You can design a ship interior and bridge for your mission to take place on, but you cannot yet use other player's "variables" to change the set of your mission. You cannot make a mission that says "i don't know what your bridge will look like - but here is where the bad guys are" ... because you will not know in every instance where valid locations for those bad guys will be yet. It is a long term goal that we have (as we want to be able to make these types of missions as well). We just needs some additional mission logic worked into the system first.
Thank you sir. As a addendum question, would we be able to use the system to make puzzles? (thinking damaged ship, must get it repaired kind of mission) Both complex or simple in terms of difficulty?
1) Let's talk about "The Life of a Community Authored Mission".
To start with, the author will create the episode using The Foundry for Star Trek Online Mission Authoring Tools. Once the episode is complete, and the author is satisfied with the content of the episode, he or she will publish the episode.
Once published, the episode is available for play by all community members who have signed up to be reviewers. Anyone can sign up to be a reviewer of Community Authored Episodes, by clicking a button, and then agreeing to a new EULA, which essentially states that while reviewing new content, it is possible that users may experience objectionable/offensive material.
The newly published episode will need to be played through by X many reviewers, who will then after playing through the complete episode, be able to rate it. Essentially, these people will will say, "This mission does not violate any Terms of service and isn't offensive/objectionable," or will say, "This episode is inappropriate."
If it passes the "review board" it will then be made available for all members of the Star Trek Online Community to play. If you play through it, and find that it has objectionable material in it, then you'll be able to report it, and it will then be reviewed again by Cryptic Staff.
I'll check in on the XP concerns and get back to you all in a little bit.
I hope this helps to clear some things up.
Thanks,
Stormshade
That helps a bit. Sounds like there won't be a limited number of "Reviewers" who are responsible for looking at new UGC content before it can be played by everyone.
I'd like to hear more about how the "Reviewers" will be moderated though. Will we be able to see who denied our mission and why? Or will it be anonymous like - "10 Reviewers have flagged your content as inappropriate" ?
But you dont disagree that if it works out it would be a good idea then? Personally, i feel its better to try, then if a shitstorm ensues pull it, than not try in fear of misuse.
Dont alot of people complain that cryptic isnt always tight on canon and stuff? And often fans claim that we always know better.
So if some missions are to be focus reviewed to determine if they can become a part of the 'actual' game world, I'd rather its a dedicated bunch of player reviewers. That way the content guys only have to pass the final say on what the panel passes on to them, and they also have more time to deal with the inevitable objectionable content that will crop up.
Actually i'll put it this way. We all know that the majority of players do not visit the forums. So those of us who are here, arent we already wielding a sort of 'power' over other players? There's alot of us, but its relatively small compared to the main population. We suggest improvements, give feedback, and change the course of development of the game.
And the devs know who are the more prolific of us and whom give useful information. Its not so different from being a reviewer, and then having to keep your reputation, i think.
/Agree. I think your is a mature attidude that makes much sense to me. Things CAN be pulled, i am so much for giving something a chance rather than not even try based on objections that very few are routed in fact. Simply because this idea has not been done here before. Dont get me wrong I think working out as many rules and preventative guidlines BEFORE it goes live are a must. Anticipate what we are able to, minimise any potential damage. But from there when it goes live, people can object if it is not working out..we can suggest changes and even to cancel the whole idea IF it doesn't work.
I never agreed with the player council idea, IMHO I felt no matter what it never really felt like it was going to HELP any aspect of this game. But to have the potential for all of this content..the biggest complaint of all STO players..well to me that warrants the effoty to try. And yes I am one of the people that doews NOT want wookies running around in this game.
@Rikaelus "If UGC is considered inappropriate, is it then handed back to the author to make changes and republish?" I love this question, i have been wondering the very same thing. it makes sense that if a mission is CLOSE to being appropraite that people have a chance to rework it
I am a little concerned by the idea that cryptic will have little or no input into these missions. I am ok with the panel idea but i still hope that they would be answerable to cryptic and that someone "official" would be there to oversee thing./ I am not saying it's all bad..just a little concerning.
That helps a bit. Sounds like there won't be a limited number of "Reviewers" who are responsible for looking at new UGC content before it can be played by everyone.
