(we can all level cap easy)...just make sure no emblems, or high end gear, etc can be given out for UGC.
I think Emblems from a daily UGC source would be a great addition to the game. Emblems kind of suck right now. So either they need to be totally redone or they need to be continually supported more and more.
Giving people an easier time to get Mk XI gear isn't that big a deal in terms of the future of UGC.
Yeah, I guess let them. They'll just cap sooner, which means nothing right now(we can all level cap easy)...just make sure no emblems, or high end gear, etc can be given out for UGC.
I suggest no equipment that doesn't already exist ingame as a common item, some restrictions on uncommon,rare and very rare - with no unique items being possible at all. Or possibly make it a random % chance of an upgrade from common/uncommon everytime the said item(s) are to be rewared.
Emblems, I say no, as it would pull players from the Dev designed dailies and they are not that hard to get as is.
I suggest no equipment that doesn't already exist ingame as a common item, some restrictions on uncommon,rare and very rare - with no unique items being possible at all. Or possibly make it a random % chance of an upgrade from common/uncommon everytime the said item(s) are to be rewared.
Emblems, I say no, as it would pull players from the Dev designed dailies and they are not that hard to get as is.
It could be just that UGC limits the ship and NPC combinations allowed - you always must have a value "worth" one full "encounter" (e.g. about 5 ground NPcs, 3 Frigates or 1 non-Frigate in space), and you don't get to hand out special rewards, just the regular loot drops.
It could be just that UGC limits the ship and NPC combinations allowed - you always must have a value "worth" one full "encounter" (e.g. about 5 ground NPcs, 3 Frigates or 1 non-Frigate in space), and you don't get to hand out special rewards, just the regular loot drops.
I imagine some checks and balances will exist to keep farms to a minimum, I merely don't wish to see a complete removal of a rewards system.
Sadly though it looks like my "Attack of the Rapid Tribbles" storyline is shot down.:mad::p
Emblems, I say no, as it would pull players from the Dev designed dailies and they are not that hard to get as is.
I don't want to do the dev dailies. They are insanely boring doing them again and again day after day, character after character. But you have to if you want the stuff in the emblem store, or the refit ships.
I definitely want to see emblems available from UGC content, somehow. Emblem prices are extremely high as it is, and the process right now is a long, dull grind. UGC emblems would make it interesting, as theoretically you wouldn't have to do the same content twice to get your emblems.
This is one of the reason we asked for the UGC engine to be developed in the first place. We recognize that we'll never be able to keep up with player's desire for content.
[...]
They are the biggest bang for the buck for everyone and ultimately they help solve the content problem in 2 ways: They provide a base of content for *any* future faction over time, and UGC allows players to create the content they are interested in playing. If that is more KDF content - then players will be able to make far more missions than we ever could.
I really hope that helps to explain our thinking and why we are spending our mission dollars where we are.
I have an issue with the idea of UGC. I'm 30 years old, so, those who are younger might not even know what I'm talkin' about but I consider the following example closely related to "what could UGC be".
Back in the early 80's the dominating video game console was the ATARI VCS (aka Atari 2600). I got one in 1983 and loved it. Being a 3 year old kid, I didn't possess the critical judgement to rate games as "good", "bad" or "god kill me !"
Nothing prevented people from making their own games and publishing it for the 2600 (no lockout chip in the console like the NES had)
This had, for effect, made the Console look so bad (since lots of mediocre games were published for it) that people sold/trashed their consoles and turned to PC's.
For 2 good years, No console was taken seriously or even had a selling arguement. (we know this event as the Video Game Crash)
What I forsee, unless Cryptic makes sure the UGC is closely monitored, is that people are gonna make such crappy content (or missions where you kill a targ to get a whole "Very Rare Mark XI" gear set). Leading to "the end" of this endeavor...
I might ask this question too soon but It's something I think matters. "What are our limits as far as storytelling goes, what are our limits as far as rewards goes, how is that UGC gonna be accessible and Who's doing the quality control ???"
This is one of the reason we asked for the UGC engine to be developed in the first place. We recognize that we'll never be able to keep up with player's desire for content.
