Look at it this way: the missions Cryptic makes are tied into the overarching STO storyline. Since we're not part of their writing staff, we can't make those missions. Anything we do is just for fun, making stuff up, non-official, non-canon stories.
We're talking things subscribing players can do, not if what they do is "official" or "canon". UGC authors are adding content to the game, giving players more to do.
Or look at it this way: You buy a Dungeons and Dragons rule book, you buy some miniatures, and you make a game up for your friends to play through. Should Wizards of the Coast pay you money? Or should you pay them for giving you the tools to make said games/stories? Given that the latter is actually the case, and is exactly what is happening with UGC, I don't see why the payment structure should be any different.
If you buy a Dungeons and Dragons rule book, buy some miniatures, and make a game up for your friends to play through... should Wizards of the Coast make money on the game you made with their tools? No. They get their money for selling the tools... not on the game you make with them.
That's what we're talking about here.
We're already paying for the tools through our subscription fee. But because others need to pay a subscription to play what we make with our tools, Cryptic is getting paid twice.
Wizards of the Coast, in your above example, isn't getting paid twice.
Furthermore, Cryptic is providing a server to hold the UGC and method of publishing/distributing it. They should be paid for that.
We're paying for that already, along with the tools. It's in our subscription fee. Besides... space is cheap. And the instructions needed for the engine to put our missions together doesn't take much room-especially since it'll probably be compressed when stored.
Nope! Cryptic has already said on a few occasions that UGC will never replace the professional content they design by hand.
Professional content they've designed by hand has always amounted to very, very little, relative to other MMOs. They've needed more designers since Cryptic got the license to make STO. Will UGC replace the one or two people they have making professional content now? No. But it will replace them having to hire the number of level designers they should have.
And I never once suggested Cryptic would cease releasing professionally-done missions altogether. UGC is a convenient substitute for them hiring more professional designers. They've made it largely the players' responsibility to populate the game with content.
They have teams of environment artists that hand design the maps and assets... Just look at the wonders they did with featured episodes. Never seen or experienced before... Once assets like that are developed, then and only then are they added to UGC for us to add our stories.
And I never suggested they'd be getting rid of their artists. The UGC system needs their artists as much as their level designers do.
To many, the new professionally designed content and fresh experiences are why they are paying $15/mo. Many have no desire to even read our "player stories" because re-used stuff is not compelling to them.
You have no concept of how little content STO has, do you?
With the weekly missions it will still take years for STO to come close to the number of missions MMOs like WoW and LotRO had at their respective launches. With the UGC system it could be a matter of months.
UGC is Cryptic's means to increase overall content availability to compete with other MMOs. Otherwise they would probably have to quadruple their level designing staff to make up the difference in a timely manner.
Do you think the execs gave them the go-ahead to develop the UGC system because players wanted it? Heck no. They gave the go-ahead because they knew they could save money on professional development if the game were filled with player-created content.
Don't you dare make any missions for UGC then. You won't get paid for it. You've actually paid Cryptic just so you could write a story. Better cut your losses now and just play the missions instead of writing them. That way we can all move on and you don't have to feel sick.
As mentioned previously, I won't be touching the UGC system until authors are somehow reimbursed for the profit they're making for Cryptic.
I just don't get why so people are arguing about this.
We pay to use the toys Cryptic has made, whether those toys allow us to fly around the galaxy, pet a tribble (sorry my Klingon friends) or share a home-made story with friends. Regardless of what we are doing in STO, we are paying Cryptic for access to which ever toys they allow us to play with.
To expect to be paid for UGC is like expecting to be paid by the owners of FanFiction.net for writing a FF.
Does FanFiction.net make money on the works of the authors that post content on the site? Because I'm looking at the site now and I'm not seeing so much as a donation request.
I just don't get why so people are arguing about this.
We pay to use the toys Cryptic has made, whether those toys allow us to fly around the galaxy, pet a tribble (sorry my Klingon friends) or share a home-made story with friends. Regardless of what we are doing in STO, we are paying Cryptic for access to which ever toys they allow us to play with.
Maybe my view is too simplistic, but I like it.
Now people are paying Cryptic to use the toys UGC authors have made, too.
Paying Cryptic for their work makes complete and perfect sense.
Paying Cryptic for the work someone else has done.... that's different.
The person who actually made the content should receive payment, in some shape and form.
My concern about compensating players for creating content is how is Cryptic supposed to stay profitable if it has to share it's profits with the (possible) 1000s of people creating missions in the Foundry?
Compensation with real money is obviously not going to happen. Compensation with Cryptic points would lead to people grinding out mission (both in creation and play through) to get the c-points instead to paying Cryptic real money for them. Either way Cryptic looses real money.
If Cryptic does not stay profitable, then the game is shut down. No more Foundry, no more worries about compensation.
With Star Wars: TOR coming out next year, we are going to loose a lot of players. Not even counting the compensation for Foundry work, I'm concerned about STO surviving SW:TOR's release. My personal opinion is that when a threat like SW:TOR emerges, us in the Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire must band together and do what will save our universe. We fust face this foe together! If we do not, we will all be forced to use lighsabers and hang out with Wookiees if we want to play a space MMO.
DO keep in mind this is a feature many players of STO REQUESTED...they are not ploping it
on us and telling us to do it. WE wanted it.
ok, that said
>> IF <<
they did want to reward writers, crptic could offer prizes for best new UGC, highest rated UGC of the month and all time highest rated.
These prizes could be in the form of
C-Credits
exclusive UGC items
STO swag....T-shirts ect.
The best of the best over the entire year might get an invite to a cryptic attended convension.
If you want to get paid for creating STO missions, send a resume to Cryptic. UGC isn't your thing.
If you want to create missions in UGC for the betterment of the gereral playing population, because you enjoy the creative process, because you think it'll be fun for friends, and if you generally don't require a profit motive for every activity you participate in, then UGC may just be for you.
My concern about compensating players for creating content is how is Cryptic supposed to stay profitable if it has to share it's profits with the (possible) 1000s of people creating missions in the Foundry?
Compensation with real money is obviously not going to happen. Compensation with Cryptic points would lead to people grinding out mission (both in creation and play through) to get the c-points instead to paying Cryptic real money for them. Either way Cryptic looses real money.
A fair concern. A balance would obviously need to be struck. Rewards would have to be in such small increments that it wouldn't be worth the time to game the system.
For instance... instead of my above example of (fractional) C-Points being rewarded per playthrough, maybe it's based on total time spent playing a mission, with a top cap per playthrough to prevent idlers artificially increasing the time.
For every hour of playtime you get 1cp.
That means the mission would have to be played twice and each of those times take half an hour or longer, just to get 1cp. One C-Point has the rough monetary value of 1.25 cents. It would take 160 playthroughs of 30 minutes or more to equate to $1 worth of C-Points.
If my math is right that's 80 hours worth of playing a mission to earn the author 80CP; $1 worth of CP.