I'd like to hear more about how the "Reviewers" will be moderated though. Will we be able to see who denied our mission and why? Or will it be anonymous like - "10 Reviewers have flagged your content as inappropriate" ?
Hopefully if someone says a mission is inappropriate, it will be investigated by Cryptic. That is good for 2 reasons: 1, if it really is inappropriate, the person who made it should get it trouble. 2, if it ISNT inappropriate, the person who said it WAS should get in trouble.
This is pretty much my concern. It sounds like only the most "vocal" people on the forums will get their missions tested, and anyone who DOESNT use the forums will pretty much never have a chance.
i disagree. using the forums to advertise is an advantage but it does not mean non forum users are screwed.
its going to be up to the community to find missions. he said there would be a search criteria with lots of options. so when you log in and go to the contact screen maybe you can search missions that focus around romulans, or cardassians or are diplomatic missions are are all ground or all space or whatever.
most people that dont go on the forums wont then be looking for mission by vocal forum posters, they will be doing manual searches for missions that catch their eye. remember only a small number of people use the forums and most people will just use the search feature to find missions without ever going anywhere near the forums to find advertised missions.
sure some missions will go unrated at some point but thats then up to the that author to then go an advertise his or her missions but talking to their fleet, their friends, on the forums, in zone chat or what ever.
perhaps one of the search features can be for unrated or unpublished missions so people can find yet to be tested missions and give them a go. i personally doubt i will use the forum that much to select what missions i play but will probably use the in game search feature. Im sure plenty of other will do the same.
This is pretty much my concern. It sounds like only the most "vocal" people on the forums will get their missions tested, and anyone who DOESNT use the forums will pretty much never have a chance.
As has been mentioned, we'll be watching to see how long it takes for a mission to move through the review process. If something needs to be tweaked regarding the process, we'll certainly be making adjustments.
However, currently, it is impossible for us to know how many people will be willing to sign up as reviewers. Just based on my own personal guesses, with the amount of players on the forums looking to experience new content in STO, I would wager that this number would be very high. Which should mean lower wait times to see published missions made available to the community at large.
However, while you can easily see the worst case scenario, and I can easily see the best case scenario, neither of us can know for certain which will be the actual outcome.
Most likely, it will be somewhere in between the two. As we move forward, and get closer to Season 3, and the actual release of The Foundry for Star Trek Online's release to Holodeck, we'll learn more, and make changes where needed.
There is no council. That was a bad choice of words - or pure fan speculative paraphrasing.
Anyone who loads up the Foundry tools (and accepts the EULA) can rate content.
When you make a mission, it can be shared with friends and they can play it and test it.
The new remote contact window has a separate tab for Player Authored Missions that returns a list of all available player made missions. The search results can be filtered by a bunch of different criteria.
In order for a mission to show up automatically in this search results window, it must first be played and completed x number of times (this is the only gating feature to prevent a published mission from showing up randomly for any player). This means that players who use the Foundry must play it through first to ensure it can be completed and doesn't have a thousand vulgar jokes in it.
So think of it this way - before we "push" any new player authored mission to any random player, the community must play test the mission first. You can't just hit publish and instantly have it appear in game. That would lead to abuse fast. We fully expect there to be players who enjoy playing and rating new content but because we (Cryptic) have no idea what could be in the mission - you must agree to a EULA stating - play at your own risk first. (this is very similar to other sites where you can't just post a video and expect it to show up instantly online - and it must be watched by people who have agreed to potentially see something objectionable first).
If a player finds something objectionable or in violation of the authoring policies, they can flag the mission. If a mission is flagged as inappropriate, it is pulled until the issues is addressed.
Rewards are still very much TBD and even once we go into beta, will most likely be tweaked and tuned many times as our biggest concern is preventing abuse and ensuring that missions have fair rewards.
Is there any possibility that we could have two sets of availble missions? I dont know how to phrase this correctly, but I am thinking "universal" content and the "adult content". My reasoning is not to have an excuse to make vulgar missions with bad languege or sexual reference. More I am thinking we could have content that an child could play, but also we could then make "deeper" OR "darker" content, some really mind provoking stuff, ethical questions(as is star treks mandate) , missions that hint of a "horror" aspect. Though the word "horror" is ot quite the right one so dont take that too literally. I just mean "pg" and "18" content. Really only because the story of "adult" content may be deeper..someone might die ina profound way etc.