I've discussed in the past that there is diminishing returns for devoting a ton of time on any one specific piece of content. Case in point the STFs. We spent *the most* time out of all of our mission types, making those STFs (multiple weeks of development for 1 mission) and the problem is - they are very complex to make and ended up with bugs and very few people ultimately end up being able to play them. They are at a point now where I'd redesign them and open them up for smaller teams or cross-faction teams if I had the manpower to do it.
The lessons learned from that is that we can waste a lot of precious content development time making content that is exclusive to a very small percentage of the paying customer base. When you have limited content development resources (which we've always had) it makes more sense for us to be spending our content efforts on either missions that everyone can enjoy or tools that allow players to make tons of content on their own.
This is why you are seeing me spend the apples I have on Featured Episodes and UGC. They are the biggest bang for the buck for everyone and ultimately they help solve the content problem in 2 ways: They provide a base of content for *any* future faction over time, and UGC allows players to create the content they are interested in playing. If that is more KDF content - then players will be able to make far more missions than we ever could.
I really hope that helps to explain our thinking and why we are spending our mission dollars where we are.
This work is starting to show too. You've given me more reason to log my Klingon captain in game and play her. It's fun blowing up Breen and running around stomping out brush fires for the Empire.
It's a nice break from Fed gameplay where I'm saving the day. Sometimes, I just want to say "Let me show you *my* diplomatic measures..." as I point to my twin pistols Diplomatic & Measures.
What I forsee, unless Cryptic makes sure the UGC is closely monitored, is that people are gonna make such crappy content (or missions where you kill a targ to get a whole "Very Rare Mark XI" gear set). Leading to "the end" of this endeavor...
As far as your first concern, the good news is you have free will and no one will force you to do UGC if you dont want to. Furthermore, there will be a rating system so you can sort by highest rated missions. But once again, your completely free to not do any UGC if your overly worried about the quality.
As far as your second concern, no Dev has even SUGGESTED that we will be able to alter the way the loot tables work. There is absolutely NO reason to even THINK that we will be able to make an NPC drop something it wouldnt normally drop in game.
People can say what they want about UGC, but all I know is that when they run out of things to do and are complaining about being bored, I'll be enjoying UGC
As far as your first concern, the good news is you have free will and no one will force you to do UGC if you dont want to.
Everyone acts like this is a new thing. Cryptic is not breaking new ground here. City Of Heros did the exact same thing in hopes that players would add their own content rather than harass them. The end result was a series of new missions created for the soul purpose of farming. Bosses were queed up in solid lines and special consideration was given to emergent terminology. Missions were prefixed with-
grnd - (for xp grinding)
cash - (for cash grinding)
acc - (for accolades)
Some of the mission builders got really clever and even used the geometry to box in bosses so that they could be safe-killed through a narrow slit in a wall, or stuffed down a deep hole to be AOE'd from afar. There was one I really liked called 'The XP walk' which was a glass floor with slits down the middle and mobs packed in like sardines underneath it. Friendly NPC healers lined both sides of the path and would heal you as you walked by, AOEing everyone under the floor. Sure, the devs tried to fix all of the exploiting but with thousands of people fighting back, they were no match. Patch day would see a huge modding community log in to fix the damage the devs have done with their new rules.
Before player-made missions, people would get together and start farming runs. Get your level one character to 60 in two or three days... but after.... you could go from 1 to 60 in two or three hours. Honestly, I'm not apposed to the UGC. I recognize it for what it is. It is the devs saying that they have not the time nor the interest to generate content for the STO community and they would rather we find a way to entertain ourselves. Since we have as of late been doing a bad job of entertaining ourselves, they plan to give us better tools before getting back to more important projects (Like Neverwinter). I don't think it will be a bad thing but you have to understand that this will dramatically change the game. There is no telling what things will be like after that.