So the question becomes... is a piece of content giving players 80 hours of activity worth the potential loss of $1 worth of C-Points that the author may not buy, anyway?
Not worth it?
What about 1cp for every 2 hours; 160 hours of entertainment given to players, $1 worth of C-Points given to the author.
Then there are the other incentives the system inherently provides. With the promise of reward for popular missions, authors might be more inclined to make quality, in-depth missions. The authors of popular missions may be less inclined to cancel their STO subscriptions if they lose their "commission" on missions they've created.
And I am going to respectfully suggest that Rikaelus immediately change his forum name to FunHater. Seriously guy, it seems like everywhere you post you leave this black cloud of Anti-STO angst and lifetime-subscriber-regret in your wake. This thread had absolutely nothing to do with monetizing peoples voluntary creative contributions.
Oh, I want to have fun. And if you'll note, I'm not simply criticizing the system. I've provided quite a few constructive ideas of how to address the problems for the better. If I see any problem with STO having a viable solution, I'll be the first in line to suggest one. I'm a problem solver by nature.
I would love to use the UGC system for the sake of fun, but I'm also a person of principle by nature. As mentioned, if our voluntary work could be played for free, then I would have no issue what-so-ever.
I just don't like to see third parties profit on the creativity of individuals, and those individuals not receive anything in return for their labor. It's exploitative and acceptance of it sets a very bad precedence.
As for the course of this discussion changing direction, I fully support a moderator splitting the last few pages of this thread off onto a new one, since the conversation seems to be exclusively about this for those last few pages.
Professional content they've designed by hand has always amounted to very, very little, relative to other MMOs. They've needed more designers since Cryptic got the license to make STO. Will UGC replace the one or two people they have making professional content now? No. But it will replace them having to hire the number of level designers they should have.
I think you just insulted Cryptic as a whole. They have hundreds of people working for them and many of them are talented artists. Content Designers only do part of what's required to make a mission. You left out programmers, character artists, animation artists, ship artists, environment artists, dialog writers... you name it.
And please let us know when you become a Human Resources Manager at Cryptic so you can inform us how many extra people they should hire. If anything, you should not be opposed to Cryptic making more money so *they could* make their team larger.
And I never once suggested Cryptic would cease releasing professionally-done missions altogether. UGC is a convenient substitute for them hiring more professional designers. They've made it largely the players' responsibility to populate the game with content.
What you've been suggesting all along is that your player-made stories created with re-used assets is equivalent to or greater to what Cryptic painstakingly develops from scratch. So much so, that your brilliant work is essentially being used to complete the game, making it better than the professionals ever could. To the point where you feel you should be compensated for all your grand contributions to the STO Universe, which would have otherwise been left neglected. Your work is The Savior of The Game and you should be paid! Am I right?
Your stories are really that good, huh? So good that you suggested players buy them from the C-Store and Cryptic only get part of the proceeds?? Heh, I don't buy it (and I wouldn't buy it in the C-Store).
Plus... tell me again, what does compensation have to do with this thread which is about Likeness Rights? Oh I remember... because you don't like that Cryptic would get money from it?
So you think Cryptic should hire more designers at the same time that they NOT make any more money to pay for additional expenses? What kind of sense does that make?
You have no concept of how little content STO has, do you? With the weekly missions it will still take years for STO to come close to the number of missions MMOs like WoW and LotRO had at their respective launches.
Here we go again... comparing 6 year old WoW to one with less than a year under it's belt, which was also made with tighter deadlines than MMO's traditionally have due to legal obligations.
We already know this and DStahl is doing the best he can with the team he has. But since you don't want them to make money from your brilliant UGC stories and you don't want the game to be enhanced with Likeness Rights I guess the STO Team is stuck right where it is.
Man, it sure is hard to enhance a business without making money to pay for the additional expenditures. Who woulda thought??
With the UGC system it could be a matter of months.
I'm sure you realize that UGC is based on the Genesis Engine which was only used to create simplistic missions like Star Clusters and Patrols. The Foundry itself is only a subset of the tools in the Genesis Engine... not even the full deal.
You really should really stop thinking you'll be creating content so wondrous that it's doing Cryptic's job for them. The best missions in STO were hand created. They were not made by the tools we're being given as players.
STO is indeed light on content but don't believe for an instant that UGC is the magic pill to meet the demand for brand new game experiences. It never will be... UGC is only a supplement to what the devs do.
As mentioned previously, I won't be touching the UGC system until authors are somehow reimbursed for the profit they're making for Cryptic.
Ok, that's cool. And for what it's worth good luck with that.
However, you've shown that this is all about Author Compensation to you which is not the topic of this thread.
Hopefully you'll recognize the benefit of having Likeness Rights in STO and in UGC. But such a thing won't pay for itself. If you're opposed to Cryptic making money from any of this then we'll just leave it at that.
I still want to know what the rules would be about someone making a fun little time travel episode that had their favorite series' characters. If it's all in good taste, and all for fun, and has a halfway decent plot, what's the problem?
We're already paying for the tools through our subscription fee. But because others need to pay a subscription to play what we make with our tools, Cryptic is getting paid twice.
Actually, other players need to pay to play the standard game, store their character, do fun things like STFs, have the servers kept running and such. The UGC is like a bonus.
UGC is a convenient substitute for them hiring more professional designers. They've made it largely the players' responsibility to populate the game with content.
Hmm... not too long after CoX came out with THEIR UGC system, Paragon Studios released several more major updates to the game, INCLUDING a full boxed expansion. Clearly they gave up making content in lieu of the players making UGC.
1. cryptic will not put players on the payroll for creating UGC
2. you can create more than a couple of planet with the creation engine, to include as a minimum
maps, space, interior, planetside
NPCs of all types
conversations to include a mission progression IE...story
the ability to transfer from one map to another based on completing tasks
More than enuff to create missions of at least the same quality (given some talent for doing this
kinda thing) as cryptics missions
so the "how dare you presume to be able to create content as well as they can" thing can be canned.
Some of thier missions are so simple and straight forward...a 12 yr old could do it.
Cryptic knows this...I am not saying ALL thier missions are like that..some are.
I am seeing a lot of anti-UGC people trying a new tactic in an effort to kill UGC before it starts,
and it is just another form of trolling. The tactic is to claim it is too hard to do or if you do it,
somehow cryptic owes you money.
If you have no interest in using UGC or in creating UGC or just a interest in what UGC is, THEN
your in the wrong place in the forum.
I think you just insulted Cryptic as a whole. They have hundreds of people working for them and many of them are talented artists. Content Designers only do part of what's required to make a mission. You left out programmers, character artists, animation artists, ship artists, environment artists, dialog writers... you name it.
And please let us know when you become a Human Resources Manager at Cryptic so you can inform us how many extra people they should hire. If anything, you should not be opposed to Cryptic making more money so *they could* make their team larger.
