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."
Ouch, i wonder if that can be learned from though to prevent it happening now? Cause your post certainly got my attention. There should be no "Teaming" of any kind. scary thought
@HeathenStorm. All I can think of is do what the original trek writers did. Add enough "vanilla" to majke it "tolerable" to more people. Ok I admit it may become a bit "diluted" but there are ways tomaking these stories easier for certain tpyes of people to digest. I mean so many of star trek(and even BSG's) stories were only acceptbale BECAUSE they wer sci-fi...
Oh, I understand the purpose of the system. However, your suggestions sound like "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours".
The second one was more-so based on personal integrity and vowing to rate two missions at random for every one of yours that gets reviewed.
The goal here isn't to coddle missions or to troll them: it's just to check whether they work and whether they don't violate the rules. My friends tend to be objective and tell me when I'm wrong - something I don't see often in the forums.
I'll try to leave feedback as to why I did or didn't review a mission highly. Maybe I put too much trust in people.
Regarding the missions that lack reviewers, I'd be surprised that they stay "unplayed" for too long. After all, that's a lot of what makes Star Trek, right? Going where no one has gone before?
Personally, I'll be jumping at missions that nobody has reviewed yet. Means I get to go do something that nobody in the universe (save the creator & friends) has seen. That's just super attractive to me.
The second one was more-so based on personal integrity and vowing to rate two missions at random for every one of yours that gets reviewed.
The goal here isn't to coddle missions or to troll them: it's just to check whether they work and whether they don't violate the rules. My friends tend to be objective and tell me when I'm wrong - something I don't see often in the forums.
I'll try to leave feedback as to why I did or didn't review a mission highly. Maybe I put too much trust in people.
I dont disagree with anything you just said, although it really isnt related to the point I was making eariler which you originally responded to. My earlier point was "how will the non-vocal people get their missions tested?". Now you seem to be talking about honest feedback, which while a good thing, isnt really related to what I was talking about.
Sounds kind of like friends approving friends, regardless of the actual mission quality.
The only grounds for rejection should be vulgar or offensive content, based on the statements in this thread, so friends can review friends but if they're giving passes the material that is deemed vulgar or inoffensive, then Cryptic will get called back in to re-review the mission when other people flag it and the original reviewers may face action, including get their reviewing privileges revoked.
When you review, it doesn't sound like it will be as a quality tester or canon police. It will be in search of a list of objectionable content. If that content goes live and Cryptic re-reviews it, I suspect that they'll note that the reviewers failed to flag the mission properly.
Quality ratings should be a separate matter and come in after the sweep for offensive or rule breaking content.
I'd also imagine you could appeal if your mission has NO objectionable content and is getting shot down unfairly, once again for Cryptic to investigate if they need to revoke a reviewer's reviewing rights.
I dont disagree with anything you just said, although it really isnt related to the point I was making eariler which you originally responded to. My earlier point was "how will the non-vocal people get their missions tested?". Now you seem to be talking about honest feedback, which while a good thing, isnt really related to what I was talking about.
Reviewing two missions at random for every one mission of yours that gets reviewed will help the non-vocal minority. Think of filesharing rules - to which I even used the torrent-sharing analogy.
That's where personal integrity comes in: are you a seeder of ideas or a leech?
I dont disagree with anything you just said, although it really isnt related to the point I was making eariler which you originally responded to. My earlier point was "how will the non-vocal people get their missions tested?". Now you seem to be talking about honest feedback, which while a good thing, isnt really related to what I was talking about.
One possibility is a carrot on a stick for reviewers. People won't stop at reviewing their friends' missions if there's a cosmetic incentive to review as many missions as possible.
I doubt the Foundry will launch with that in place but it's the kind of thing that's an option if not enough missions are getting reviewed.
Reviewing two missions at random for every one mission of yours that gets reviewed will help the non-vocal minority. Think of filesharing rules - to which I even used the torrent-sharing analogy.
That's where personal integrity comes in: are you a seeder of ideas or a leech?
Even if you are a seeder, you only have so much time. So are you going to spend that time reviewing missions of people you know or see posted about on the forums, or something random? Most people would probably do the former, and theres nothing wrong with that. However, the question still exists of how do the "quiet" people get their missions tested in a timely manner?
Even if you are a seeder, you only have so much time. So are you going to spend that time reviewing missions of people you know or see posted about on the forums, or something random? Most people would probably do the former, and theres nothing wrong with that. However, the question still exists of how do the "quiet" people get their missions tested in a timely manner?
You're asking for guarantees - which I doubt anyone can offer.
However, I hope to review a couple missions for everyone one of mine that gets put into player-rotation.