Everyone acts like this is a new thing. Cryptic is not breaking new ground here. City Of Heros did the exact same thing in hopes that players would add their own content rather than harass them. The end result was a series of new missions created for the soul purpose of farming. Bosses were queed up in solid lines and special consideration was given to emergent terminology. Missions were prefixed with-
grnd - (for xp grinding)
cash - (for cash grinding)
acc - (for accolades)
Some of the mission builders got really clever and even used the geometry to box in bosses so that they could be safe-killed through a narrow slit in a wall, or stuffed down a deep hole to be AOE'd from afar. There was one I really liked called 'The XP walk' which was a glass floor with slits down the middle and mobs packed in like sardines underneath it. Friendly NPC healers lined both sides of the path and would heal you as you walked by, AOEing everyone under the floor. Sure, the devs tried to fix all of the exploiting but with thousands of people fighting back, they were no match. Patch day would see a huge modding community log in to fix the damage the devs have done with their new rules.
Before player-made missions, people would get together and start farming runs. Get your level one character to 60 in two or three days... but after.... you could go from 1 to 60 in two or three hours. Honestly, I'm not apposed to the UGC. I recognize it for what it is. It is the devs saying that they have not the time nor the interest to generate content for the STO community and they would rather we find a way to entertain ourselves. Since we have as of late been doing a bad job of entertaining ourselves, they plan to give us better tools before getting back to more important projects (Like Neverwinter). I don't think it will be a bad thing but you have to understand that this will dramatically change the game. There is no telling what things will be like after that.
Sorry if I came across as hating on UGC - like I said, I'm actually really looking forward to it. It's just that I had negative experience with UGC in another game, and I'm hoping that those issues aren't repeated here.
As for issues of the Empire, well, UGC is currently our best hope for more PvE
Well begging didn't work. Nothing we can really threaten Cryptic with. We could pool a lot of cash together and try to bribe them. Anyone want to start a charity?
As far as your first concern, the good news is you have free will and no one will force you to do UGC if you dont want to. Furthermore, there will be a rating system so you can sort by highest rated missions.
Potential problem there too - if it's possible to farm with UGC, farms will get the highest ratings.
I'd almost like to see a dual rating system - one "player rating" that acts the way we expect a rating system to act, and a second "hey devs look at this really cool mission we'd like you to make official" rating. The first would be co-opted by the farming community, while the second might act as a better signal for quality content (since farmers probably wouldn't want to signal the devs wrt farms...).
I have an issue with the idea of UGC. I'm 30 years old, so, those who are younger might not even know what I'm talkin' about but I consider the following example closely related to "what could UGC be".
Back in the early 80's the dominating video game console was the ATARI VCS (aka Atari 2600). I got one in 1983 and loved it. Being a 3 year old kid, I didn't possess the critical judgement to rate games as "good", "bad" or "god kill me !"
Nothing prevented people from making their own games and publishing it for the 2600 (no lockout chip in the console like the NES had)
This had, for effect, made the Console look so bad (since lots of mediocre games were published for it) that people sold/trashed their consoles and turned to PC's.
For 2 good years, No console was taken seriously or even had a selling arguement. (we know this event as the Video Game Crash)
What I forsee, unless Cryptic makes sure the UGC is closely monitored, is that people are gonna make such crappy content (or missions where you kill a targ to get a whole "Very Rare Mark XI" gear set). Leading to "the end" of this endeavor...
I might ask this question too soon but It's something I think matters. "What are our limits as far as storytelling goes, what are our limits as far as rewards goes, how is that UGC gonna be accessible and Who's doing the quality control ???"
I'm 40 years old and while I agree with you that history generally agrees that there was a video game crash in the early 80's, it was nearly invisible to the consumer, and I would consider it more of a transitional period than a crash. By 1983 the Atari 2600 was way beyond old. There is probably a good reason it was given to a 3 year old.
The 2600 came out in 1977. By 1983 most of us were gaming on either Intellevision or Colecovision systems. The pc was nowhere close to providing the same type of gaming you could get on a console at that time.
In fact if you look at console gaming from the late 70's I think you are hard pressed to find a real crash or lack of demand on the consumer level.
Atari 2600 1977
Intelevision 1980
Colecovision 1982
Nintendo NES 1985
Sega Genesis 1989
Nintendo Super NES 1991
Sony Playstation 1994
Not really trying to argue with you. I just don't think that UGC in STO is the same as having free reign to create a whole new game.