I guess you missed the part where this whole discussion is about level/mission creation? I left out programmers and artists because they aren't the same people who sit down and make mission content and are irrelevant to my point. Cryptic needs more mission designers. They always have. But now, in lieu of hiring more mission designers, they're going to rely on UGC and us to fill the game with things to do.
What you've been suggesting all along is that your player-made stories created with re-used assets is equivalent to or greater to what Cryptic painstakingly develops from scratch. So much so, that your brilliant work is essentially being used to complete the game, making it better than the professionals ever could. To the point where you feel you should be compensated for all your grand contributions to the STO Universe, which would have otherwise been left neglected. Your work is The Savior of The Game and you should be paid! Am I right?
Where have I once suggested that UGC content will be superior to what Cryptic has done? Go on. Go back these last pages and quote me. I've never once said that what we make through UGC will be superior to what Cryptic makes. What I've said, repeatedly, is that what we make will add a lot more content to the game for players to play. I've only spoken of quantity--not quality. The Forge isn't as powerful as what Cryptic uses, anyway. Our missions effectively can't be better than theirs.. at least not yet.
Your stories are really that good, huh? So good that you suggested players buy them from the C-Store and Cryptic only get part of the proceeds?? Heh, I don't buy it (and I wouldn't buy it in the C-Store).
Then don't buy it. It's your choice. And I never once suggested that mine would be good enough to sell in the C-Store, but someone's might be. And others can try. Personally, though, I'm more in favor of a CP compensation for the amount of time a mission is played, rather than putting them in the C-Store. I just brought up that proposal since it's similar to CafePress's model.
Plus... tell me again, what does compensation have to do with this thread which is about Likeness Rights? Oh I remember... because you don't like that Cryptic would get money from it?
Come on. Try to keep up. I don't mind Cryptic getting something out of this so long as the authors get something out of it, too.
So you think Cryptic should hire more designers at the same time that they NOT make any more money to pay for additional expenses? What kind of sense does that make?
I think Cryptic should hire more designers regardless of the circumstances. The game needs content. People have been saying that since beta. People are saying it now. Are you really going to say different?
Here we go again... comparing 6 year old WoW to one with less than a year under it's belt, which was also made with tighter deadlines than MMO's traditionally have due to legal obligations.
I've never once compared STO to how WoW is now. Every comparison I've made is between STO now and WoW when it was released. Is misquoting me your new recipe for win?
We already know this and DStahl is doing the best he can with the team he has. But since you don't want them to make money from your brilliant UGC stories and you don't want the game to be enhanced with Likeness Rights I guess the STO Team is stuck right where it is.
They're already going to be making money from our UGC stories. That's the whole point of this. What I want is some sort of compensation for the authors who are making that money for Cryptic, and Cryptic has the capacity to do this with no out-of-pocket expense. Have you been reading my arguments at all?
I'm sure you realize that UGC is based on the Genesis Engine which was only used to create simplistic missions like Star Clusters and Patrols. The Foundry itself is only a subset of the tools in the Genesis Engine... not even the full deal.
You really should really stop thinking you'll be creating content so wondrous that it's doing Cryptic's job for them. The best missions in STO were hand created. They were not made by the tools we're being given as players.
So we don't get to decide what consoles go where, or what planetoids go where? We don't get to design our races? Because I seem to recall they said we're going to be able to do all of that. We won't be able to lay out terrain and the like, but we'll be able to "hand create" what goes where. So unlike those Star Cluster missions, our maps might not have console screens floating in thin air and might actually have room to stand in front of them without another object being in the road.
STO is indeed light on content but don't believe for an instant that UGC is the magic pill to meet the demand for brand new game experiences. It never will be... UGC is only a supplement to what the devs do.
It will always be "secondary", "non-official" content, but given how few missions the mission designers output, UGC content will very quickly become the majority of content players rely on for entertainment. I have trouble seeing it as a "supplement" at that point.
However, you've shown that this is all about Author Compensation to you which is not the topic of this thread.
And yet you're one of the major contributors to the tangent. You can't very well condemn a problem you're actively helping to propagate. And as I said, I fully support.. and even encourage.. a moderator shave off the last few pages of this thread to put into a new one. It's unfortunate this conversation came from another one but that doesn't mean this conversation shouldn't exist.
Hopefully you'll recognize the benefit of having Likeness Rights in STO and in UGC. But such a thing won't pay for itself. If you're opposed to Cryptic making money from any of this then we'll just leave it at that.
Actually, "buying" likeness rights in the C-Store fits into my proposal pretty nicely. As mentioned I don't like Cryptic making money on our work, but if we get a "commission" for the number of times or the amount of time spent playing our missions, we'd have a way to offset the costs of buying the likeness rights.
So if I bought the right to use Kirk for $20 worth of C-Points and his presence makes my mission incredibly popular and it leads to hundreds of hours of overall play, everyone is "paid" in kind. Cryptic benefits from their players having popular content to play which encourages new subscriptions and retention of old subscriptions, they made $20 to help license the right to the character, and the author gets C-Points for creating a mission that many players spent time playing.
Actually, other players need to pay to play the standard game, store their character, do fun things like STFs, have the servers kept running and such. The UGC is like a bonus.
That's not how I see it. UGC will become an integral part of the game, since the game has so little official content otherwise. I fully expect many people will rely on UGC content quite heavily for leveling. Maybe not their first characters since there's enough "standard game" to get a character through to max level, but replaying the same content on subsequent characters gets old fast. With there effectively being only one path of level progression, people will be clamoring for UGC for some variety.
Hmm... not too long after CoX came out with THEIR UGC system, Paragon Studios released several more major updates to the game, INCLUDING a full boxed expansion. Clearly they gave up making content in lieu of the players making UGC.
I've never suggested Cryptic is going to stop making official content altogether but, as I mentioned, with weekly episodes it will take them years just to get to where other big MMOs were when they were released. They have a lot of catching up to do and one new mission per week isn't a competitive rate of content addition. That would max out at 52 missions per year. In conjunction with major expansions the rate might be decent, but right now the "season" model seems to be the expansion path.
So no, they didn't give up making content in lieu of players making content. What they did was give up having a high rate of level output in favor of UGC. Fact is, that's fine. Cryptic won't be able to compete with Blizzard in regards to content output. A UGC system helps make up the difference. But it is using the community of would-be content authors as a means to make up that difference. So why not pass along some reimbursement for those authors' efforts? It doesn't directly cost Cryptic to give people C-Points, and any cost it does have is based on speculation.
I've never suggested Cryptic is going to stop making official content altogether but, as I mentioned, with weekly episodes it will take them years just to get to where other big MMOs were when they were released. They have a lot of catching up to do and one new mission per week isn't a competitive rate of content addition. That would max out at 52 missions per year. In conjunction with major expansions the rate might be decent, but right now the "season" model seems to be the expansion path.
The series are separate from seasons. They fully intend to continue the big, season updates, along with weekly series.
There are no problems with this in CoX, why would there be problems in STO? Heck, in CoX, they even got professional writers to come in and make featured missions!