If it's a problem, they might require you to review missions before getting more of yours pushed live. We'll cross the bridge when we get there.
Reviewing two missions at random for every one mission of yours that gets reviewed will help the non-vocal minority. Think of filesharing rules - to which I even used the torrent-sharing analogy.
That's where personal integrity comes in: are you a seeder of ideas or a leech?
I think Cryptic can help with issues like this if they're willing to add some more code:
Perhaps Reviewers can't pick which missions they review - it's chosen for them randomly by the system.
or
Reviewers are required to test X number of missions from players that are not in their fleet and not on their friend's list.
You know I dont care if a mission is made by someone I hate!(not that I am saying i can think of even one person here that i do hate..it's just the point) I would wipe that name from my mind and concentrate on the content. After all along with everyone else "I" stand to benefit by making a fair review..because down the line I will be playing the BEST missiions not the ones made by people i like more.
I am certainly no angel..so If I can have this mindset I am sure many people on these forums can. I am prepared to trust the people here....if nothing else we DO have a broad range of opinons on this forum! LOL while a times that can seem frustrating, the contrast's betwen people actually suggest that we have the POTENTIAL to get the best rating system on missons..or just that so many different opinions mean the ones with the best appeal hopefully should be the ones published.
Of course we will. But that doesnt mean we cant try to figure out potential problems and solutions now. And any who arent interested in that line of discussion are free to ignore it.
Regarding the missions that lack reviewers, I'd be surprised that they stay "unplayed" for too long. After all, that's a lot of what makes Star Trek, right? Going where no one has gone before?
Personally, I'll be jumping at missions that nobody has reviewed yet. Means I get to go do something that nobody in the universe (save the creator & friends) has seen. That's just super attractive to me.
Agreed. another thing about the UGC is that the future of this feature is truly in our hands. Cryptic will provide the tools and some oversight, but is the playerbase that will obviously drive this content forward. Lucky for us, unlike most MMOs, we have a significant percentage of the playerbase who are not your average MMO player. They are Trek fans, and some of them haven't even touched an MMO before STO. I am hoping that this fact will at least cut down on some of the more horrific exploitations possible with UGC.
People, this is really up to US to make it work, and to let the creative, well put together missions rise to the top. Cryptic will do all they can to help us...but the playerbase will be the judge, jury, and executioner.
Agreed. another thing about the UGC is that the future of this feature is truly in our hands. Cryptic will provide the tools and some oversight, but is the playerbase that will obviously drive this content forward. Lucky for us, unlike most MMOs, we have a significant percentage of the playerbase who are not your average MMO player. They are Trek fans, and some of them haven't even touched an MMO before STO. I am hoping that this fact will at least cut down on some of the more horrific exploitations possible with UGC.
People, this is really up to US to make it work, and to let the creative, well put together missions rise to the top. Cryptic will do all they can to help us...but the playerbase will be the judge, jury, and executioner.
I really wish that were true. But from someone who has played several MMOs, I can say that STO isnt somehow different because its based on Star Trek. The people here on the forums and the people I've met in game are pretty much the same as the people in the other games I've played. Getting to the point, STO's UGC system is going to be like COH's in the sense that it will have literally thousands of missions that dont get touched, which will suck for the creators. The only difference is in COH those missions are actually "live", while in STO's system they'll never make it live without being tested.
People, this is really up to US to make it work, and to let the creative, well put together missions rise to the top. Cryptic will do all they can to help us...but the playerbase will be the judge, jury, and executioner.
I really wish that were true. But from someone who has played several MMOs, I can say that STO isnt somehow different because its based on Star Trek. The people here on the forums and the people I've met in game are pretty much the same as the people in the other games I've played. Getting to the point, STO's UGC system is going to be like COH's in the sense that it will have literally thousands of missions that dont get touched, which will suck for the creators. The only difference is in COH those missions are actually "live", while in STO's system they'll never make it live without being tested.
It's really simple. If you want people to test your missions, you can't just put them up there and expect people to randomly find them. You must advertise, whether it be "hey (friend/fleemate), you should check out my mission, it's pretty cool!" (most people will do this, since not everyone visits the forums), or a thread in the UGC section about it. if you don't do anything and just expect people to randomly find it...good luck.
STO's UGC system is going to be like COH's in the sense that it will have literally thousands of missions that dont get touched, which will suck for the creators. .
If they take time to really write a great mission, yet they don't promote it for others to play, then they have themselves to blame for nobody playing the mission. Meanwhile, what gets included in game is quality v. COH thousands of missions of junk to sort through.