Just a thought noting more.
I like the idea that we can all rate, simply becauser ther more people rating the more fair and accurate those ratings are likely to be.
Well I think my questions have been answered or at least addressed to the extent possible ATM, so for now I'm just looking forward to being able to finally test this out. Thanks again to Storm and Dan for taking the time to explain
As has been mentioned, we'll be watching to see how long it takes for a mission to move through the review process. If something needs to be tweaked regarding the process, we'll certainly be making adjustments.
However, currently, it is impossible for us to know how many people will be willing to sign up as reviewers. Just based on my own personal guesses, with the amount of players on the forums looking to experience new content in STO, I would wager that this number would be very high. Which should mean lower wait times to see published missions made available to the community at large.
However, while you can easily see the worst case scenario, and I can easily see the best case scenario, neither of us can know for certain which will be the actual outcome.
Most likely, it will be somewhere in between the two. As we move forward, and get closer to Season 3, and the actual release of The Foundry for Star Trek Online's release to Holodeck, we'll learn more, and make changes where needed.
Thanks,
Stormshade
You should be able to mine beta statistics to get an idea. How many people seemed to be playing beta just to play, and how many were actively reporting bugs and contributing on the forums?
Wanting to play content and wanting to review content are two different things. One's much less about fun and much more about looking closely at surroundings, replying to try different dialogue options, etc.
This is pretty much my concern. It sounds like only the most "vocal" people on the forums will get their missions tested, and anyone who DOESNT use the forums will pretty much never have a chance.
QFT. I feel exactly as described. While I pop my head in every now and then to say something, I would say that no one "knows" me. There are several (such as Nagus and Kirkfat) that I see posts from frequently. I 'know" them. I would be more apt to try one of their missions.
I can also attest that this same thing has happened to me in the COH Architect. I built a mission that I spent several weeks on creating and testing to make it worthwhile and enjoyable. To this day, it has been played a whopping 6 times. All by the few friends I do have in that game. That was a year ago. Still on the bottom of the pile.
Is there any possibility that we could have two sets of availble missions? I dont know how to phrase this correctly, but I am thinking "universal" content and the "adult content". My reasoning is not to have an excuse to make vulgar missions with bad languege or sexual reference. More I am thinking we could have content that an child could play, but also we could then make "deeper" OR "darker" content, some really mind provoking stuff, ethical questions(as is star treks mandate) , missions that hint of a "horror" aspect. Though the word "horror" is ot quite the right one so dont take that too literally. I just mean "pg" and "18" content. Really only because the story of "adult" content may be deeper..someone might die ina profound way etc.
Just a thought noting more.
I like the idea that we can all rate, simply becauser ther more people rating the more fair and accurate those ratings are likely to be.
My worry with this is that as soon as you have those separate ratings, you have, in some people's minds, already granted the right to make content which pushes the envelope farther than intended.
Star Trek Online is a family game, with a Teen rating. While we expect that the introduction of The Foundry for Star Trek Online to introduce some more mature content, we want to make sure that the content doesn't cross the line into inappropriate, vulgar, or objectionable material.
QFT. I feel exactly as described. While I pop my head in every now and then to say something, I would say that no one "knows" me. There are several (such as Nagus and Kirkfat) that I see posts from frequently. I 'know" them. I would be more apt to try one of their missions.
I can also attest that this same thing has happened to me in the COH Architect. I built a mission that I spent several weeks on creating and testing to make it worthwhile and enjoyable. To this day, it has been played a whopping 6 times. All by the few friends I do have in that game. That was a year ago. Still on the bottom of the pile.
Sorry to hear that. Personally, I'll be reading the UGC forum when its added and playing any missions that sound interesting. I'll definitely be willing to give yours a try if you post about it.
However, currently, it is impossible for us to know how many people will be willing to sign up as reviewers. Just based on my own personal guesses, with the amount of players on the forums looking to experience new content in STO, I would wager that this number would be very high.