I guess you missed the part where this whole discussion is about level/mission creation? I left out programmers and artists because they aren't the same people who sit down and make mission content and are irrelevant to my point. Cryptic needs more mission designers. They always have. But now, in lieu of hiring more mission designers, they're going to rely on UGC and us to fill the game with things to do.
You can't leave out the artists, writers, etc because they all have to do their job first before those assets go into a new mission. More than 2 people go into making featured episodes... the entire team works on those.
But one person can go on the Genesis System and design a patrol. That's where I see the biggest difference.
I do agree with you that UGC is being used as a crutch to add more playable missions to the game.
Where have I once suggested that UGC content will be superior to what Cryptic has done? Go on. Go back these last pages and quote me. I've never once said that what we make through UGC will be superior to what Cryptic makes. What I've said, repeatedly, is that what we make will add a lot more content to the game for players to play. I've only spoken of quantity--not quality. The Forge isn't as powerful as what Cryptic uses, anyway. Our missions effectively can't be better than theirs.. at least not yet.
We're in agreement here. As soon as UGC can leverage the same resources it takes to design environments from scratch instead of using pre-made assets players won't be able to.
Where I will meet you is UGC will allow players to write better stories and dialog if the writer is good enough.
I think Cryptic should hire more designers regardless of the circumstances. The game needs content. People have been saying that since beta. People are saying it now. Are you really going to say different?
No, I'm not saying anything different about their team growing larger. It's something I hope for. The difference is I'm willing to buy something from the C-Store to facilitate Likeness Rights which would in turn make the game more profitable which will in turn allow them to grow the team. You on the other hand, don't agree with this and would rather get paid for contributing Foundry Missions.
I've never once compared STO to how WoW is now. Every comparison I've made is between STO now and WoW when it was released. Is misquoting me your new recipe for win?
Not trying to misquote you. How much time did Blizzard have to develop WoW compared to STO? How many people and resources were required to launch WoW compared to STO? Was WoW forced to launch at a specific time due to legal obligations like STO was?
You realize Infrogames purchased Cryptic for their ability to develop MMO's with a small team and low budget compared to traditional MMO's. I'm not saying that led to the greatest game with the best (and most) content but we got what we got.
They're already going to be making money from our UGC stories. That's the whole point of this. What I want is some sort of compensation for the authors who are making that money for Cryptic, and Cryptic has the capacity to do this with no out-of-pocket expense. Have you been reading my arguments at all?
What I want is way for STO and The Foundry to obtain Actor Likenesss. What I proposed has been suggested by others and also can be done with no out-of-the-pocket expense as well.
I just don't see eye to eye with you on compensation as I don't feel it's warranted.
So we don't get to decide what consoles go where, or what planetoids go where? We don't get to design our races? Because I seem to recall they said we're going to be able to do all of that. We won't be able to lay out terrain and the like, but we'll be able to "hand create" what goes where. So unlike those Star Cluster missions, our maps might not have console screens floating in thin air and might actually have room to stand in front of them without another object being in the road.
Authors are going to have the means to be very creative with game assets and customization. It's just going to be limited to pre-made assets.
It's like this - an entire Professional Game Development Team (more than 2 people) was required to make the Breen Featured Episodes and all the assets within them.
Once those assets were made, DStahl was able to use the Genesis System to quickly create the Deferi Dailies (Patrols, Aid Outpost 3, etc). He did a great job with those - they are better than star clusters. However, it's a clue to the abilities players will initially have with The Foundry since it's based on the Genesis System.
It will always be "secondary", "non-official" content, but given how few missions the mission designers output, UGC content will very quickly become the majority of content players rely on for entertainment. I have trouble seeing it as a "supplement" at that point.
One of the devs mentioned a system of diminishing returns where players only get XP for running 2-3 UGC missions per day. Sounds like a supplement to me. Although I'm highly against this and I want XP for each mission I play).
Then it's to be determined if the universe will be filled with quality content or not. Quantity doesn't mean much - there's thousands of un-played player missions in City of Heroes Mission Architect.
And yet you're one of the major contributors to the tangent. You can't very well condemn a problem you're actively helping to propagate. And as I said, I fully support.. and even encourage.. a moderator shave off the last few pages of this thread to put into a new one. It's unfortunate this conversation came from another one but that doesn't mean this conversation shouldn't exist.
Sorry mate, but your first response to my post about likeness rights turned the subject to author compensation. You're right that I keep contributing to this though, I shouldn't have.
Actually, "buying" likeness rights in the C-Store fits into my proposal pretty nicely. As mentioned I don't like Cryptic making money on our work, but if we get a "commission" for the number of times or the amount of time spent playing our missions, we'd have a way to offset the costs of buying the likeness rights.
So if I bought the right to use Kirk for $20 worth of C-Points and his presence makes my mission incredibly popular and it leads to hundreds of hours of overall play, everyone is "paid" in kind. Cryptic benefits from their players having popular content to play which encourages new subscriptions and retention of old subscriptions, they made $20 to help license the right to the character, and the author gets C-Points for creating a mission that many players spent time playing.
Everyone profits.
I will shake your hand after those two paragraphs. If there's a way to purchase Kirk for UGC and it also opens up Kirk to be used in Featured Episodes it's a win, win.
And if I get paid in C-Points for highly-rated content I won't complain although I personally don't feel it's necessary.
You can't leave out the artists, writers, etc because they all have to do their job first before those assets go into a new mission. More than 2 people go into making featured episodes... the entire team works on those.
But one person can go on the Genesis System and design a patrol. That's where I see the biggest difference.
I do agree with you that UGC is being used as a crutch to add more playable missions to the game.
I'm just talking level making which only requires existing resources. They could have a zillion missions just based on the Federation and Klingon theme assets that are already created, yet they don't seem to be pumping those out even though content is needed.
For levels with a new and/or unique environment then yeah, they're reliant on artists and others to put the missions together. But we just need content. It doesn't have to have unique assets.
Not trying to misquote you. How much time did Blizzard have to develop WoW compared to STO? How many people and resources were required to launch WoW compared to STO? Was WoW forced to launch at a specific time due to legal obligations like STO was?
You realize Infrogames purchased Cryptic for their ability to develop MMO's with a small team and low budget compared to traditional MMO's. I'm not saying that led to the greatest game with the best (and most) content but we got what we got.
Yep, and now Cryptic finds itself having to compete with other MMOs that offer substantially more content. The problem Cryptic has is that land-based games can offer you 20 missions in the same little area. With STO it seems to be, for the most part, "one planet, one mission". So every mission requires terrain to be created, populated, etc. Some of the worlds they've made could easily be used for more missions.
I'm really not sure why they don't re-use existing terrains.
Authors are going to have the means to be very creative with game assets and customization. It's just going to be limited to pre-made assets.
It's like this - an entire Professional Game Development Team (more than 2 people) was required to make the Breen Featured Episodes and all the assets within them.