Everyone acts like this is a new thing. Cryptic is not breaking new ground here. City Of Heros did the exact same thing in hopes that players would add their own content rather than harass them. The end result was a series of new missions created for the soul purpose of farming. Bosses were queed up in solid lines and special consideration was given to emergent terminology. Missions were prefixed with-
grnd - (for xp grinding)
cash - (for cash grinding)
acc - (for accolades)
Some of the mission builders got really clever and even used the geometry to box in bosses so that they could be safe-killed through a narrow slit in a wall, or stuffed down a deep hole to be AOE'd from afar. There was one I really liked called 'The XP walk' which was a glass floor with slits down the middle and mobs packed in like sardines underneath it. Friendly NPC healers lined both sides of the path and would heal you as you walked by, AOEing everyone under the floor. Sure, the devs tried to fix all of the exploiting but with thousands of people fighting back, they were no match. Patch day would see a huge modding community log in to fix the damage the devs have done with their new rules.
Before player-made missions, people would get together and start farming runs. Get your level one character to 60 in two or three days... but after.... you could go from 1 to 60 in two or three hours. Honestly, I'm not apposed to the UGC. I recognize it for what it is. It is the devs saying that they have not the time nor the interest to generate content for the STO community and they would rather we find a way to entertain ourselves. Since we have as of late been doing a bad job of entertaining ourselves, they plan to give us better tools before getting back to more important projects (Like Neverwinter). I don't think it will be a bad thing but you have to understand that this will dramatically change the game. There is no telling what things will be like after that.
A major difference in STO is that killing mobs is a VERY inefficient way to get XP to begin with. It's mission based here and missions have timer restrictions.
I could even see where they might not award any XP directly for mob kills in STO UGC but simply for mission completions and limits how often you can do the missions.
Beyond that, leveling was more involved in CoH and there was more temptation to roll alts (in part because they made it literally impossible to see the whole game's mission content on one alt).
Yeah, thats where the report button comes in. If the same person continues to make farm maps, they get banned. Simple.
Eh, not that simple, in the absence of a clear definition of "farm." Besides, slogging through high-rated TRIBBLE missions to look for that one diamond in the rough could ruin the UGC experience.
IMHO, we need a way to separate out "farms" from other missions, e.g. via a dual rating system, or by a forum dedicated to reviewing missions, or something.
Eh, not that simple, in the absence of a clear definition of "farm."
Then all the Devs have to do is make a clear definition. Besides, if they give someone a warning once and then they do it again, the person has no excuse.
IMHO, we need a way to separate out "farms" from other missions, e.g. via a dual rating system, or by a forum dedicated to reviewing missions, or something.
I think its only common sense that there will be a UGC forum added once the system goes live for the discussion of the system itself as well as "advertising" people's missions.
Then all the Devs have to do is make a clear definition.
Hehe, then it becomes a game of making a farm that doesn't meet that "clear definition"
I think its only common sense that there will be a UGC forum added once the system goes live for the discussion of the system itself as well as "advertising" people's missions.
Hope so - just throwing my vote out for separate "UGC Reviews" vs. "UGC Discussion" forums (fori? fora? foraminifera? I should know this...)
I really hope when the community guys at Cryptic read this, they take it to the higher ups. Nice post!
First step could be to show the ships that are in work, for example:
In the thread: Engineering Report - September 15, 2010
In Testing
New Gorn and Nausicaan ships
Since they are 'in testing' it assume a screenshot is very well possible, right? Small pieces of 'in-progress' development show-offs like that would help the KDF greatly. I know it would help me for sure. People could put their thoughts and feedback into it and also see that things are actually being done.
Well begging didn't work. Nothing we can really threaten Cryptic with. We could pool a lot of cash together and try to bribe them. Anyone want to start a charity?
Is Cryptic a publicly traded company? Start passing the hat and buy them out?
I like the Vorcha and the Gorn Battleship. Both look pretty awesome. Actually, they all look good l:)
This is a nice indicator that stuff is happening behind the scenes, and the Devs might be a bit further along in getting these vessels to us than we thought, which would be nice.