My concern with this is best demonstrated by a quote:
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
Say a person writes 'challenging' content. Be it a social allegory in the style of Trek's finest, or a puzzle that requires reading.
Given a large enough review body, would challenging content be voted high or low?
Not being elitist here. Just concerned that even simple puzzles like Spin the Wheel or Cold Case may never get the audience they deserve, judging by some of the feedback we've seen.
There is no council. That was a bad choice of words - or pure fan speculative paraphrasing.
Anyone who loads up the Foundry tools (and accepts the EULA) can rate content.
When you make a mission, it can be shared with friends and they can play it and test it.
The new remote contact window has a separate tab for Player Authored Missions that returns a list of all available player made missions. The search results can be filtered by a bunch of different criteria.
In order for a mission to show up automatically in this search results window, it must first be played and completed x number of times (this is the only gating feature to prevent a published mission from showing up randomly for any player). This means that players who use the Foundry must play it through first to ensure it can be completed and doesn't have a thousand vulgar jokes in it.
So think of it this way - before we "push" any new player authored mission to any random player, the community must play test the mission first. You can't just hit publish and instantly have it appear in game. That would lead to abuse fast. We fully expect there to be players who enjoy playing and rating new content but because we (Cryptic) have no idea what could be in the mission - you must agree to a EULA stating - play at your own risk first. (this is very similar to other sites where you can't just post a video and expect it to show up instantly online - and it must be watched by people who have agreed to potentially see something objectionable first).
If a player finds something objectionable or in violation of the authoring policies, they can flag the mission. If a mission is flagged as inappropriate, it is pulled until the issues is addressed.
Thanks for clearing that up. No official "Panel of Reviewers" who gate content. Instead, we'll have a volunteer subsection of players who are tasked with policing, accepting and denying all content that shows up in the official search list. Fair enough.
Hopefully there are not ways to abuse the reviewer system and create cartels to grief someone who wants their new mission to show in the search list. There's no Council, but you still have a segment of players who have more privileges than others which could cause abuse.
Rewards are still very much TBD and even once we go into beta, will most likely be tweaked and tuned many times as our biggest concern is preventing abuse and ensuring that missions have fair rewards.
I really am hoping you'll find a way to not use the "Diminishing Returns" Mission XP. Thanks again for the clarifications.
This is pretty much my concern. It sounds like only the most "vocal" people on the forums will get their missions tested, and anyone who DOESNT use the forums will pretty much never have a chance.
me too, I also share this as a concern, each mission created should receive equal attention. We could miss some real gems as a result. And for me..lets say i try this out and find i DO enjoy making missions , as that other guy said. If I am having to shout the loudest or try and work my way into a cliche group then suddenly this becomes much less of an attractive option. Assuming i ever do make missions I would hope that my missions have the same chance that other peoples are afforded. even if i have only made one and someone has made 60. it should make no difference. I really hope ALL content will be looked at in the same time window and will be given the same attention. It's in our own best interests to do it that way IMHO
My worry with this is that as soon as you have those separate ratings, you have, in some people's minds, already granted the right to make content which pushes the envelope farther than intended.
Star Trek Online is a family game, with a Teen rating. While we expect that the introduction of The Foundry for Star Trek Online to introduce some more mature content, we want to make sure that the content doesn't cross the line into inappropriate, vulgar, or objectionable material.
Thanks,
Stormshade
I do uunderstand actually, it's in keeping with the way all trek has worked over the years. In one way I think it is a shame, but in another if i admit it i KNOW it would be too open to abuse. I just wish there was a way to alow mature content but not inappropraite content. but i think it's a tall order. Thanks for the reply anyways Stormshade. It doesn't take away my interest in playing/creating new missions
EDIT: oh I hate being int he dark, if somene feels like killig some time(lol) if someone feels like PMing me and explaining what "diminishing returns" means I would be very greatful
This is pretty much my concern. It sounds like only the most "vocal" people on the forums will get their missions tested, and anyone who DOESNT use the forums will pretty much never have a chance.
I suggest the following:
Team up with friends/fleetmates to play their missions and them to play yours
Have a review ratio of 1:2 (for every one mission of yours that gets reviewed, review two missions submitted by others) - this relies on personal integrity but that's how Torrent / P2P filesharing works
If someone flags my mission simply because he or she thinks that I'm a forum troll, will my mission ever see the light of day, or is it automatically inelligible for inclusion in the game, simply because it got a no vote?