Once those assets were made, DStahl was able to use the Genesis System to quickly create the Deferi Dailies (Patrols, Aid Outpost 3, etc). He did a great job with those - they are better than star clusters. However, it's a clue to the abilities players will initially have with The Foundry since it's based on the Genesis System.
I think we'll be able to make a lot of missions with only those ~4000 assets they've said they have. The number is nowhere near what Oblivion has, for example, but many of the stories people want to tell don't need a crazy alien environment or new race.
One of the devs mentioned a system of diminishing returns where players only get XP for running 2-3 UGC missions per day. Sounds like a supplement to me. Although I'm highly against this and I want XP for each mission I play).
As mentioned previously, I won't be touching the UGC system until authors are somehow reimbursed for the profit they're making for Cryptic.
Good. Glad to hear it. Can you drop it now? Because your campaign to profit somehow from UGC is pretty unrealistic and it's getting annoying.
The system used in CoH drops a special kind of currency that Authors can use to unlock more assets to be used in MA, but it's only obtained by playing UGC not creating it.
My understanding here is that we won't have to unlock content to be used in the Foundry, we will get full access to everything that exists within it. I have to say as a potential Author, I prefer that approach.
Cryptic might well decide to give special rewards for outstanding UGC missions, but expecting that they somehow 'owe' us for creating our own missions, many of which probably won't be played widely, is not reasonable. If you don't like how the Foundry is being implemented, then don't use it, but please let the rest of us enjoy it in peace.
Cryptic might well decide to give special rewards for outstanding UGC missions, but expecting that they somehow 'owe' us for creating our own missions, many of which probably won't be played widely, is not reasonable. If you don't like how the Foundry is being implemented, then don't use it, but please let the rest of us enjoy it in peace.
It's perfectly reasonable, and I've proposed mechanics they can use that make it possible at no real expense to Cryptic.
So far my proposal:
- gives "payment" to authors proportionate to the value-add of the content being in the game
- has no out-of-pocket expense for Cryptic
- encourages use of the UGC tools
- provides incentive for authors to create quality missions
- provides C-Points to successful authors they can use to buy likeness rights and other C-Store items
- requires hundreds or thousands of hours of playthroughs to make a difference, preventing system gaming
That's a lot of advantages with very little to no cost and risk. Ultimately it's a win for all parties involved.
And really... it makes simple business sense to me.
Cult of Personality.Lack of imagination. Boring Boring Boring. Here come 10,000 episodes of a Kirk Klone doing stupid things. Not a one has a chance of being published. The attrition should be extreme. I give it a month or so before people violently hate this process because their Kirk Klone is rejected. Sheesh, and I thought I got a bad ride in here for having a truly origional plotline. Blood is in the water and the sharks are closing in.
The backlash will be even worse, unfortunately, if people paid $$$ for the right to use Kirk's likeness and the content they make never gets reviewed or approved. If they feel their purchase didn't pay off, they'll look for something to blame and they'll blame the system--whether or not their mission was TRIBBLE.
Give an inch and they will take a foot. Offering ANY type of compensation for user-generated content will make people feel 'entitled' to more, and since humans are greedy little rats, the lawsuits will begin.
No. No user will get anything beyond their episode being aired.
Hmm...
Normally I'm pretty sensitive to situations that are susceptible to that "give an inch, they'll want a mile" line of thought. I actually said the same with regards to the NX class coming to the game at T1, knowing that it will only encourage people to demand it be at T5.
For some reason I don't see that as a big risk here, though. And even if people were to demand higher compensation, Cryptic can just reply back that increasing the compensation also increases the profit motive of third-party companies that would game the system--which is absolutely true. So even if they make the demand, Cryptic would have a solid, valid reason to say "No."
Well I would agree, however there is an interesting form of compensation that may
prove to be good for all.
The more episodes you create and publish...you get credit "in some form"
that you can trade for more UGC items to use in your missions
Create 10 passable or better missions, you get a shuttle craft placeable
create 20 missions get some kinda space effect ...pulsating glowing blob (you determine the color)
Create 100 missions, you get an old school enterprise bridge set piece
Now I could get behind that kinda 'payment' plan
Create missions
get more cool stuff...to create even better missions
Well I would agree, however there is an interesting form of compensation that may
prove to be good for all.
The more episodes you create and publish...you get credit "in some form"
that you can trade for more UGC items to use in your missions
Create 10 passable or better missions, you get a shuttle craft placeable
create 20 missions get some kinda space effect ...pulsating glowing blob (you determine the color)
Create 100 missions, you get an old school enterprise bridge set piece
Now I could get behind that kinda 'payment' plan
Create missions
get more cool stuff...to create even better missions
win win
Eh... it's a reverse-handicap system; the strong get stronger while the weak get weaker, which I don't think would be good for the players overall. I'm of the mind that all possible content should be available to all UGC authors. Rights to use actors' likenesses is an exception since a C-Store purchase there would go to compensate Cryptic for licensing rights.
I suppose that my compensation would be others creating their own missions for me to play in return. And what about the joy of creation? Is that not it's own reward?
It is for some, and for them the joy of creation would likely always be a reward. Even if nobody plays the mission, the joy is there.
My motivation for author reimbursement isn't designed to be a substitute for that; it's strictly a response to Cryptic profiting in part by the content we create. Simply put... I don't think they should be able to profit from our work. But they will. It's the nature of the beast and there's no way to avoid it short of having a free STO client with access only to UGC. The compensation I want is strictly to offset that fact. If they're making some sort of profit on the content, the author should get some sort of profit for making it.
As someone alluded to before.. this isn't a personal quest for me to make a profit because I think my UGC will be so uber awesome. It really comes down to the spirit behind author rights.
And I wonder how many becides myself will avoid any and all user-generated episodes containing classic characters in order to protect my valued memories of how they really were, as opposed to perverted by other peoples sence of humor.
I likely wouldn't. And I'm all for a "canon" rating to further limit what I'd be likely to play.
Well I would agree, however there is an interesting form of compensation that may
prove to be good for all.
The more episodes you create and publish...you get credit "in some form"
that you can trade for more UGC items to use in your missions
Create 10 passable or better missions, you get a shuttle craft placeable
create 20 missions get some kinda space effect ...pulsating glowing blob (you determine the color)
Create 100 missions, you get an old school enterprise bridge set piece
Now I could get behind that kinda 'payment' plan
Create missions
get more cool stuff...to create even better missions
Comments
We're talking things subscribing players can do, not if what they do is "official" or "canon". UGC authors are adding content to the game, giving players more to do.
If you buy a Dungeons and Dragons rule book, buy some miniatures, and make a game up for your friends to play through... should Wizards of the Coast make money on the game you made with their tools? No. They get their money for selling the tools... not on the game you make with them.
That's what we're talking about here.
We're already paying for the tools through our subscription fee. But because others need to pay a subscription to play what we make with our tools, Cryptic is getting paid twice.