Comments
I think Emblems from a daily UGC source would be a great addition to the game. Emblems kind of suck right now. So either they need to be totally redone or they need to be continually supported more and more.
Giving people an easier time to get Mk XI gear isn't that big a deal in terms of the future of UGC.
I suggest no equipment that doesn't already exist ingame as a common item, some restrictions on uncommon,rare and very rare - with no unique items being possible at all. Or possibly make it a random % chance of an upgrade from common/uncommon everytime the said item(s) are to be rewared.
Emblems, I say no, as it would pull players from the Dev designed dailies and they are not that hard to get as is.
It could be just that UGC limits the ship and NPC combinations allowed - you always must have a value "worth" one full "encounter" (e.g. about 5 ground NPcs, 3 Frigates or 1 non-Frigate in space), and you don't get to hand out special rewards, just the regular loot drops.
I imagine some checks and balances will exist to keep farms to a minimum, I merely don't wish to see a complete removal of a rewards system.
Sadly though it looks like my "Attack of the Rapid Tribbles" storyline is shot down.:mad::p
I don't want to do the dev dailies. They are insanely boring doing them again and again day after day, character after character. But you have to if you want the stuff in the emblem store, or the refit ships.
I definitely want to see emblems available from UGC content, somehow. Emblem prices are extremely high as it is, and the process right now is a long, dull grind. UGC emblems would make it interesting, as theoretically you wouldn't have to do the same content twice to get your emblems.
I have an issue with the idea of UGC. I'm 30 years old, so, those who are younger might not even know what I'm talkin' about but I consider the following example closely related to "what could UGC be".
Back in the early 80's the dominating video game console was the ATARI VCS (aka Atari 2600). I got one in 1983 and loved it. Being a 3 year old kid, I didn't possess the critical judgement to rate games as "good", "bad" or "god kill me !"
Nothing prevented people from making their own games and publishing it for the 2600 (no lockout chip in the console like the NES had)
This had, for effect, made the Console look so bad (since lots of mediocre games were published for it) that people sold/trashed their consoles and turned to PC's.
For 2 good years, No console was taken seriously or even had a selling arguement. (we know this event as the Video Game Crash)
What I forsee, unless Cryptic makes sure the UGC is closely monitored, is that people are gonna make such crappy content (or missions where you kill a targ to get a whole "Very Rare Mark XI" gear set). Leading to "the end" of this endeavor...
I might ask this question too soon but It's something I think matters. "What are our limits as far as storytelling goes, what are our limits as far as rewards goes, how is that UGC gonna be accessible and Who's doing the quality control ???"
This work is starting to show too. You've given me more reason to log my Klingon captain in game and play her. It's fun blowing up Breen and running around stomping out brush fires for the Empire.
It's a nice break from Fed gameplay where I'm saving the day. Sometimes, I just want to say "Let me show you *my* diplomatic measures..." as I point to my twin pistols Diplomatic & Measures.
As far as your first concern, the good news is you have free will and no one will force you to do UGC if you dont want to. Furthermore, there will be a rating system so you can sort by highest rated missions. But once again, your completely free to not do any UGC if your overly worried about the quality.
As far as your second concern, no Dev has even SUGGESTED that we will be able to alter the way the loot tables work. There is absolutely NO reason to even THINK that we will be able to make an NPC drop something it wouldnt normally drop in game.
People can say what they want about UGC, but all I know is that when they run out of things to do and are complaining about being bored, I'll be enjoying UGC
Everyone acts like this is a new thing. Cryptic is not breaking new ground here. City Of Heros did the exact same thing in hopes that players would add their own content rather than harass them. The end result was a series of new missions created for the soul purpose of farming. Bosses were queed up in solid lines and special consideration was given to emergent terminology. Missions were prefixed with-
grnd - (for xp grinding)
cash - (for cash grinding)
acc - (for accolades)
Some of the mission builders got really clever and even used the geometry to box in bosses so that they could be safe-killed through a narrow slit in a wall, or stuffed down a deep hole to be AOE'd from afar. There was one I really liked called 'The XP walk' which was a glass floor with slits down the middle and mobs packed in like sardines underneath it. Friendly NPC healers lined both sides of the path and would heal you as you walked by, AOEing everyone under the floor. Sure, the devs tried to fix all of the exploiting but with thousands of people fighting back, they were no match. Patch day would see a huge modding community log in to fix the damage the devs have done with their new rules.