Team up with friends/fleetmates to play their missions and them to play yours
Have a review ratio of 1:2 (for every one mission of yours that gets reviewed, review two missions submitted by others) - this relies on personal integrity but that's how Torrent / P2P filesharing works
Sounds kind of like friends approving friends, regardless of the actual mission quality.
If someone flags my mission simply because he or she thinks that I'm a forum troll, will my mission ever see the light of day, or is it automatically inelligible for inclusion in the game, simply because it got a no vote?
i think the point of multiple number of reviews is to weed out people who are being vengeful or stupid. if you need 10 reviews and 9 say its fine and one says its not then i would assume that its goes through.
once its live if people flag it cryptic will review it personally, so if its clean then you have nothing to worry about.
Once the mission has been played TBD number of times and has not been flagged for inappropriate (i.e. violating policy) text then it will show up in the remote contact list for anyone.
Is there any penalty for flagging something dishonestly or incorrectly? Or have you just invented the perfect griefing tool?
Person A and Person B are on a pick-up group, and person B "needs" an item that person A wanted and doesn't think person B really needed. So the minute that he leaves the team, person A pulls up a list of all of person B's unrated missions, and he and his fleet divide them up among themselves, racing through them and flagging all of them as inappropriate. They repeat this from time to time to make sure that nobody ever sees any of person B's work, to punish him.
1) Is there anything stopping person A from doing this?
2) If person A gets caught doing this, will the penalty be severe enough (and public enough) to dissuade persons C, D, E, ..., X, and Y from thinking it was a pretty cool idea and totally worth the wrist slap penalty if they even get caught?
This is not a pure hypothetical; this is exactly what some super-groups did in City of Heroes with a similar system. If you offended anybody from that supergroup, even accidentally, the whole group would one-star every player-authored story arc you wrote in retaliation.
This isn't idle speculation. The example being thrown around here a lot is the City of Heroes Mission Architect, and I can tell you there are missions published over there that haven't seen a single person playing them (much less rating them). If they had the same hurdle as what is being described here, maybe there wouldn't be as many exploit missions released to the public...but a very large portion of valid missions created as the producers intended would also never see the light of day.
I agree with you, there are thousands of unplayed missions in Mission Architect.
This *is* pure speculation on my part. Without enough dedicated Reviewers to do the job of constant policing, The Reviewer system sounds like it will end up like this:
If you want G Rated Content, don't bother signing up to be a Reviewer - just use the Search List.
If you want X Rated, Hottt Vulcan Slave Girls - Sign up to be a Reviewer so you can play them right away!
If someone flags my mission simply because he or she thinks that I'm a forum troll, will my mission ever see the light of day, or is it automatically inelligible for inclusion in the game, simply because it got a no vote?
i hope if one person takes unreasonable objection that there will be enoug people to overule or turn the tide on that one person. I mean thats why you have a "panel" or whatever so that people review separatley and the majority would enable/disable the mission. Not one person.
I also think that if someone is too easily offended, or biased in any way and it sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of how they review things compared tot he rest of the panel, they should be held accountable. I think accountability from both sides will also limit the abuse possibilities from BOTH sides.
Sorry to hear that. Personally, I'll be reading the UGC forum when its added and playing any missions that sound interesting. I'll definitely be willing to give yours a try if you post about it.
Of course you would.
OK, let me switch to generic "you" for a minute, not personal "you." I'm also still carrying scars from City of Heroes' experiment with UGC.
One of the things that happened to me repeatedly, until it became clear I wouldn't play that meta-game, was people who would play my missions, rate them 5 stars, and then in the comments tell me that I needed to play their missions and rate them 5 stars as well. When I didn't? They changed the rating to 1-star -- not because they didn't enjoy it, but to punish me for not 5-starring them. Enough of this happened that despite 20 or 30 plays each in their first couple of weeks, every story arc I wrote ended up down in the low-ratings ghetto, where they get maybe one play every five or six months.