Wizards of the Coast, in your above example, isn't getting paid twice.
We're paying for that already, along with the tools. It's in our subscription fee. Besides... space is cheap. And the instructions needed for the engine to put our missions together doesn't take much room-especially since it'll probably be compressed when stored.
Professional content they've designed by hand has always amounted to very, very little, relative to other MMOs. They've needed more designers since Cryptic got the license to make STO. Will UGC replace the one or two people they have making professional content now? No. But it will replace them having to hire the number of level designers they should have.
And I never once suggested Cryptic would cease releasing professionally-done missions altogether. UGC is a convenient substitute for them hiring more professional designers. They've made it largely the players' responsibility to populate the game with content.
And I never suggested they'd be getting rid of their artists. The UGC system needs their artists as much as their level designers do.
You have no concept of how little content STO has, do you?
With the weekly missions it will still take years for STO to come close to the number of missions MMOs like WoW and LotRO had at their respective launches. With the UGC system it could be a matter of months.
UGC is Cryptic's means to increase overall content availability to compete with other MMOs. Otherwise they would probably have to quadruple their level designing staff to make up the difference in a timely manner.
Do you think the execs gave them the go-ahead to develop the UGC system because players wanted it? Heck no. They gave the go-ahead because they knew they could save money on professional development if the game were filled with player-created content.
As mentioned previously, I won't be touching the UGC system until authors are somehow reimbursed for the profit they're making for Cryptic.
We pay to use the toys Cryptic has made, whether those toys allow us to fly around the galaxy, pet a tribble (sorry my Klingon friends) or share a home-made story with friends. Regardless of what we are doing in STO, we are paying Cryptic for access to which ever toys they allow us to play with.
Maybe my view is too simplistic, but I like it.
Does FanFiction.net make money on the works of the authors that post content on the site? Because I'm looking at the site now and I'm not seeing so much as a donation request.
Now people are paying Cryptic to use the toys UGC authors have made, too.
Paying Cryptic for their work makes complete and perfect sense.
Paying Cryptic for the work someone else has done.... that's different.
The person who actually made the content should receive payment, in some shape and form.
Compensation with real money is obviously not going to happen. Compensation with Cryptic points would lead to people grinding out mission (both in creation and play through) to get the c-points instead to paying Cryptic real money for them. Either way Cryptic looses real money.
If Cryptic does not stay profitable, then the game is shut down. No more Foundry, no more worries about compensation.
With Star Wars: TOR coming out next year, we are going to loose a lot of players. Not even counting the compensation for Foundry work, I'm concerned about STO surviving SW:TOR's release. My personal opinion is that when a threat like SW:TOR emerges, us in the Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire must band together and do what will save our universe. We fust face this foe together! If we do not, we will all be forced to use lighsabers and hang out with Wookiees if we want to play a space MMO.
DO keep in mind this is a feature many players of STO REQUESTED...they are not ploping it
on us and telling us to do it. WE wanted it.
ok, that said
>> IF <<
they did want to reward writers, crptic could offer prizes for best new UGC, highest rated UGC of the month and all time highest rated.
These prizes could be in the form of
C-Credits
exclusive UGC items
STO swag....T-shirts ect.
The best of the best over the entire year might get an invite to a cryptic attended convension.
but they are not required to do so
If you want to get paid for creating STO missions, send a resume to Cryptic. UGC isn't your thing.
If you want to create missions in UGC for the betterment of the gereral playing population, because you enjoy the creative process, because you think it'll be fun for friends, and if you generally don't require a profit motive for every activity you participate in, then UGC may just be for you.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Cryptic Studios Forum Usage Guidelines ~GM Tiyshen
A fair concern. A balance would obviously need to be struck. Rewards would have to be in such small increments that it wouldn't be worth the time to game the system.
For instance... instead of my above example of (fractional) C-Points being rewarded per playthrough, maybe it's based on total time spent playing a mission, with a top cap per playthrough to prevent idlers artificially increasing the time.
For every hour of playtime you get 1cp.
That means the mission would have to be played twice and each of those times take half an hour or longer, just to get 1cp. One C-Point has the rough monetary value of 1.25 cents. It would take 160 playthroughs of 30 minutes or more to equate to $1 worth of C-Points.
If my math is right that's 80 hours worth of playing a mission to earn the author 80CP; $1 worth of CP.
So the question becomes... is a piece of content giving players 80 hours of activity worth the potential loss of $1 worth of C-Points that the author may not buy, anyway?
Not worth it?
What about 1cp for every 2 hours; 160 hours of entertainment given to players, $1 worth of C-Points given to the author.
Then there are the other incentives the system inherently provides. With the promise of reward for popular missions, authors might be more inclined to make quality, in-depth missions. The authors of popular missions may be less inclined to cancel their STO subscriptions if they lose their "commission" on missions they've created.
Oh, I want to have fun. And if you'll note, I'm not simply criticizing the system. I've provided quite a few constructive ideas of how to address the problems for the better. If I see any problem with STO having a viable solution, I'll be the first in line to suggest one. I'm a problem solver by nature.
I would love to use the UGC system for the sake of fun, but I'm also a person of principle by nature. As mentioned, if our voluntary work could be played for free, then I would have no issue what-so-ever.
I just don't like to see third parties profit on the creativity of individuals, and those individuals not receive anything in return for their labor. It's exploitative and acceptance of it sets a very bad precedence.
As for the course of this discussion changing direction, I fully support a moderator splitting the last few pages of this thread off onto a new one, since the conversation seems to be exclusively about this for those last few pages.
I think you just insulted Cryptic as a whole. They have hundreds of people working for them and many of them are talented artists. Content Designers only do part of what's required to make a mission. You left out programmers, character artists, animation artists, ship artists, environment artists, dialog writers... you name it.
And please let us know when you become a Human Resources Manager at Cryptic so you can inform us how many extra people they should hire. If anything, you should not be opposed to Cryptic making more money so *they could* make their team larger.
What you've been suggesting all along is that your player-made stories created with re-used assets is equivalent to or greater to what Cryptic painstakingly develops from scratch. So much so, that your brilliant work is essentially being used to complete the game, making it better than the professionals ever could. To the point where you feel you should be compensated for all your grand contributions to the STO Universe, which would have otherwise been left neglected. Your work is The Savior of The Game and you should be paid! Am I right?
Your stories are really that good, huh? So good that you suggested players buy them from the C-Store and Cryptic only get part of the proceeds?? Heh, I don't buy it (and I wouldn't buy it in the C-Store).
Plus... tell me again, what does compensation have to do with this thread which is about Likeness Rights? Oh I remember... because you don't like that Cryptic would get money from it?
So you think Cryptic should hire more designers at the same time that they NOT make any more money to pay for additional expenses? What kind of sense does that make?
Here we go again... comparing 6 year old WoW to one with less than a year under it's belt, which was also made with tighter deadlines than MMO's traditionally have due to legal obligations.