We are building the resources. If UGC authors want to get players to judge their missions, then they need to put their missions on the UGC wiki, or blog about them, or even post in the STO ugc forums.
It would be their own fault if they fail to excite people to check out their missions.
Of course we will. But that doesnt mean we cant try to figure out potential problems and solutions now. And any who arent interested in that line of discussion are free to ignore it.
I've contributed a few ideas - gating content by reviewing and completing other people's content might work if things get bad.
The problem is that most people don't offer thorough reviews. Even in college, I have online discussion boards where responses have been as bad as "I like you ideas. Its good."
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.
This.
The UGC system was just about the only thing announced so far that would have potentially renewed my level of interest enough to forgive... other things.
However, the system as described makes me just want to stick with CoH, where at least once I sit down to make a mission that will be inevitably ignored by everyone but my SG-mates,
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
As others have pointed out, that's largely the sort of system that people are finding worrisome. Especially since going beyond the 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' part also requires a lot more personal commitment and effort than simply leaving an active seed up for whatever you just downloaded for a while.
bragging is arrogant, self prmoting is not. If you promote yourself with a sense of humility and show respct and thanks for people trying your missions..it's not the same. not to me anyway. Just my point of view
It's not bragging, it's promoting, just like movies that try to get you to watch them. What? Would you prefer to sort through an endless list of movies, randomly watching them in the hopes of finding something decent? Or, would you prefer to browse promotional trailers, looking for something that you might want to watch?
I expect that some of the most played missions are done by folks who use the camera tools to create some type of trailer for the mission, while posting screenshots, mission teases, and other info on these forums, starbase ugc, and other sites.
I expect that the stoked guys will promote their jupiter force missions on stoked, which will incite many players to check them out.
I really dont see a need for a group of people having to decide this sort of stuff. Post all the episodes in Tribble each week/month and have the player base as a whole vote on it. They do the mission and a pop up comes up asking for a rating 1-10. Enough people rate it high enough it passes.
I really dont see a need for a group of people having to decide this sort of stuff. Post all the episodes in Tribble each week/month and have the player base as a whole vote on it. They do the mission and a pop up comes up asking for a rating 1-10. Enough people rate it high enough it passes.
Seems simple to me.
it's not a group of people, anyone can do it, you just have to agree to a different EULA.
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?
Maybe the review process should have the authors as anonymous. and once published can carry the authors name?
Comments
Ouch, i wonder if that can be learned from though to prevent it happening now? Cause your post certainly got my attention. There should be no "Teaming" of any kind. scary thought
@HeathenStorm. All I can think of is do what the original trek writers did. Add enough "vanilla" to majke it "tolerable" to more people. Ok I admit it may become a bit "diluted" but there are ways tomaking these stories easier for certain tpyes of people to digest. I mean so many of star trek(and even BSG's) stories were only acceptbale BECAUSE they wer sci-fi...
The goal here isn't to coddle missions or to troll them: it's just to check whether they work and whether they don't violate the rules. My friends tend to be objective and tell me when I'm wrong - something I don't see often in the forums.
I'll try to leave feedback as to why I did or didn't review a mission highly. Maybe I put too much trust in people.
Personally, I'll be jumping at missions that nobody has reviewed yet. Means I get to go do something that nobody in the universe (save the creator & friends) has seen. That's just super attractive to me.
I dont disagree with anything you just said, although it really isnt related to the point I was making eariler which you originally responded to. My earlier point was "how will the non-vocal people get their missions tested?". Now you seem to be talking about honest feedback, which while a good thing, isnt really related to what I was talking about.
The only grounds for rejection should be vulgar or offensive content, based on the statements in this thread, so friends can review friends but if they're giving passes the material that is deemed vulgar or inoffensive, then Cryptic will get called back in to re-review the mission when other people flag it and the original reviewers may face action, including get their reviewing privileges revoked.
When you review, it doesn't sound like it will be as a quality tester or canon police. It will be in search of a list of objectionable content. If that content goes live and Cryptic re-reviews it, I suspect that they'll note that the reviewers failed to flag the mission properly.
Quality ratings should be a separate matter and come in after the sweep for offensive or rule breaking content.
I'd also imagine you could appeal if your mission has NO objectionable content and is getting shot down unfairly, once again for Cryptic to investigate if they need to revoke a reviewer's reviewing rights.
That's where personal integrity comes in: are you a seeder of ideas or a leech?
One possibility is a carrot on a stick for reviewers. People won't stop at reviewing their friends' missions if there's a cosmetic incentive to review as many missions as possible.
I doubt the Foundry will launch with that in place but it's the kind of thing that's an option if not enough missions are getting reviewed.