If there are any kinds of ratings, there will be ratings mafias saying, "Nice mission you have there. Be a shame if anything ... happened ... to it."
I agree with you, there are thousands of unplayed missions in Mission Architect.
Ive seen this point made several times now, and have yet to see anyone try to counter it. I'm still waiting, as it seems like a very important issue, especially considering the fact that COH has more players than STO and has a UGC system that is a year old.
Say some player creates a well written, mature mission regarding a planet whose government supports the aborting of foetuses for trivial reasons, and how the Federation reacts to it.
No matter which way the plot turns, someone's gonna feel the urge to crush and destroy the awkward questions that are raised in their minds. And they're going to tell their friends.
What about a mission where there's a highly spiritual desert dwelling race, requiring assistance in their uprising against Imperialist aggressors through asymmetrical warfare? After the obvious Frank Herbert comparisons are made, the parallels to present day conflicts will be far too painful for most people to bear. Thus a potentially good mission is voted down en masse.
Yet both these concepts would make perfect Star Trek episodes.
Comments
Thank you sir. As a addendum question, would we be able to use the system to make puzzles? (thinking damaged ship, must get it repaired kind of mission) Both complex or simple in terms of difficulty?
That helps a bit. Sounds like there won't be a limited number of "Reviewers" who are responsible for looking at new UGC content before it can be played by everyone.
I'd like to hear more about how the "Reviewers" will be moderated though. Will we be able to see who denied our mission and why? Or will it be anonymous like - "10 Reviewers have flagged your content as inappropriate" ?
/Agree. I think your is a mature attidude that makes much sense to me. Things CAN be pulled, i am so much for giving something a chance rather than not even try based on objections that very few are routed in fact. Simply because this idea has not been done here before. Dont get me wrong I think working out as many rules and preventative guidlines BEFORE it goes live are a must. Anticipate what we are able to, minimise any potential damage. But from there when it goes live, people can object if it is not working out..we can suggest changes and even to cancel the whole idea IF it doesn't work.
I never agreed with the player council idea, IMHO I felt no matter what it never really felt like it was going to HELP any aspect of this game. But to have the potential for all of this content..the biggest complaint of all STO players..well to me that warrants the effoty to try. And yes I am one of the people that doews NOT want wookies running around in this game.
@Rikaelus "If UGC is considered inappropriate, is it then handed back to the author to make changes and republish?" I love this question, i have been wondering the very same thing. it makes sense that if a mission is CLOSE to being appropraite that people have a chance to rework it
I am a little concerned by the idea that cryptic will have little or no input into these missions. I am ok with the panel idea but i still hope that they would be answerable to cryptic and that someone "official" would be there to oversee thing./ I am not saying it's all bad..just a little concerning.
Hopefully if someone says a mission is inappropriate, it will be investigated by Cryptic. That is good for 2 reasons: 1, if it really is inappropriate, the person who made it should get it trouble. 2, if it ISNT inappropriate, the person who said it WAS should get in trouble.
i disagree. using the forums to advertise is an advantage but it does not mean non forum users are screwed.
its going to be up to the community to find missions. he said there would be a search criteria with lots of options. so when you log in and go to the contact screen maybe you can search missions that focus around romulans, or cardassians or are diplomatic missions are are all ground or all space or whatever.
most people that dont go on the forums wont then be looking for mission by vocal forum posters, they will be doing manual searches for missions that catch their eye. remember only a small number of people use the forums and most people will just use the search feature to find missions without ever going anywhere near the forums to find advertised missions.
sure some missions will go unrated at some point but thats then up to the that author to then go an advertise his or her missions but talking to their fleet, their friends, on the forums, in zone chat or what ever.
perhaps one of the search features can be for unrated or unpublished missions so people can find yet to be tested missions and give them a go. i personally doubt i will use the forum that much to select what missions i play but will probably use the in game search feature. Im sure plenty of other will do the same.
As has been mentioned, we'll be watching to see how long it takes for a mission to move through the review process. If something needs to be tweaked regarding the process, we'll certainly be making adjustments.
However, currently, it is impossible for us to know how many people will be willing to sign up as reviewers. Just based on my own personal guesses, with the amount of players on the forums looking to experience new content in STO, I would wager that this number would be very high. Which should mean lower wait times to see published missions made available to the community at large.