We already know this and DStahl is doing the best he can with the team he has. But since you don't want them to make money from your brilliant UGC stories and you don't want the game to be enhanced with Likeness Rights I guess the STO Team is stuck right where it is.
Man, it sure is hard to enhance a business without making money to pay for the additional expenditures. Who woulda thought??
I'm sure you realize that UGC is based on the Genesis Engine which was only used to create simplistic missions like Star Clusters and Patrols. The Foundry itself is only a subset of the tools in the Genesis Engine... not even the full deal.
You really should really stop thinking you'll be creating content so wondrous that it's doing Cryptic's job for them. The best missions in STO were hand created. They were not made by the tools we're being given as players.
STO is indeed light on content but don't believe for an instant that UGC is the magic pill to meet the demand for brand new game experiences. It never will be... UGC is only a supplement to what the devs do.
Ok, that's cool. And for what it's worth good luck with that.
However, you've shown that this is all about Author Compensation to you which is not the topic of this thread.
Hopefully you'll recognize the benefit of having Likeness Rights in STO and in UGC. But such a thing won't pay for itself. If you're opposed to Cryptic making money from any of this then we'll just leave it at that.
Actually, other players need to pay to play the standard game, store their character, do fun things like STFs, have the servers kept running and such. The UGC is like a bonus.
Hmm... not too long after CoX came out with THEIR UGC system, Paragon Studios released several more major updates to the game, INCLUDING a full boxed expansion. Clearly they gave up making content in lieu of the players making UGC.
1. cryptic will not put players on the payroll for creating UGC
2. you can create more than a couple of planet with the creation engine, to include as a minimum
maps, space, interior, planetside
NPCs of all types
conversations to include a mission progression IE...story
the ability to transfer from one map to another based on completing tasks
More than enuff to create missions of at least the same quality (given some talent for doing this
kinda thing) as cryptics missions
so the "how dare you presume to be able to create content as well as they can" thing can be canned.
Some of thier missions are so simple and straight forward...a 12 yr old could do it.
Cryptic knows this...I am not saying ALL thier missions are like that..some are.
I am seeing a lot of anti-UGC people trying a new tactic in an effort to kill UGC before it starts,
and it is just another form of trolling. The tactic is to claim it is too hard to do or if you do it,
somehow cryptic owes you money.
If you have no interest in using UGC or in creating UGC or just a interest in what UGC is, THEN
your in the wrong place in the forum.
THIS area is for UGC.
Thank you
I guess you missed the part where this whole discussion is about level/mission creation? I left out programmers and artists because they aren't the same people who sit down and make mission content and are irrelevant to my point. Cryptic needs more mission designers. They always have. But now, in lieu of hiring more mission designers, they're going to rely on UGC and us to fill the game with things to do.
Where have I once suggested that UGC content will be superior to what Cryptic has done? Go on. Go back these last pages and quote me. I've never once said that what we make through UGC will be superior to what Cryptic makes. What I've said, repeatedly, is that what we make will add a lot more content to the game for players to play. I've only spoken of quantity--not quality. The Forge isn't as powerful as what Cryptic uses, anyway. Our missions effectively can't be better than theirs.. at least not yet.
Then don't buy it. It's your choice. And I never once suggested that mine would be good enough to sell in the C-Store, but someone's might be. And others can try. Personally, though, I'm more in favor of a CP compensation for the amount of time a mission is played, rather than putting them in the C-Store. I just brought up that proposal since it's similar to CafePress's model.
Come on. Try to keep up. I don't mind Cryptic getting something out of this so long as the authors get something out of it, too.
I think Cryptic should hire more designers regardless of the circumstances. The game needs content. People have been saying that since beta. People are saying it now. Are you really going to say different?
I've never once compared STO to how WoW is now. Every comparison I've made is between STO now and WoW when it was released. Is misquoting me your new recipe for win?
They're already going to be making money from our UGC stories. That's the whole point of this. What I want is some sort of compensation for the authors who are making that money for Cryptic, and Cryptic has the capacity to do this with no out-of-pocket expense. Have you been reading my arguments at all?
So we don't get to decide what consoles go where, or what planetoids go where? We don't get to design our races? Because I seem to recall they said we're going to be able to do all of that. We won't be able to lay out terrain and the like, but we'll be able to "hand create" what goes where. So unlike those Star Cluster missions, our maps might not have console screens floating in thin air and might actually have room to stand in front of them without another object being in the road.
It will always be "secondary", "non-official" content, but given how few missions the mission designers output, UGC content will very quickly become the majority of content players rely on for entertainment. I have trouble seeing it as a "supplement" at that point.
And yet you're one of the major contributors to the tangent. You can't very well condemn a problem you're actively helping to propagate. And as I said, I fully support.. and even encourage.. a moderator shave off the last few pages of this thread to put into a new one. It's unfortunate this conversation came from another one but that doesn't mean this conversation shouldn't exist.
Actually, "buying" likeness rights in the C-Store fits into my proposal pretty nicely. As mentioned I don't like Cryptic making money on our work, but if we get a "commission" for the number of times or the amount of time spent playing our missions, we'd have a way to offset the costs of buying the likeness rights.
So if I bought the right to use Kirk for $20 worth of C-Points and his presence makes my mission incredibly popular and it leads to hundreds of hours of overall play, everyone is "paid" in kind. Cryptic benefits from their players having popular content to play which encourages new subscriptions and retention of old subscriptions, they made $20 to help license the right to the character, and the author gets C-Points for creating a mission that many players spent time playing.
Everyone profits.
That's not how I see it. UGC will become an integral part of the game, since the game has so little official content otherwise. I fully expect many people will rely on UGC content quite heavily for leveling. Maybe not their first characters since there's enough "standard game" to get a character through to max level, but replaying the same content on subsequent characters gets old fast. With there effectively being only one path of level progression, people will be clamoring for UGC for some variety.
I've never suggested Cryptic is going to stop making official content altogether but, as I mentioned, with weekly episodes it will take them years just to get to where other big MMOs were when they were released. They have a lot of catching up to do and one new mission per week isn't a competitive rate of content addition. That would max out at 52 missions per year. In conjunction with major expansions the rate might be decent, but right now the "season" model seems to be the expansion path.
So no, they didn't give up making content in lieu of players making content. What they did was give up having a high rate of level output in favor of UGC. Fact is, that's fine. Cryptic won't be able to compete with Blizzard in regards to content output. A UGC system helps make up the difference. But it is using the community of would-be content authors as a means to make up that difference. So why not pass along some reimbursement for those authors' efforts? It doesn't directly cost Cryptic to give people C-Points, and any cost it does have is based on speculation.
The series are separate from seasons. They fully intend to continue the big, season updates, along with weekly series.
There are no problems with this in CoX, why would there be problems in STO? Heck, in CoX, they even got professional writers to come in and make featured missions!
You can't leave out the artists, writers, etc because they all have to do their job first before those assets go into a new mission. More than 2 people go into making featured episodes... the entire team works on those.