Even if you are a seeder, you only have so much time. So are you going to spend that time reviewing missions of people you know or see posted about on the forums, or something random? Most people would probably do the former, and theres nothing wrong with that. However, the question still exists of how do the "quiet" people get their missions tested in a timely manner?
However, I hope to review a couple missions for everyone one of mine that gets put into player-rotation.
If it's a problem, they might require you to review missions before getting more of yours pushed live. We'll cross the bridge when we get there.
I think Cryptic can help with issues like this if they're willing to add some more code:
or
I am certainly no angel..so If I can have this mindset I am sure many people on these forums can. I am prepared to trust the people here....if nothing else we DO have a broad range of opinons on this forum! LOL while a times that can seem frustrating, the contrast's betwen people actually suggest that we have the POTENTIAL to get the best rating system on missons..or just that so many different opinions mean the ones with the best appeal hopefully should be the ones published.
I have faith! lol
Of course we will. But that doesnt mean we cant try to figure out potential problems and solutions now. And any who arent interested in that line of discussion are free to ignore it.
Agreed. another thing about the UGC is that the future of this feature is truly in our hands. Cryptic will provide the tools and some oversight, but is the playerbase that will obviously drive this content forward. Lucky for us, unlike most MMOs, we have a significant percentage of the playerbase who are not your average MMO player. They are Trek fans, and some of them haven't even touched an MMO before STO. I am hoping that this fact will at least cut down on some of the more horrific exploitations possible with UGC.
People, this is really up to US to make it work, and to let the creative, well put together missions rise to the top. Cryptic will do all they can to help us...but the playerbase will be the judge, jury, and executioner.
I really wish that were true. But from someone who has played several MMOs, I can say that STO isnt somehow different because its based on Star Trek. The people here on the forums and the people I've met in game are pretty much the same as the people in the other games I've played. Getting to the point, STO's UGC system is going to be like COH's in the sense that it will have literally thousands of missions that dont get touched, which will suck for the creators. The only difference is in COH those missions are actually "live", while in STO's system they'll never make it live without being tested.
QFT.
/10chars
It's really simple. If you want people to test your missions, you can't just put them up there and expect people to randomly find them. You must advertise, whether it be "hey (friend/fleemate), you should check out my mission, it's pretty cool!" (most people will do this, since not everyone visits the forums), or a thread in the UGC section about it. if you don't do anything and just expect people to randomly find it...good luck.
If they take time to really write a great mission, yet they don't promote it for others to play, then they have themselves to blame for nobody playing the mission. Meanwhile, what gets included in game is quality v. COH thousands of missions of junk to sort through.
We are building the resources. If UGC authors want to get players to judge their missions, then they need to put their missions on the UGC wiki, or blog about them, or even post in the STO ugc forums.
It would be their own fault if they fail to excite people to check out their missions.
Personally, I hate braggarts, and I'll be completely avoiding anyone's missions who I see bragging about how great they are.
it's not about BRAGGING, it's about PROMOTING. and if people don't PROMOTE their missions, NO ONE will play them. :rolleyes:
FYI, "self promotion" is simply business speak for bragging. But if you disagree, feel free to explain the difference.
Bragging = MY MISSION RULES YOUR SUX L0LZ
promoting = hey guys come check out my mission i think it's pretty cool
quit it with the semantics, the fact is people need to promote their own missions for this to work
The problem is that most people don't offer thorough reviews. Even in college, I have online discussion boards where responses have been as bad as "I like you ideas. Its good."
This.
The UGC system was just about the only thing announced so far that would have potentially renewed my level of interest enough to forgive... other things.
However, the system as described makes me just want to stick with CoH, where at least once I sit down to make a mission that will be inevitably ignored by everyone but my SG-mates,
As others have pointed out, that's largely the sort of system that people are finding worrisome. Especially since going beyond the 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' part also requires a lot more personal commitment and effort than simply leaving an active seed up for whatever you just downloaded for a while.
I expect that some of the most played missions are done by folks who use the camera tools to create some type of trailer for the mission, while posting screenshots, mission teases, and other info on these forums, starbase ugc, and other sites.
I expect that the stoked guys will promote their jupiter force missions on stoked, which will incite many players to check them out.
Seems simple to me.
That is the system. A "group" includes everyone who plays and reviews the missions.
it's not a group of people, anyone can do it, you just have to agree to a different EULA.
I've also posted an FAQ there which you all can give a read, and of course, we'll be adding to the FAQ as time goes on.
Thanks,
Stormshade
Maybe the review process should have the authors as anonymous. and once published can carry the authors name?