However, while you can easily see the worst case scenario, and I can easily see the best case scenario, neither of us can know for certain which will be the actual outcome.
Most likely, it will be somewhere in between the two. As we move forward, and get closer to Season 3, and the actual release of The Foundry for Star Trek Online's release to Holodeck, we'll learn more, and make changes where needed.
Thanks,
Stormshade
Is there any possibility that we could have two sets of availble missions? I dont know how to phrase this correctly, but I am thinking "universal" content and the "adult content". My reasoning is not to have an excuse to make vulgar missions with bad languege or sexual reference. More I am thinking we could have content that an child could play, but also we could then make "deeper" OR "darker" content, some really mind provoking stuff, ethical questions(as is star treks mandate) , missions that hint of a "horror" aspect. Though the word "horror" is ot quite the right one so dont take that too literally. I just mean "pg" and "18" content. Really only because the story of "adult" content may be deeper..someone might die ina profound way etc.
Just a thought noting more.
I like the idea that we can all rate, simply becauser ther more people rating the more fair and accurate those ratings are likely to be.
You should be able to mine beta statistics to get an idea. How many people seemed to be playing beta just to play, and how many were actively reporting bugs and contributing on the forums?
Wanting to play content and wanting to review content are two different things. One's much less about fun and much more about looking closely at surroundings, replying to try different dialogue options, etc.
QFT. I feel exactly as described. While I pop my head in every now and then to say something, I would say that no one "knows" me. There are several (such as Nagus and Kirkfat) that I see posts from frequently. I 'know" them. I would be more apt to try one of their missions.
I can also attest that this same thing has happened to me in the COH Architect. I built a mission that I spent several weeks on creating and testing to make it worthwhile and enjoyable. To this day, it has been played a whopping 6 times. All by the few friends I do have in that game. That was a year ago. Still on the bottom of the pile.
My worry with this is that as soon as you have those separate ratings, you have, in some people's minds, already granted the right to make content which pushes the envelope farther than intended.
Star Trek Online is a family game, with a Teen rating. While we expect that the introduction of The Foundry for Star Trek Online to introduce some more mature content, we want to make sure that the content doesn't cross the line into inappropriate, vulgar, or objectionable material.
Thanks,
Stormshade
Sorry to hear that. Personally, I'll be reading the UGC forum when its added and playing any missions that sound interesting. I'll definitely be willing to give yours a try if you post about it.
My concern with this is best demonstrated by a quote:
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
Say a person writes 'challenging' content. Be it a social allegory in the style of Trek's finest, or a puzzle that requires reading.
Given a large enough review body, would challenging content be voted high or low?
Not being elitist here. Just concerned that even simple puzzles like Spin the Wheel or Cold Case may never get the audience they deserve, judging by some of the feedback we've seen.
Thanks for clearing that up. No official "Panel of Reviewers" who gate content. Instead, we'll have a volunteer subsection of players who are tasked with policing, accepting and denying all content that shows up in the official search list. Fair enough.
Hopefully there are not ways to abuse the reviewer system and create cartels to grief someone who wants their new mission to show in the search list. There's no Council, but you still have a segment of players who have more privileges than others which could cause abuse.
I really am hoping you'll find a way to not use the "Diminishing Returns" Mission XP. Thanks again for the clarifications.
me too, I also share this as a concern, each mission created should receive equal attention. We could miss some real gems as a result. And for me..lets say i try this out and find i DO enjoy making missions , as that other guy said. If I am having to shout the loudest or try and work my way into a cliche group then suddenly this becomes much less of an attractive option. Assuming i ever do make missions I would hope that my missions have the same chance that other peoples are afforded. even if i have only made one and someone has made 60. it should make no difference. I really hope ALL content will be looked at in the same time window and will be given the same attention. It's in our own best interests to do it that way IMHO
I do uunderstand actually, it's in keeping with the way all trek has worked over the years. In one way I think it is a shame, but in another if i admit it i KNOW it would be too open to abuse. I just wish there was a way to alow mature content but not inappropraite content. but i think it's a tall order. Thanks for the reply anyways Stormshade. It doesn't take away my interest in playing/creating new missions
EDIT: oh I hate being int he dark, if somene feels like killig some time(lol) if someone feels like PMing me and explaining what "diminishing returns" means I would be very greatful
I suggest the following:
Sounds kind of like friends approving friends, regardless of the actual mission quality.