But one person can go on the Genesis System and design a patrol. That's where I see the biggest difference.
I do agree with you that UGC is being used as a crutch to add more playable missions to the game.
We're in agreement here. As soon as UGC can leverage the same resources it takes to design environments from scratch instead of using pre-made assets players won't be able to.
Where I will meet you is UGC will allow players to write better stories and dialog if the writer is good enough.
No, I'm not saying anything different about their team growing larger. It's something I hope for. The difference is I'm willing to buy something from the C-Store to facilitate Likeness Rights which would in turn make the game more profitable which will in turn allow them to grow the team. You on the other hand, don't agree with this and would rather get paid for contributing Foundry Missions.
Not trying to misquote you. How much time did Blizzard have to develop WoW compared to STO? How many people and resources were required to launch WoW compared to STO? Was WoW forced to launch at a specific time due to legal obligations like STO was?
You realize Infrogames purchased Cryptic for their ability to develop MMO's with a small team and low budget compared to traditional MMO's. I'm not saying that led to the greatest game with the best (and most) content but we got what we got.
What I want is way for STO and The Foundry to obtain Actor Likenesss. What I proposed has been suggested by others and also can be done with no out-of-the-pocket expense as well.
I just don't see eye to eye with you on compensation as I don't feel it's warranted.
Authors are going to have the means to be very creative with game assets and customization. It's just going to be limited to pre-made assets.
It's like this - an entire Professional Game Development Team (more than 2 people) was required to make the Breen Featured Episodes and all the assets within them.
Once those assets were made, DStahl was able to use the Genesis System to quickly create the Deferi Dailies (Patrols, Aid Outpost 3, etc). He did a great job with those - they are better than star clusters. However, it's a clue to the abilities players will initially have with The Foundry since it's based on the Genesis System.
One of the devs mentioned a system of diminishing returns where players only get XP for running 2-3 UGC missions per day. Sounds like a supplement to me. Although I'm highly against this and I want XP for each mission I play).
Then it's to be determined if the universe will be filled with quality content or not. Quantity doesn't mean much - there's thousands of un-played player missions in City of Heroes Mission Architect.
Sorry mate, but your first response to my post about likeness rights turned the subject to author compensation. You're right that I keep contributing to this though, I shouldn't have.
I will shake your hand after those two paragraphs. If there's a way to purchase Kirk for UGC and it also opens up Kirk to be used in Featured Episodes it's a win, win.
And if I get paid in C-Points for highly-rated content I won't complain although I personally don't feel it's necessary.
I'm just talking level making which only requires existing resources. They could have a zillion missions just based on the Federation and Klingon theme assets that are already created, yet they don't seem to be pumping those out even though content is needed.
For levels with a new and/or unique environment then yeah, they're reliant on artists and others to put the missions together. But we just need content. It doesn't have to have unique assets.
Yep, and now Cryptic finds itself having to compete with other MMOs that offer substantially more content. The problem Cryptic has is that land-based games can offer you 20 missions in the same little area. With STO it seems to be, for the most part, "one planet, one mission". So every mission requires terrain to be created, populated, etc. Some of the worlds they've made could easily be used for more missions.
I'm really not sure why they don't re-use existing terrains.
I think we'll be able to make a lot of missions with only those ~4000 assets they've said they have. The number is nowhere near what Oblivion has, for example, but many of the stories people want to tell don't need a crazy alien environment or new race.
Yeah, diminishing returns is just stupid.
Good. Glad to hear it. Can you drop it now? Because your campaign to profit somehow from UGC is pretty unrealistic and it's getting annoying.
The system used in CoH drops a special kind of currency that Authors can use to unlock more assets to be used in MA, but it's only obtained by playing UGC not creating it.
My understanding here is that we won't have to unlock content to be used in the Foundry, we will get full access to everything that exists within it. I have to say as a potential Author, I prefer that approach.
Cryptic might well decide to give special rewards for outstanding UGC missions, but expecting that they somehow 'owe' us for creating our own missions, many of which probably won't be played widely, is not reasonable. If you don't like how the Foundry is being implemented, then don't use it, but please let the rest of us enjoy it in peace.
It's perfectly reasonable, and I've proposed mechanics they can use that make it possible at no real expense to Cryptic.
So far my proposal:
- gives "payment" to authors proportionate to the value-add of the content being in the game
- has no out-of-pocket expense for Cryptic
- encourages use of the UGC tools
- provides incentive for authors to create quality missions
- provides C-Points to successful authors they can use to buy likeness rights and other C-Store items
- requires hundreds or thousands of hours of playthroughs to make a difference, preventing system gaming
That's a lot of advantages with very little to no cost and risk. Ultimately it's a win for all parties involved.
And really... it makes simple business sense to me.
The backlash will be even worse, unfortunately, if people paid $$$ for the right to use Kirk's likeness and the content they make never gets reviewed or approved. If they feel their purchase didn't pay off, they'll look for something to blame and they'll blame the system--whether or not their mission was TRIBBLE.
Hmm...
Normally I'm pretty sensitive to situations that are susceptible to that "give an inch, they'll want a mile" line of thought. I actually said the same with regards to the NX class coming to the game at T1, knowing that it will only encourage people to demand it be at T5.
For some reason I don't see that as a big risk here, though. And even if people were to demand higher compensation, Cryptic can just reply back that increasing the compensation also increases the profit motive of third-party companies that would game the system--which is absolutely true. So even if they make the demand, Cryptic would have a solid, valid reason to say "No."
prove to be good for all.
The more episodes you create and publish...you get credit "in some form"
that you can trade for more UGC items to use in your missions
Create 10 passable or better missions, you get a shuttle craft placeable
create 20 missions get some kinda space effect ...pulsating glowing blob (you determine the color)
Create 100 missions, you get an old school enterprise bridge set piece
Now I could get behind that kinda 'payment' plan
Create missions
get more cool stuff...to create even better missions
win win
Eh... it's a reverse-handicap system; the strong get stronger while the weak get weaker, which I don't think would be good for the players overall. I'm of the mind that all possible content should be available to all UGC authors. Rights to use actors' likenesses is an exception since a C-Store purchase there would go to compensate Cryptic for licensing rights.
It is for some, and for them the joy of creation would likely always be a reward. Even if nobody plays the mission, the joy is there.
My motivation for author reimbursement isn't designed to be a substitute for that; it's strictly a response to Cryptic profiting in part by the content we create. Simply put... I don't think they should be able to profit from our work. But they will. It's the nature of the beast and there's no way to avoid it short of having a free STO client with access only to UGC. The compensation I want is strictly to offset that fact. If they're making some sort of profit on the content, the author should get some sort of profit for making it.
As someone alluded to before.. this isn't a personal quest for me to make a profit because I think my UGC will be so uber awesome. It really comes down to the spirit behind author rights.
I likely wouldn't. And I'm all for a "canon" rating to further limit what I'd be likely to play.
love this idea