Before player-made missions, people would get together and start farming runs. Get your level one character to 60 in two or three days... but after.... you could go from 1 to 60 in two or three hours. Honestly, I'm not apposed to the UGC. I recognize it for what it is. It is the devs saying that they have not the time nor the interest to generate content for the STO community and they would rather we find a way to entertain ourselves. Since we have as of late been doing a bad job of entertaining ourselves, they plan to give us better tools before getting back to more important projects (Like Neverwinter). I don't think it will be a bad thing but you have to understand that this will dramatically change the game. There is no telling what things will be like after that.
SO TRUE!!!!!
Well begging didn't work. Nothing we can really threaten Cryptic with. We could pool a lot of cash together and try to bribe them. Anyone want to start a charity?
I'd almost like to see a dual rating system - one "player rating" that acts the way we expect a rating system to act, and a second "hey devs look at this really cool mission we'd like you to make official" rating. The first would be co-opted by the farming community, while the second might act as a better signal for quality content (since farmers probably wouldn't want to signal the devs wrt farms...).
I'm 40 years old and while I agree with you that history generally agrees that there was a video game crash in the early 80's, it was nearly invisible to the consumer, and I would consider it more of a transitional period than a crash. By 1983 the Atari 2600 was way beyond old. There is probably a good reason it was given to a 3 year old.
The 2600 came out in 1977. By 1983 most of us were gaming on either Intellevision or Colecovision systems. The pc was nowhere close to providing the same type of gaming you could get on a console at that time.
In fact if you look at console gaming from the late 70's I think you are hard pressed to find a real crash or lack of demand on the consumer level.
Atari 2600 1977
Intelevision 1980
Colecovision 1982
Nintendo NES 1985
Sega Genesis 1989
Nintendo Super NES 1991
Sony Playstation 1994
Not really trying to argue with you. I just don't think that UGC in STO is the same as having free reign to create a whole new game.
A major difference in STO is that killing mobs is a VERY inefficient way to get XP to begin with. It's mission based here and missions have timer restrictions.
I could even see where they might not award any XP directly for mob kills in STO UGC but simply for mission completions and limits how often you can do the missions.
Beyond that, leveling was more involved in CoH and there was more temptation to roll alts (in part because they made it literally impossible to see the whole game's mission content on one alt).
Yeah, thats where the report button comes in. If the same person continues to make farm maps, they get banned. Simple.
Amen to that. Farm missions ruined the fun of CoX for me and is why I left that game.
IMHO, we need a way to separate out "farms" from other missions, e.g. via a dual rating system, or by a forum dedicated to reviewing missions, or something.
Then all the Devs have to do is make a clear definition. Besides, if they give someone a warning once and then they do it again, the person has no excuse.
I think its only common sense that there will be a UGC forum added once the system goes live for the discussion of the system itself as well as "advertising" people's missions.
First step could be to show the ships that are in work, for example:
In the thread: Engineering Report - September 15, 2010
Since they are 'in testing' it assume a screenshot is very well possible, right? Small pieces of 'in-progress' development show-offs like that would help the KDF greatly. I know it would help me for sure. People could put their thoughts and feedback into it and also see that things are actually being done.
Is Cryptic a publicly traded company? Start passing the hat and buy them out?
They're owned by Atari right now. Could probably try and buy Atari. Not sure that's such a great acquisition though.
It's a sellers market and no one is buying.
Very very interesting screenshots linked.
No linkage?:mad:...boooo. Now I have to do work and look for it.:(
Here's the post right here
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3034932&postcount=12
and
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3034947&postcount=18
Its about damn time.
I like the Vorcha and the Gorn Battleship. Both look pretty awesome. Actually, they all look good l:)
This is a nice indicator that stuff is happening behind the scenes, and the Devs might be a bit further along in getting these vessels to us than we thought, which would be nice.