This is to ensure missions aren't bugged and sloppily written - not establishing a new player-council-world-order.
i think the point of multiple number of reviews is to weed out people who are being vengeful or stupid. if you need 10 reviews and 9 say its fine and one says its not then i would assume that its goes through.
once its live if people flag it cryptic will review it personally, so if its clean then you have nothing to worry about.
Get more than a handful of people together, and you get cliques and politics.
The question is, how can this system be protected from the worst of our natures?
(Which provokes the greater question - Should it be?)
Is there any penalty for flagging something dishonestly or incorrectly? Or have you just invented the perfect griefing tool?
Person A and Person B are on a pick-up group, and person B "needs" an item that person A wanted and doesn't think person B really needed. So the minute that he leaves the team, person A pulls up a list of all of person B's unrated missions, and he and his fleet divide them up among themselves, racing through them and flagging all of them as inappropriate. They repeat this from time to time to make sure that nobody ever sees any of person B's work, to punish him.
1) Is there anything stopping person A from doing this?
2) If person A gets caught doing this, will the penalty be severe enough (and public enough) to dissuade persons C, D, E, ..., X, and Y from thinking it was a pretty cool idea and totally worth the wrist slap penalty if they even get caught?
This is not a pure hypothetical; this is exactly what some super-groups did in City of Heroes with a similar system. If you offended anybody from that supergroup, even accidentally, the whole group would one-star every player-authored story arc you wrote in retaliation.
In the end, you're going to have to just trust people - even if democracy's greatest flaw is its strength.
I'm willing to bet the douchebags will be few and far between. They'd be exhausted trolling all player missions.
I agree with you, there are thousands of unplayed missions in Mission Architect.
This *is* pure speculation on my part. Without enough dedicated Reviewers to do the job of constant policing, The Reviewer system sounds like it will end up like this:
i hope if one person takes unreasonable objection that there will be enoug people to overule or turn the tide on that one person. I mean thats why you have a "panel" or whatever so that people review separatley and the majority would enable/disable the mission. Not one person.
I also think that if someone is too easily offended, or biased in any way and it sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of how they review things compared tot he rest of the panel, they should be held accountable. I think accountability from both sides will also limit the abuse possibilities from BOTH sides.
Oh, I understand the purpose of the system. However, your suggestions sound like "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours".
Of course you would.
OK, let me switch to generic "you" for a minute, not personal "you." I'm also still carrying scars from City of Heroes' experiment with UGC.
One of the things that happened to me repeatedly, until it became clear I wouldn't play that meta-game, was people who would play my missions, rate them 5 stars, and then in the comments tell me that I needed to play their missions and rate them 5 stars as well. When I didn't? They changed the rating to 1-star -- not because they didn't enjoy it, but to punish me for not 5-starring them. Enough of this happened that despite 20 or 30 plays each in their first couple of weeks, every story arc I wrote ended up down in the low-ratings ghetto, where they get maybe one play every five or six months.
If there are any kinds of ratings, there will be ratings mafias saying, "Nice mission you have there. Be a shame if anything ... happened ... to it."
Ive seen this point made several times now, and have yet to see anyone try to counter it. I'm still waiting, as it seems like a very important issue, especially considering the fact that COH has more players than STO and has a UGC system that is a year old.
Say some player creates a well written, mature mission regarding a planet whose government supports the aborting of foetuses for trivial reasons, and how the Federation reacts to it.
No matter which way the plot turns, someone's gonna feel the urge to crush and destroy the awkward questions that are raised in their minds. And they're going to tell their friends.
What about a mission where there's a highly spiritual desert dwelling race, requiring assistance in their uprising against Imperialist aggressors through asymmetrical warfare? After the obvious Frank Herbert comparisons are made, the parallels to present day conflicts will be far too painful for most people to bear. Thus a potentially good mission is voted down en masse.
Yet both these concepts would make perfect Star Trek episodes.